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  1. #31
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Brisbane (western suburbs)
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    77
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    12,094

    Default

    Hoey, I'll say up front that I'm not a huge fan of bevel-up planes, I have a couple & they do some jobs for me better than a Bailey or one of my infills, so subtract a bit of bias from any advice I give.

    However, since it's a Pine top you want to level, my experience is that even the cranky-grained stuff you sometimes strike often yields best to a boring old bog-standard 45 degree Bailey style plane. I have quite a range of cutting angles to choose from, all the way up to 60 degrees, in some nice, solid infills, but am sometimes surprised that the oft-maligned Baileys lead the pack on the particular wood I'm planing. I usually start with a Bailey type (been pushing them around for nearly 60 years so they've become a bit of a habit ), unless I know from prior experience with that particular wood that one of the others is the best one to tame it.

    If your pine is full of dry knots, that can be a challenge for any plane. A BU plane with standard sharpening angle will nearly always trump Bailey configuration when confronted with end-grain, so it'll smooth the dry knots with less chatter & bother. Trouble is, the standard sharpening angle on a BU blade is more likely to cause tear-out when it runs over the reversing grain around the knot, but if yo go for an increased sharpening angle, you'll lose much of the advantage over the dry knots, so it's swings & roundabouts. Knotty pine can be one of the most difficult woods to plane, imo.

    The bloke who taught me the fundamentals of planing when I was an impressionable 12 year old, didn't believe in cambering smoothing plane blades, just duffing the corners ever so slightly. He did mention that cambering was a common technique, and recommended it for a jack plane used for roughing down, but implied it was a less-good solution for eliminating 'tracks' from smoothers. He demonstrated how with a fine cut and careful, barely overlapping strokes, you can get a virtually track-free surface (with a little practice!). Since first impressions last, I've always followed his advice, more or less successfully. Some days, & with some woods, I do get a few lines, but they are usually very easy to eliminate with a card scraper &/or a few swipes of 400 paper. I always lightly sand any surface that's going to get a fine finish anyway, it instantly shows those tiny imperfections that escape the eye until they collect a speck of sanding dust to highlight them.

    But all that said, I wouldn't be spending hours trying to plane a perfect surface on a workbench top, in any case. Flat & free of twist is the main objective. I'm sure as heck not going to French polish any of my benches, because I know they'll be showing worse scars than a few plane tracks in a year or two....

    Cheers,
    IW

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  3. #32
    Join Date
    Oct 2016
    Location
    Melbourne
    Posts
    169

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    I looked on ebay for a stanley #7 but they're expensive and looks scary to set up for me supernoob with hand planes.

    I owned a veritas low angle block plane for over a year but don't play with it bcos I haven't got any change to make anything with , it seems to be easy to use.

    The Veritas low angle jointer plane is easy to get new from shops.

  4. #33
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Petone, NZ
    Age
    68
    Posts
    2,808

    Default Blade Angles.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hoey View Post
    ...Look likes i have to get a low angle jointer plane and a 38° or 50° blade...
    If you do buy a low angle jointer, remember it's the microbevel (or secondary bevel) that sets the cutting angle (effective pitch). So you're better to get two 25° irons and put a 38° microbevel on one, and a 50° microbevel on the other. This makes it much easier to experiment with different pitches later to suit the timber you're planing at the time.

    This is a suggestion I read some time back - authored by Derek IIRC. Makes damned good sense.

    Cheers, Vann.
    Gatherer of rusty planes tools...
    Proud member of the Wadkin Blockhead Club .

  5. #34
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    469

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Hoey View Post
    I looked on ebay for a stanley #7 but they're expensive and looks scary to set up for me supernoob with hand planes.

    I owned a veritas low angle block plane for over a year but don't play with it bcos I haven't got any change to make anything with , it seems to be easy to use.

    The Veritas low angle jointer plane is easy to get new from shops.
    Hi Hoey.

    I picked up a old Stanley no 7 from eBay just only a few month ago. It needed a fair bit of cleaning but that's about it.

    The cost of doing this was far less that getting a new veritas jointer. It won't be so well made, but more than acceptable for me as a beginner to practise with.

    Regards,

    Adam

  6. #35
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Perth
    Posts
    10,810

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by derekcohen View Post
    Hi Hoey

    The short answer is that the ideal plane to flatten the top of a bench top is a jointer plane, such as a Stanley #7. The Jack Rabbet plane is the same length as a Stanley #5.

    The other issue with the Jack Rabbet, as set up, is that it comes with a straight blade. This will create tracks on a wide face. You would need to get a second blade, which you can camber, to avoid tracks. You would also ideally use a higher bevel angle as the standard 25 degree bevel would leave a low cutting angle, although you may get away with this on pine.

    My preference for this task (which I am about to do at home) is a #5 (if you need to remove high spots) and follow with a #7 to level.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Hoey, when I replied, above, it was with the assumption that you had, or planned to have, a Jack Rabbet plane, and wanted to use it. The review on this plane was written in 2012. It was the tail end of the love affair I had with BU planes. The factor here was not BU, per se, but that they could be used with a high cutting angle. I used, and still use, HNT Gordon planes for the same reason. A little while after this review, I began to understand why BD planes - which used a chipbreaker - could be so useful. Chippy was correct, but I could not appreciate why, and he did not explain himself, so I just considered that he was having a go.

    In 2012/13 I began to be educated about chipbreakers, and discovered that, set correctly, they could control tear out better than a high cutting angle. The value of BU planes did not evaporate - they continue to be as useful as previously - however now there were a whole lot more planes that could do the job. Plus, not everyone wants to learn how to set the chipbreaker to make it work - it is finicky at first, and requires patience and time before it becomes automatic. I still use BU planes, but I use BD planes now as my default.

    The Jack Rabbet is a great plane. It gets used. In fact, I used it not long ago to plane wide rebates for breadboard ends in this table top ...



    As mentioned earlier, I am about to resurface my bench top. I will turn to a jointer plane ... the longer the plane the better for this task. The #7 type plane is my first choice - I am fortunate to have a Veritas Custom #7 and their BU Jointer from which to choose. The Jack Rabbet certainly can be used, but it is a shorter plane, as I mentioned earlier, and flatness is not as assured as with the longer plane.

    In regard to the cutting angle of a BU plane, the 12 degree bed along with a 25 degree bevel is ideal for end grain ... this 37 degrees of cutting angle is better than the 45 degree common angle of a Stanley BD plane in this instance. It is not as good for face grain, however ... with the exception of pine and other soft woods. But you are warned for hard woods.

    One of the reasons I prefer BD planes is that I do not need to use a honing guide to sharpen blades. BU planes are best sharpened with a 25 degree primary bevel and then adding the need secondary angle with a micro bevel using a honing guide for accuracy. Only this method makes it practical to add cambers to high cutting angles. It was a strategy I came up with a dozen years ago. But I am too impatient to use a honing guide - I have every one that was ever made! All my BD blades are hollow ground and freehand sharpened on the hollow. BU blades still require a honing guide. And so I gravitate even more to BD planes.

    The Jack Rabbet will do the job. A simple Stanley will also. The JR may be easier to set up. The Stanley will be cheaper. It's a personal decision.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  7. #36
    Join Date
    Oct 2016
    Location
    Melbourne
    Posts
    169

    Default My first time with the LA jack rabbet plane!

    20181016_163513.jpg

    I did have a go with the low angle rabbet and block planes earlier and experienced gouge/tear out on 25° blades on a block of pine.

    I did get some nice shavings

    20181018_201359.jpg

    2018-10-18 22.18.07.jpg

    I will learn how to change to higher bevel using my veritas mk ii jig. This is fun.

    Thanks guys for the advices and infos.


    Hoey

  8. #37
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    950

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Hoey View Post
    This is fun.
    That’s quite an important aspect. As long as making shavings is fun, you’re going to keep doing it and keep getting better at it. Like most tasks, there are many different ways to get the same (or similar) results and which you use depends on what tools you have available and your knowledge and experience.

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