Closely Set Cap Iron

[D_W]

That looks like a relatively tame pine. Is it?

I also don't understand the point.

DW; your another user I wont be responding too.

No big loss. I do find it peculiar that you are now the authority on cap irons after spending nearly five years avoiding my advice and the advice of others, though. :shock:

 

[nabs]

a cap iron Haiku:

tried, in vain, to make it smooth
My cap-iron did it
But for some, not

 

[D_W]

This is another good point. What angle could work better?

Giuliano

50 degrees on any cap iron and rounded slightly is the best for all use (hard or soft wood, whatever else). The old cap irons had rounded front edges and so do the stanley type, and they seem to work slightly more nicely than a flat bevel.

For metal planes where clearance isn't an issue, something that mimics the stanley rounded cap iron profile on the end of any cap iron is good, it needs only to be about 1 to 2 mm from the edge of the cap iron (so if you have a long flat cap iron that is very thick, you don't need to profile the entire thickness of the leading edge).

On a wooden plane like Stewie has shown, there is a separate issue. A fat rounded cap iron like a stanley plane will create clearance issues unless the wear is straight up or leaning forward. A nice plane does not have a wear like that. You don't need to worry so much about any of that technicality if it's beyond your scope other than the fact that it is nice to have a profile like the better of the old wooden cap irons, which is a long low-angle approach to the end of the cap iron, and then the rounded provision I mentioned above. It should be minimal in height so as to not create problems with the wear on a plane that has a relatively tight mouth.

I hooked a picture of a ward cap iron off of ebay from a long finished sale. Ignore the fact that someone put it on the iron upside down. You can see that the sprung angle is fairly long and shallow, and that is like that to keep it out of the way of the wear.

If you are only experimenting at first with a stanley type plane (that is a wise idea), ignore most of my advice and polish the front edge of the cap iron at the angle that it comes from the factory, perhaps plus just a little bit more. You don't want it below 45 degrees or above 60, both of those are counterproductive.

As far as the talk of finding the optimum set, the issue in setting a cap iron is more to set it somewhere in a good range. For example, if you're doing smoothing work, a set anywhere between 4 and 8 thousandths of an inch might do fine, and you may not notice the difference between the two unless your shavings are relatively close to 4 thousandth of an inch. That is why setting it by eye works very well - you can see the difference between 4 and 8 thousandths very easily, or even 4 and 6 for that matter. But you don't need to or want to measure them, you want to set the cap iron where it works well for you and just learn what it looks like so that it is a trivial reflex, the same as you would do anything else trivially (like how high you hold a pitcher over a cup of water to pour it, etc). If you do coarser planing with a different plane, you'll quickly learn what the plane should look like in terms of projection.

in regard to the picture that stewie showed above, the cap iron is likely too far away from the edge of the iron to be doing much - the shavings tell the story.

This is all much easier to do than it is to describe. It's a subtle fairly easy thing to do that takes more effort to put in type than it does to do it. And it's rewarding very quickly, like within a week or two.

 

[ac445ab]

This is another good point. What angle could work better?

Giuliano

50 degrees on any cap iron and rounded slightly is the best for all use (hard or soft wood, whatever else). The old cap irons had rounded front edges and so do the stanley type, and they seem to work slightly more nicely than a flat bevel.

For metal planes where clearance isn't an issue, something that mimics the stanley rounded cap iron profile on the end of any cap iron is good, it needs only to be about 1 to 2 mm from the edge of the cap iron (so if you have a long flat cap iron that is very thick, you don't need to profile the entire thickness of the leading edge).

On a wooden plane like Stewie has shown, there is a separate issue. A fat rounded cap iron like a stanley plane will create clearance issues unless the wear is straight up or leaning forward. A nice plane does not have a wear like that. You don't need to worry so much about any of that technicality if it's beyond your scope other than the fact that it is nice to have a profile like the better of the old wooden cap irons, which is a long low-angle approach to the end of the cap iron, and then the rounded provision I mentioned above. It should be minimal in height so as to not create problems with the wear on a plane that has a relatively tight mouth.

I hooked a picture of a ward cap iron off of ebay from a long finished sale. Ignore the fact that someone put it on the iron upside down. You can see that the sprung angle is fairly long and shallow, and that is like that to keep it out of the way of the wear.

If you are only experimenting at first with a stanley type plane (that is a wise idea), ignore most of my advice and polish the front edge of the cap iron at the angle that it comes from the factory, perhaps plus just a little bit more. You don't want it below 45 degrees or above 60, both of those are counterproductive.

As far as the talk of finding the optimum set, the issue in setting a cap iron is more to set it somewhere in a good range. For example, if you're doing smoothing work, a set anywhere between 4 and 8 thousandths of an inch might do fine, and you may not notice the difference between the two unless your shavings are relatively close to 4 thousandth of an inch. That is why setting it by eye works very well - you can see the difference between 4 and 8 thousandths very easily, or even 4 and 6 for that matter. But you don't need to or want to measure them, you want to set the cap iron where it works well for you and just learn what it looks like so that it is a trivial reflex, the same as you would do anything else trivially (like how high you hold a pitcher over a cup of water to pour it, etc). If you do coarser planing with a different plane, you'll quickly learn what the plane should look like in terms of projection.

in regard to the picture that stewie showed above, the cap iron is likely too far away from the edge of the iron to be doing much - the shavings tell the story.

This is all much easier to do than it is to describe. It's a subtle fairly easy thing to do that takes more effort to put in type than it does to do it. And it's rewarding very quickly, like within a week or two.

Thanks for these precious advices. I'll keep them in mind in my future experiments.

Regards
Giuliano

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Oh look, a weird esoteric argument, I've got one question, where's Charles?

 

[D_W]

Oh look, a weird esoteric argument, I've got one question, where's Charles?

At the state store.

I'm sure he'll be by with some passive aggressive posts.