bendy cap irons

[custard]

Well no one has come up with a demonstrable advantage, except weight! (I wonder how few ounces?)

I still use a thin blade if I'm working on my boat or away from the workshop. Nick a thin blade and it's thin enough (and soft enough) to "grind" out the nick by hand on a coarse stone, nick a beefy A2 blade and, without a bench grinder, I'll be leaving nasty track marks for the rest of the day!

 

[Paul Chapman]

Perhaps that unsupported blade isn't such a good thing? Perhaps stiffening it up a bit (either thicker iron, closer-fit cap-iron, or both) help a bit at difficult times? I think so, anyway.

And Leonard Bailey would have agreed with you, I suspect, judging by the reasons he stated in the patent referred to earlier for a modified cap iron........

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[ED65]

...it's a choice to get luxury planes, not the necessity that it's explained to be.

That should be proclaimed from the rooftops on woodworking forums. I couldn't even estimate the number of times in just the past two years I've seen the recommendation to get a "better" plane, or upgrading the iron to a premium one. to solve problems experienced by the OP working with hardwoods.

It's likely that nine out of ten times a cap iron adjustment (and possibly some fettling) along with a lighter cut would have solved the person's problem, in perhaps 2-3 minutes of trying various adjustments.

 

[Corneel]

Sometimes, when planing endgrain, redwood (Scot's Pine) with hard knots, even clean-grained beech on occasions, I've had planes chatter. That's with sharp irons and nicely-fitted standard cap-irons, and the work well-held on a decent bench. Using planes with thicker irons (Lie-Nielsen number 4 and 5, and a Record 07 with a Clifton iron and two-piece cap-iron) - same bench, same workpieces - I don't get chatter. Using wooden planes, I don't get chatter. I've never used an infill (cos they're expensive) so can't comment on them.

Sorry, I don't have that experience. When the blade is sharp, no trouble with endgrain and certainly not with beech which planes wonderfully. I've had my fair share of trouble with tearout around knots in fir and stuff like that, but no chatter that I can remember. Skipping at the start of the cut is sometimes an issue, but I think that is mostly (my) user error.

 

[ED65]

Well no one has come up with a demonstrable advantage, except weight! (I wonder how few ounces?)

Okay, how about much cheaper? A small fraction of the cost in fact, so no exaggeration there.

This is in use all the time and the idea of reverting to a soft Stanley 70's blade and thin C/B is ludicrous.

Come now, that's of course not the only alternative David. Even an inexpensive modern iron straight from China could be better than a stock 70s Stanley iron going by what's said about them.

The often repeated assertion of "no improvement" is without a shred of foundation.

As I refer to above, there is a growing amount. You can find forum posts and blog entries aplenty where for example the same person who has both clearly states they notice no improvement in performance whatsoever.

And since Paul Sellers started writing about the same issue there's been a lot of agreement posted about how well stock blades actually work in a well-fettled plane, as long as the user isn't "getting too excited" as Frid would put it.

 

[Corneel]

Sometimes, when planing endgrain, redwood (Scot's Pine) with hard knots, even clean-grained beech on occasions, I've had planes chatter. That's with sharp irons and nicely-fitted standard cap-irons, and the work well-held on a decent bench. Using planes with thicker irons (Lie-Nielsen number 4 and 5, and a Record 07 with a Clifton iron and two-piece cap-iron) - same bench, same workpieces - I don't get chatter. Using wooden planes, I don't get chatter. I've never used an infill (cos they're expensive) so can't comment on them.

Sorry, I don't have that experience. When the blade is sharp, no trouble with endgrain and certainly not with beech which planes wonderfully. I've had my fair share of trouble with tearout around knots in fir and stuff like that, but no chatter that I can remember. Skipping at the start of the cut is sometimes an issue, but I think that is mostly (my) user error.

 

[D_W]

Well no one has come up with a demonstrable advantage, except weight! (I wonder how few ounces?)

My favorite plane is a highly tuned 1970's Stanley with Hock A2 blade and L-N new improved chipbreaker. (I have described one improvement before, which involves fit between lever cap and hump).

This is in use all the time and the idea of reverting to a soft Stanley 70's blade and thin C/B is ludicrous.

The often repeated assertion of "no improvement" is without a shred of foundation. They are better machined, generally much quicker to fettle and work extremely well.

David Charlesworth

We don't generally use those irons over here, either, but the old water and oil hardened irons are plentiful here, and they are as good as anything new (at least if someone understands the concept of using a cap iron).

I certainly get much more uniform edge failure from a vintage stanley iron than I do a new A2 iron, which means they finish plane until the clearance is gone and don't leave chipout lines.

I recall having a conversation with George Wilson about this, and george also always preferred to make irons around dark straw, and never had much regard for modern irons that are trying to push the limits. I found that pretty interesting, because George is pretty progressive and has been making irons out of air hardening steel MUCH longer than any of the boutique makers have.

Or more flatly said, the vintage iron works at least as well, depending on whether or not the user actually knows how to use it above and beyond taking thin shavings very slowly.

 

[Trafalgar]

And then of course there is the inexplicable scenario of the person who owns premium planes and then who apparently still uses what most would consider to be less than premium planes that produce chatter no less. Why are these planes still in the shop and even worse why are they still being used?

It's like driving a wheezing Ford Pinto through the countryside on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and leaving the Bugatti convertible in the garage.

Makes no sense in the real world.

 

[D_W]

That's not so difficult. Set the frog inline with the angled portion of the sole. Set the capiron close to the edge, really close when the wood calls for it, but otherwise not too far away either. That capiron gives a bunch of support. Set the levercap screw so that the lever clicks down with a reasuring click, but check that the adjuster still works easilly. Make sure that the sole doesnt have a hump behind the mouth. Make sure that the capiron mates the cutting blade perfectly.

I think that's about it. Oh yes, sharpen the blade.

that's pretty much it. If the cap doesn't mate well or is in rough shape, do as little as possible to alter its shape while getting it to fit well.

The biggest aid in setting up a stanley plane is buying one that's not iron-pitted or broken in some way. the rest of the stuff is quick. There is a myriad of classes telling people how to tune their planes by filing and lapping all kinds of stuff on the plane that makes no difference in terms of performance (frog faces, trying to square sides, filing frog feet, etc).

Ah. Thank you for the answer.

Whenever I've had a Bailey plane so set (Records and a Faithfull in my case, but all with the same standard thickness cutting irons), I've had a gap between the face of the frog and the back of the blade, and another gap between the flat face of the blade and the cap-iron. The blade is unsupported between the base of the frog (or somewhere near the blade's bevel) and somewhere near it's top. The cap-iron contacts close to the cutting edge, and somewhere near the top. Most of the time, that probably doesn't matter very much, but does it matter during those times when things get difficult?

Actually, what you describe is what you want, and it's also why the idea of a perfectly milled frog face is not applicable to planes. You always want a bias so that an iron is held firmly on two sides at the cutting edge and up wherever the top pressure is coming from (ideal if it's under the cam of the lever cap).

Try waxing the sole of the plane if you get skipping cutting end grain. Sometimes it's the straws of the wood brooming the bottom of the plane and causing it to skip. I've not had any chatter planing off the ends of double iron planes (beech) that are a little more than 3 inches square, except the sole of the plane does need a bit of wax from time to time to keep the billet from gripping it.

That's not just for stanley planes, but all metal planes.

On things like the end of a panel of cherry, planing with a stanley 4 has not yielded chatter, but I would imagine that the same skipping could occur if the conditions were right.

For what it's worth, I've made a fairly large number of different types of planes, from infills to old double iron woodies, and that bed bias is always there if you are to have a good functioning plane (the one where the iron touches at the top and bottom). It's a bias for stability and also adjustability.

Lee valley machines the beds of their planes, including the single iron planes, but they also bias the machining so that the iron contacts top and bottom. Rob Lee told me that when I brought it up at one point as I had implied the question of what do you do when shoot for perfect machining and the machining leaves a bit of a belly on the machined area. He flatly said that it's machined for looks, but the center is low to ensure a good bed.

 

[D_W]

The often repeated assertion of "no improvement" is without a shred of foundation. They are better machined, generally much quicker to fettle and work extremely well.

David Charlesworth

They work fine. I doubt the wood cares about the machining on the cap iron, though.

And they're not better than vintage caps. You've got a logical disconnect - what actually hasn't been proven is your assertion that the modern types are better.

If you knew more about making or designing planes than me, I'd be surprised. I've been walking through the patties that you leave for a while to be polite, but I think you're plus in years and minus in relevant experience - at least in making any judgement about vintage stanley planes or the design of their irons and cap irons. Especially if you are tied to slow processes using honing guides, and making comparisons for all stanley planes based on something made in the 1970s.

I have already tried and owned practically everything you've suggested, and I am certainly less inclined on making fine furniture or marquetry, but not on dimensioning wood or making planes.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

And then of course there is the inexplicable scenario of the person who owns premium planes and then who apparently still uses what most would consider to be less than premium planes that produce chatter no less. Why are these planes still in the shop and even worse why are they still being used?

It's like driving a wheezing Ford Pinto through the countryside on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and leaving the Bugatti convertible in the garage.

Makes no sense in the real world.

I take it that slightly snide comment was aimed at me.

The answer, Charles, is very simple. I started woodworking back in the 1980s, and the first planes I bought were standard Records - an 04, an 05 1/2 (that I no longer use), and later, an 07. That was because the local architectural ironmonger stocked them, except the 07 which if memory serves, came mail order from Tabwell Tools. I had all sorts of difficulties with the 04, eventually having it surface ground flat by a mate of mine, and fitting it with a Smoothcut iron and replacement Crown rosewood handles. The 07 was a much better made plane, but still gave the troubles outlined in my previous posts on this thread. When the new Victor irons (Clifton before they were called Clifton) and two-piece cap-iron became available in the late 1990s, I fitted them, and it transformed the plane. About the same time, the LN planes became available in the UK, so I invested, and instantly 'retired' the 04. The suite of two LNs and 07 with uprated iron and cap-iron kept me going for years, along with a Marples BB woodie jack bought from Bristol Design at about the same time.

When I joined this forum (early 2012, I think), I started to become more interested in vintage planes, so a few woodies 'appeared'. With all the talk about budget planes, I thought I'd invest £17 in a Faithfull 03 just to see what they were like - I've documented some experiences on this forum. As bought, it was pretty much useless, but fettled up it just about works, though certainly not flawlessly. I haven't yet, but I'll probably put a decent iron and cap-iron in it sometime, and I suspect so fitted it will be quite a reasonable performer.

 

[Trafalgar]

Sounds great. Enjoy your woodworking.

 

[David C]

Well David said,

"And they're not better than vintage caps. You've got a logical disconnect - what actually hasn't been proven is your assertion that the modern types are better.

If you knew more about making or designing planes than me, I'd be surprised. I've been walking through the patties that you leave for a while to be polite, but I think you're plus in years and minus in relevant experience - at least in making any judgement about vintage stanley planes or the design of their irons and cap irons. Especially if you are tied to slow processes using honing guides, and making comparisons for all stanley planes based on something made in the 1970s."


Now you are demonstrating your true offensive rudeness.

Of course I do not have ready access to Vintage Stanley irons, any more than you do to 1970's UK junk.

There is no point in trying to talk to you as you are too embedded in your particular personal preferences.

However you should stop spreading disinformation, (could that be l--s?) about perfectly good kit.

David Charlesworth

 

[D_W]

The only way you could accuse me of spreading disinformation would be to extrapolate some of my prior statements into something that isn't there.
I have stated one plain truth. There is nothing better about modern planes for an experienced user. The things about them that make them better for beginners do not drive experienced users to them. It would seem that experienced users tend to prefer vintage planes, and the more they use planes in their work, the more they seem to have gear that involves old wooden planes or stanley planes.

I tolerate a lot from people who don't know as much about plane design or building planes as I do, and there are people who know more about it than I do (I can spot them pretty easily). But I'm not going to sit here and entertain an opinion about cap irons from someone who was intent on knowing what is "improved" without knowing how to use the "improved" cap iron in the first place.

This topic has come up several times now, and I have no biases - I don't sell my planes, I didn't design any for any of the makers. I have to assume you must've had some hand in suggesting what is improved to Lie Nielsen, but if so, you did it without knowing how to use the cap iron. That is fact.

I don't know how much dimensioning of wood you have done with planes to form a deeper opinion than removing planer chatter, either, but it is necessary to do more than smoothing or planing test pieces to get better depth in use of the cap iron.

 

[worn thumbs]

The title of this thread refers to bendy cap irons.None of my planes,which range from the thirties to the eighties and are either Record or Stanley have any indication of bending.If they were loaded sufficiently to bend,I doubt that adjustment would be possible.

The subsequent statements of entrenched opinion regarding plane irons,adjustment or use don't really address the topic.I happen to agree that a Stanley will do just about any planing you ever need to do and if anybody complains about tearout on tricky grain its pretty clear that they haven't tried adjusting the frog to close the mouth a bit.I even had perfectly adequate service from the maligned seventies Stanley irons.I only hope that novices browsing this forum aren't put off the activity by the tone of this discussion.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

On the gap between frog face and cutting iron - D_W says this is desirable. I beg to differ, at least in the case of thin cutting irons. With thicker cutters, having far more stiffness, it doesn't matter much.

In a Bailey-type plane, the lever cap applies pressure to the cap-iron at the top of the frog, trapping cap-iron and cutting iron against the frog casting, and to the hump of the cap-iron near it's lower end. The cap-iron transfers this pressure to a line across the cutting iron very near the cutting edge, and at the top of the frog.

Thus, the cutting iron is trapped at the top of the frog, and has a force exerted on it's flat face near the cutting edge. The back of the iron contacts either the plane's sole casting, or the bottom front edge of the frog casting, and the force from the cap-iron pivots it about that point. Because it's fairly flexible, the unrestrained part of the iron lifts off the frog face, giving the gap mentioned earlier in the thread.

When the plane contacts wood, the cutting edge is driven backwards and slightly downwards, pivotting on the back of the bevel, and causing the cutting iron to bend even more between bevel and top of frog. When the cutting edge hits a particularly hard spot, it bends down and back even more than before, causing even more of a bend in the body of the blade, tensing it like a flat spring. When the energy in this flat spring builds up enough, it suddenly releases by flicking the cutting edge up and forward. The cutting edge then digs in again, and the cycle repeats.

Those familiar with chatter will know that it manifests itself with a jarring high-pitched skrawking noise, and a mass of parallel fine lines across the workpiece about 1/16" apart or a bit closer.

However, if the cap-iron is modified such that it traps the body of the cutting iron against the frog surface, taking out most of it's flexibility and preventing it acting like the flat spring described, chatter ceases. The cutting edge may still bend down a little, but can't go as far into the wood surface because the whole system is much more rigid. And THAT is what Bailey's patent calls for - pressure from the cap-iron not just at the cutting edge and the top of the frog, but near the base of the frog casting as well. The Record Stay-Set and Clifton two-piece cap-irons do the same thing, and the modern flat, heavy cap-irons do something very similar by preventing the iron from fluttering between bevel and top of frog.

The standard Bailey thin iron works with it's proper patent cap-iron, but is just a little bit too flexible with the pressed thin cap-iron most are fitted with. If made to the Bailey patent, it would be a stiffer, more rigid plane.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

The only way you could accuse me of spreading disinformation would be to extrapolate some of my prior statements into something that isn't there.
I have stated one plain truth. There is nothing better about modern planes for an experienced user. The things about them that make them better for beginners do not drive experienced users to them. It would seem that experienced users tend to prefer vintage planes, and the more they use planes in their work, the more they seem to have gear that involves old wooden planes or stanley planes.

I tolerate a lot from people who don't know as much about plane design or building planes as I do, and there are people who know more about it than I do (I can spot them pretty easily). But I'm not going to sit here and entertain an opinion about cap irons from someone who was intent on knowing what is "improved" without knowing how to use the "improved" cap iron in the first place.

This topic has come up several times now, and I have no biases - I don't sell my planes, I didn't design any for any of the makers. I have to assume you must've had some hand in suggesting what is improved to Lie Nielsen, but if so, you did it without knowing how to use the cap iron. That is fact.

I don't know how much dimensioning of wood you have done with planes to form a deeper opinion than removing planer chatter, either, but it is necessary to do more than smoothing or planing test pieces to get better depth in use of the cap iron.

Are you really telling David Charlesworth that he doesn't know how to set up and use a plane? :shock:

 

[Trafalgar]

Worth a read and look at the before-and-after photos:

http://www.amgron.clara.net/shavingaperture53.html (using a Record SP40 (?) he describes as "an economy version of a Stanley No. 4") However he apparently did flatten the sole by scraping, a technique he described elsewhere on his website.

Not meant to open the cap iron closeness debate; more about ways to skin felines that the Bailey design offers - for those interested in seeing solid performance from a bargain plane, though a well-fettled one.

 

[D_W]

Are you really telling David Charlesworth that he doesn't know how to set up and use a plane? :shock:

I am telling him that I know more about:
* using a cap iron (and more about what makes a preferable design)
* and I know more about bench plane design and making in general

On those two things, yes, I am.

I am not clogged by teaching beginners.

I know more about sharpening, too. Especially in the context of working wood, shaving hair, sharpening knives, scissors, saws... How's that?

I certainly know less than David does about fine furniture and making videos. There's no question about that.

 

[D_W]

Those familiar with chatter will know that it manifests itself with a jarring high-pitched skrawking noise, and a mass of parallel fine lines across the workpiece about 1/16" apart or a bit closer.

I am familiar with chatter. My planes in my first year of use were improperly setup bailey planes and a couple of wooden planes that I bought that I couldn't possibly figure out how to use well. I thought double iron planes were something that you could only use working downgrain and that chatter was part of the experience.

I've learned otherwise since. When the lever cap pushes down on the edge of your iron, the gap between the iron and bed should not allow chatter, the zipper feeling that you get with it (the chatter), or the tiny lines that result. Something isn't right in your setup. All bailey planes should have the gap you describe, as mine do also, but none of mine chatter (so long as the cap iron is set properly).

Every wooden plane I have seen (of at least reasonable age) has the bias we're talking about built into the iron. If it's not, it should be built into the bed to preserve chatter free use and good adjustability.