Hand planing help

[B3nder]

Hello,

New member with a few questions.

I inherited a few old chisels and did them up. Then "got the bug" and now have lots of tools.
My sawing is getting much better, but am having issues with hand planing.

I have a record no 4, which as part of the restoration involved partially flattening the sole. Removing rust and sharpening. The problem I have seems to be not being able to get a face dead flat.

Using Rob Wearings Essiential Woodworker as reference I trying to get stock nice and square and par.
I'll try and get some pics of the gaps I have when planing.

Other than Rob Wearings method (planing a hollow, then moving to full length shavings) are there any of their suggestions to help. I have managed to get full width shavings and I thought is was pretty flat but there were dips. Is it just a case of more practice?

I've tried planing unplanned laths and also reducing already planed timber down but with OK luck.

Plane is sharpened to 30 degrees and working on 25mm square stock.

Many thanks for any pointers.

 

[skipdiver]

If you cannot plane to square, then either your plane is set up incorrectly, or your technique needs to improve, which is basically practice and practice until you get it right. It's difficult to expand further without more details. Not au fait with Rob Wearing and not sure what you mean by planing a hollow, then moving to full length shavings.

 

[Fitzroy]

Gaps in reference to what?

 

[Cheshirechappie]

A mistake I made in my early days was not checking progress often enough. I'd put the straightedge to the workpiece, note a hump, and take several shavings off the hump. Then I'd check again, and find that the hump was now a deepish hollow.

When squaring up stock, two absolutely essential tools are a straightedge and a try square. Use them frequently; the straightedge to find humps and hollows ALONG the work, and the square to find humps and hollows ACROSS the work - and, of course, to check for square when doing the second face. Also useful are a pair of winding sticks to check for twist.

After a bit of practice, you get to know how many plane strokes it will take to remove a lump, or correct an out-of-squareness. Until then, plane little and check often - every couple of plane strokes if you're close to flat and square.

PS - Welcome to the forum, by the way! Hope you find it useful and fun.

 

[deema]

A nypumber 4 is a very short plane designed for final smoothing rather than flattening. To flatten stock you need a long plane, at least a 5 1/2 but preferable a 6,7 or 8 depending on whether your flattening an edge or the face of a board.

What to describe sounds exactly what I would expect when trying to use a no 4 for this task.

 

[B3nder]

Gaps is the wrong term. I mean hollows and peaks.

Planing a holow is where you dont register the toe at the start of the wood but start inboard. Then lift off prior to the end. This repeats until no more shavings can be taken. Then you plane from the edge acheiving shavings at the start and end. Further passes produce longer shavings until full length shavings are acheived.

I shall employ more checking as suggested I do have a 6 as well so will see how I get on with the 4 first.

Many thanks.

 

[skipdiver]

A nypumber 4 is a very short plane designed for final smoothing rather than flattening. To flatten stock you need a long plane, at least a 5 1/2 but preferable a 6,7 or 8 depending on whether your flattening an edge or the face of a board.

What to describe sounds exactly what I would expect when trying to use a no 4 for this task.

Good point. I didn't read the post thoroughly enough first time and missed the reference to a No4. I personally don't own a plane longer than a No5 because i have never needed one for site work and i have a jointer in my workshop but i think i could manage a straight edge with a 5. Going to a 6 or greater for a beginner would be a bit of a leap IMO.

 

[skipdiver]

Ah well, if you already have a 6, then my previous post is redundant. Make sure your plane iron is square to the mouth and keep practicing, it will become second nature in time.

 

[NickN]

Great tip I got given was, on narrow pieces (less than full width of plane), to keep a square edge more easily, put thumb on top of very front of plane, in front of knob, and finger underneath to feel and run along the edge of the piece. Made a big difference for.me.

 

[thetyreman]

you should definitely get a no 5 1/2 for flattening, as deema said, it helps having a longer plane, I find the extra width and weight of the 5 1/2 very nice, mine gets a lot of use.

 

[Trafalgar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojeul33vXL4

Only quibble, really, is to make damn sure you know what final length you need before you cut it to rough length. Make sure there aren't any cracks running into the part you want to keep.

Always remember that you cannot using winding sticks if the board has a hump running down its middle (convex cupped side). The only way this will work is if you balance both sticks perfectly on the hump, and the hump is exactly the same at each end -- a fool's errand if ever there were one. You need to completely remove the convexity before putting the sticks on it. It has to go anyway. Get rid of it first. Almost every board you'll ever touch is cupped to some degree. Tackle the cupping first and then the twist next. If bowed a fair amount from end-to-end then save that board and cut it up for smaller workpieces.

Don't tilt the plane when running the high side of the edge -- just slide the plane over and let the cambered iron take a slightly deeper shaving on the high side. This is why your jointer plane needs a camber of a weak 32nd or so, judged by eye and square. You don't produce a camber of this slight amount at the grinder but at your stones, then you follow that shape with later grindings that restore the hollow but don't go all the way to the edge. A lesson for a later date. The shape of your irons is produced on honing stones, NOT AT THE GRINDER. Later grinding work follows and preserves the shape and does not alter it. This way, you are fully able to finesse a shape without burning the steel.

 

[ED65]

Is it just a case of more practice?

That will be part of it certainly.

Planing hollow and then going for full-length shavings, as it's given by Wearing and also by Charles Hayward you have quite an assurance that it's a solid technique, but, it isn't the only way to plane flat and there are some wrinkles it doesn't address (it assumes the plane is being held square, pressed down correctly for start and end of stroke etc.).

I don't have my own copy of "The Essential Woodworker" so I can't remember if there's any mention of this but the length of the stock in relation to the length of the plane is important here, since a shorter plane can sit in a long hollow of a long enough piece of wood. So this technique works well when the piece of wood isn't greatly longer than the plane.

When you are planing wood that is much longer than the plane you just need to check for high spots, mark them, then plane them off.

Cheshirechappie's tip of checking more often is a top tip. It can't be emphasised enough how important this is to beginners, who seem to fall into the same trap of planing away and going too far. I bet we all did it at least once! And it is so easy to do, because planing is fun, you get into a rhythm and don't want to interrupt it. But you have to force yourself to stop and check progress or you will overshoot your marks.

Check early, check often. If you do that, and mark your high spots and tackle them directly, you'll start getting really good results very quickly.

 

[D_W]

Hello,

New member with a few questions.

I inherited a few old chisels and did them up. Then "got the bug" and now have lots of tools.
My sawing is getting much better, but am having issues with hand planing.

I have a record no 4, which as part of the restoration involved partially flattening the sole. Removing rust and sharpening. The problem I have seems to be not being able to get a face dead flat.

Using Rob Wearings Essiential Woodworker as reference I trying to get stock nice and square and par.
I'll try and get some pics of the gaps I have when planing.

Other than Rob Wearings method (planing a hollow, then moving to full length shavings) are there any of their suggestions to help. I have managed to get full width shavings and I thought is was pretty flat but there were dips. Is it just a case of more practice?

I've tried planing unplanned laths and also reducing already planed timber down but with OK luck.

Plane is sharpened to 30 degrees and working on 25mm square stock.

Many thanks for any pointers.

use your #4 on final smoothing strokes askew if you're getting a dip or hump in the middle of the board on final smoothing. You can also lay the edge of the plane along the width of the board you're flattening before you start taking final shavings so that you can knock the high areas down first before doing that.

The only thing you're really missing is practice. Learn what your tendencies are, correct them. It'll come quickly.

If a #4 is all you have, you might find some use for a longer plane like a 6 or a 7. If you're new, a metal one is probably a better idea than wood - it's much more forgiving of setup issues.

 

[rafezetter]

A nypumber 4 is a very short plane designed for final smoothing rather than flattening. To flatten stock you need a long plane, at least a 5 1/2 but preferable a 6,7 or 8 depending on whether your flattening an edge or the face of a board.

What to describe sounds exactly what I would expect when trying to use a no 4 for this task.

+1 to this - the #4 sole is just too short for a beginner to flatten wood any longer than 15-18 inches I'd say. Flattening requires relying on the plane sole to span and ride the high points and ignore the low points - if the high points are 2 inches longer than the sole the plane can go into the hollow and make it deeper, and a novice won't even be able to feel the imperceptible changes to the feel of the cut.

another thing to make sure of is the surface you are lapping the plane sole with is actually flat - don't take it for granted by any stretch - the majority of things 99% of the population take as flat are not, at least not flat enough to ensure your plane can take micron thin shavings. If you get some feeler gauges and you can slip a 0.25mm feeler under a british standard rating straightedge, the lapping surface isn't flat enough and this will transpose to your plane sole and complicate your efforts.

There's a reason why top end planes are lapped to engineering tolerances. You don't have to go that far of course, but it's a good rule of thumb to have your tools set up to the best tolerances you can manage (or afford), which will reduce the magnitude of errors down the line. As your innate accuracy improves, you'll be able to adjust it accordingly for each project; but working towards getting the best accuracy you can now, will save you many hours (oh SO MANY hours) of frustration down the line - been there done that, and redone it, and redone it again, bought new wood and started again....

I've been hand planing now as a hobbyist for some 3 years and only feel confident now of being able to plane flat, square and co-planar reliably.

Not in any way trying to put you off, but handplaning is one skill you'll have to spend the hours on, even if you intend to use machines down the line.

 

[matthewwh]

For me the light bulb moment was watching David Charlesworth's second film "Hand Planing Techniques".

To create a level surface you are working left to right as well as end to end, David's explanation and demonstration of how to use camber, hand pressure and through, partial and stop shavings to achieve that are clear and comprehensive.

I notice on his website that they are on special offer for £10 at the moment which is astonishing value.

 

[El Barto]

Sorry to hijack the thread but are there any recommendations for straight edges? I'm aware that engineer quality is probably overkill but is something like the Axminster Bevelled Straight Edge (with its poor reviews regarding square) going to be rubbish?

EDIT: I should note that intended use is for squaring/checking stock, not setting up machines and the like.

 

[Trafalgar]

Use a quality (I have Stabila levels) 2ft or 4ft level tipped on its edge. The chance you'll ever need a workpiece more accurate than that is remote. I use a six footer on long workpieces. I need levels for other building work I do but I'd still buy them for use as straightedges. Nice to have for full-size layout too.

 

[matthewwh]

Ideally you need a source from which all straightness in your workshop originates, the same goes for square and flat.

If you want to determine whether something is or isn't within a 3 thou tolerance, there is precious little point in comparing it to something that is only accurate to 3 thou.

You can plane the edge of a piece of wood straight and use that for checking your work, once you have satisfied yourself that it is indeed straight.

 

[D_W]

Sorry to hijack the thread but are there any recommendations for straight edges? I'm aware that engineer quality is probably overkill but is something like the Axminster Bevelled Straight Edge (with its poor reviews regarding square) going to be rubbish?

EDIT: I should note that intended use is for squaring/checking stock, not setting up machines and the like.

Anything reasonably close to straight is good. If you have something hard and quartersawn, there's no reason you couldn't make one that's perfectly fine for use. Anything that needs to have significant precision is probably going to be a match planed joint, which doesn't require anything.

 

[El Barto]

Thanks guys. If jack and jointer planes are so much better/easier for this kind of work (flattening etc), why do people like Paul Sellers suggest that it can all be done with a No. 4? I'm not taking away from the fact that it CAN be done with a No. 4, as Paul has clearly shown is possible, but is that smaller plane really a good recommendation to a novice woodworker? Food for thought I suppose.

OP - sorry again for the hijack but hopefully they are at least relevant questions!