Thread: How far should I polish my bottom

Originally Posted by Simplicity

What could you be leaving on a bench that draws that sort of criticism.
Is there anything you need to talk about Paul.[emoji6]

Your Honour,

May I plead the 5th. (The best part of the Cousin's constitution and come the revolution I would advocate to be included in the new dogma)

(It may involve electrons, which I believe would seriously damage my credibility.)

Regards
Paul

Ps: Oooops, digression. Sorry, sorry, sorry....back to Brett's table.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Your Honour,

May I plead the 5th. (The best part of the Cousin's constitution and come the revolution I would advocate to be included in the new dogma)

(It may involve electrons, which I believe would seriously damage my credibility.)

Regards
Paul

Ps: Oooops, digression. Sorry, sorry, sorry....back to Brett's table.

Paul,
Your digression that Brett's table,my plane bottom and the 5th immmmmm.
But yes I agree if my bottom,was sliding across Brett's table! we may end up in a very sticky situation,
Considering the effort both Brett and I have gone too for the sake of absolute flatness.
Yet we bear all, in the name of shared knowledge yet we still get mocked.
So I won't be sanding past 240 grit.

Cheers Matt

Matt

The perils of night shift: Just finished the block. Not Brett's table at all, but your plain bottom..er plane bottom! I lost the thread .

Just for reference on the grits, about 2000g in W & D will give a finish in which you can clearly see your face. However as it is your bottom with which we are primarily concerned you may not wish to do this even apart from the issue of friction.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Matt

The perils of night shift: Just finished the block. Not Brett's table at all, but your plain bottom..er plane bottom! I lost the thread .

Just for reference on the grits, about 2000g in W & D will give a finish in which you can clearly see your face. However as it is your bottom with which we are primarily concerned you may not wish to do this even apart from the issue of friction.

Regards
Paul

I would actually say around the 1500 mark on cast iron the reflection starts.
But I will never ever know now on plane bottom I'm not going past 240 lol

On a side note.
This one was only taken to 320 grit dry but is showing a hazey reflection.


Cheers Matt

going down further in grits will give you a 'better' reflection of no wood work benefit, imo(opinion) & ice(experience)
.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

I would actually say around the 1500 mark on cast iron the reflection starts.
But I will never ever know now on plane bottom I'm not going past 240 lol

You are right on reflection but for a clear image the magic appears at 2000g.

On the subject of dragging things into the gutter (scurrilously inferred in post #15), you could have referred to your bottom as soul, but then the male brain and his soul would be located in a similar nether region of the human anatomy, at least if you place any credence in the fair sex's opinion. Well... we wouldn't want that would we? Should we go with "sole" then? Nah, the thread would have only have gone for about five replies and then evaporated into the Forum ether.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

You are right on reflection but for a clear image the magic appears at 2000g.

On the subject of dragging things into the gutter (scurrilously inferred in post #15), you could have referred to your bottom as soul, but then the male brain and his soul would be located in a similar nether region of the human anatomy, at least if you place any credence in the fair sex's opinion. Well... we wouldn't want that would we? Should we go with "sole" then? Nah, the thread would have only have gone for about five replies and then evaporated into the Forum ether.

Regards
Paul

Paul,
I'm not sure weather to let this die a slow no one cares way or to continue.
Because like some of our going on here at 1500 grit it's all a bit hazy.
But at 2000 the magic really happens as you say.
Should I warm up my stock of 3000 wet and dry then followed by some micro mesh to 15,000 lol

Na I think we should let sleeping dogs sleep and not disturb it's soul.
I hope I'm not digressing to much and I will post some pics of said article when it's all gleaned and blinged.


Cheers Matt

Inspired by this: For all you flatness freaks out there I bought this Chek Flat 3 flatness measuring device.

Chek flat 3 shot.jpg


The circular optical flat is on the upper face of the box. Inside is a mirror that reflects an image of the flat through the horizontal viewing port in the front. To the right is a Lie Nielsen 5 1/4 plane with a corrugated bottom.

5 and a quarter plane sole shot.jpg

The corrugations run roughly from the lower left to the upper right in these images. The interference lines are approximately perpendicular to the corrugations in these images.

plane sole interference lines.jpg

plane sole interference lines 2.jpg

All of the interference lines are straight and parallel therefore the face of the plane is in this case very flat.

Another new toy.

Now to check a 1950's era Stanley, Millers Falls or other post war era planes.

Originally Posted by rob streeper

Inspired by this: For all you flatness freaks out there I bought this Chek Flat 3 flatness measuring device.

Chek flat 3 shot.jpg


The circular optical flat is on the upper face of the box. Inside is a mirror that reflects an image of the flat through the horizontal viewing port in the front. To the right is a Lie Nielsen 5 1/4 plane with a corrugated bottom.

5 and a quarter plane sole shot.jpg

The corrugations run roughly from the lower left to the upper right in these images. The interference lines are approximately perpendicular to the corrugations in these images.

plane sole interference lines.jpg

plane sole interference lines 2.jpg

All of the interference lines are straight and parallel therefore the face of the plane is in this case very flat.

Rob,
First I'm way way out of my league here.
But if the device has a viewing window of say only 75 mm (a sloppy guess).
Then you are only measuring for optical flat from what the device can see 75 mm.
Before moving to the next viewing position could there not be differences between each viewing.
Or do you account for this by over lapping.
Also how would you account for twist in the length.
Am I right or am I missing something.

Cheers Matt.

Matt,

Yes, the optical flat on this machine is about 75mm so it can't be used to detect a variation end to end on a plane sole. I didn't get a manual but what I read on-line suggests that this thing has a sensitivity of 0.0001". I figure that if a plane bottom has a problem that I can see with this thing then it's more likely than not to have end to end as well.

Regards,
Rob

I'm a bit late to this one. Sorry...

I don't "polish" the bottom of my planes. All of my planes are restoration jobs to some degree. No matter what kind of condition they come in, I always always lap the sole if nothing else. I do this on 80 grit paper stuck to granite. I check the granite with a 24" (longer than my longest plane) straight edge, and if no light comes through then it's "good enough for the bush" as they say. Once it's apparent that the entire sole has been abraded and fresh metal is revealed, I stop and consider that one good to go for another... I dunno... 50 years? I've never had a problem with it otherwise. I don't see a whole lot of need to polish through progressively finer grits for any reason other than just having it look nice.

Anyway, that's just my AU$0.02. Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

I'm a bit late to this one. Sorry...

I don't "polish" the bottom of my planes. All of my planes are restoration jobs to some degree. No matter what kind of condition they come in, I always always lap the sole if nothing else. I do this on 80 grit paper stuck to granite. I check the granite with a 24" (longer than my longest plane) straight edge, and if no light comes through then it's "good enough for the bush" as they say. Once it's apparent that the entire sole has been abraded and fresh metal is revealed, I stop and consider that one good to go for another... I dunno... 50 years? I've never had a problem with it otherwise. I don't see a whole lot of need to polish through progressively finer grits for any reason other than just having it look nice.

Anyway, that's just my AU$0.02. Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Luke

Luke,
No need to apologise and your comments are pretty much on vogue with everyone else's including my self.
Tho yes, I go a little further than 80 grit but I agree 80 grit would be more than acceptable.
And of course as usual there has been some undesirable comments that seem to follow my threads.
Bushmiller Fence Furniture cough coughs lol.

Cheers Matt.

0.02AU your been generous on the exchange front lol.