Hand planing help

[Trafalgar]

It may be more intuitive to some people to use a smaller plane and test frequently with a straightedge. Try it either way and see what suits you best, assuming you have longer planes in your kit. One could theoretically do the whole bit with a block plane and a straightedge. It's just a matter of removing high spots until you produced a flat face. Flat ("planar") is a geometric concept. Smooth is a surface attribute. People often confuse the two. Smooth doesn't count for much on a board or panel that is not flat enough for its intended use.

Jack-Jointer-Smoother is the typical progression with the jack getting the board essentially flat, the jointer refines to a greater degree of flatness, the smoother tidies up the surface. This isn't engraved in stone, by any means, but a somewhat rebuttable presumption of the order of planing.

 

[custard]

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!

There is more to that question that you might think.

In reality there are two alternative strategies for flattening the face of a board.

Firstly is the more mechanistic method of following a prescribed sequence of cuts with a prescribed sequence of planes and expecting a flat face to emerge at the end. This is the more commonly taught approach, and with good reason, it's faster.

But there is an alternative where you use winding sticks and a straight edge to understand the topography of your board and identify the high spots, which you then progressively knock down until you arrive at a flat face. If you follow this approach you can flatten a tabletop with a block plane. Someone like Paul Sellers is experienced enough to know this and consciously or unconsciously it makes him a bit blasé about longer planes. Why does this second method have relevance? Because there will be instances in your furniture making career when you need to be able to identify high spots and deal with them. For example if you're fitting a drawer into a carcass that's been assembled with Dominos it's not uncommon to find that an area around the Domino has swollen slightly (could be temporary, could be permanent). Rather than diving in with a shoulder plane or a 10 1/2, which might well result in a rattly fit, you need to be able to pinpoint the problem and fix it. There's a technique where you slightly swivel a straight edge (might well be a shop made wooden straight edge) and listen and feel for a scratching noise and some resistance at the outer ends. It's one of those things that's very difficult to describe in words or even on a video, but if you have someone demonstrate it at a bench then you get it straight away.

 

[ED65]

Re. making your own straightedge, here's a little something that might be of interest:

As it describes you can check for straight against itself, so just like you can make a try square without having one already you don't need an existing straight edge to be able to make one (although it certainly wouldn't hurt).

The recommendation of pine for the long one might seem odd, but this is from 1942 when even 2x material could be very decent wood indeed.

 

[ED65]

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?

Can be done doesn't mean should be. But if a no. 4 is, for whatever reason, the only plane you want to own it can get the job done without question.

Your one plane in theory can do its standard work with an iron having a slight camber, roughing work with a second iron, certain other jobs with a third iron sharpened straight across, with no other mods necessary other than changing the position of the cap iron to suit the job at hand (back for rougher work, close to the edge for all finer steps).

But given the option it would be better to use specialist planes for at least one or two of the other jobs, partly because they're better suited to them and partly to save the time and the mental effort from the faffing about switching the plane from one mode to the other.

...but is that smaller plane really a good recommendation to a novice woodworker?

Recommending that you should do it with the one plane, rather than merely saying that you can? I'd say no.

It's not just because it flies in the face of hundreds of years of standard practise, based on daily usage of pros who had an absolute need to work as efficiently as possible, but Paul may be guilty of forgetting how long it took him to get to a really proficient level. He might say he's as good as he was after a year or so of guidance and practice (and that might even be true ) but he's forgetting that that was him, working in a joinery workshop day in and day out. Not someone who can only put in a few hours a couple of evenings a week and maybe the whole afternoon on Sunday if he's lucky. It would take the second man over ten years to put in the same time that Paul put in over just his first year, and without the experienced hands to give pointers if some stumbling block arose.

 

[D_W]

Anything that is quartered with the pith sawn on center will be stable (I guess the only exception could be if it was wet, it might crack).

Even apple and beech, which are both horrible, are perfectly fine if they are pith sawn on center, rift or quartered. If they are quartersawn dead on, but the pith is off center, then the resulting boards will twist.

I would imagine that pine was recommended for the long straight edge because of its lack of weight. The small straight edge in that illustration is 4 feet or 6 feet, which most of us would consider to be long. Metal or wood, it's all fine. The only thing that isn't preferable is a really heavy steel straight edge. Even a four foot starrett is undesirable (especially the price) - you have to be careful with it and use two hands.

 

[D_W]

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!

You can find opposing views for just about everything. If alan peters uses(d) a 7 for everything, and paul uses a 4 for everything - or says you can, it suggests you should try a few things and see what you prefer.

 

[B3nder]

Thanks for all the pointers.

I have to admit that it was the Paul Sellers recommendation to go with the 4. However I'm going to give the 6 a try and see how I get on. I may use the 4 to flatten my winding sticks which will then help with all the other jobs. Also this close to Christmas I shall wait until the new year before purchasing a No.5.

However given the current state of the winding sticks (not flat enough)I shall continue putting in the hours practice before attacking the sticks again.

No worries about hijack its's all related.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

I'd use the number 6 to flatten your winding sticks, TBH.

Mike.

 

[John15]

B3nder,

You may find a No.6 a little unwieldy - quite a big jump from a No.4. I would try a No.5 or 5 1/2 as a more natural progression towards the longer planes.

John

 

[Steve1066]

Also what size timber are you using. I would recommend something about 40mm x 90mm to stat with, this will give you a much better surface to sit the plane on and reduce the chances of tilting the plane on it's edge, all so if you're plane is at a slight angle to the work piece it will reduce the hollowing affect.
The problem with practising on narrow board, say 10mm wide, if you're 0.5mm out of square that 5% of the total width of the board.
Then when you sit a a 300mm wide winding stick on this is highly exaggerated. So it looks like you need to take a lot more timber off, than you actually need to.
If the timber is 40mm wide and your 0.5mm out of square this is only 0.2% of the total width.
Now when you look at the winding stick the exaggerationI is nowhere near as severe and you only take a small amount of timber off.
Hope this helps. Have fun.
Steve

 

[B3nder]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Using a combination of the 6 and 4 (and more frequent checks) are getting my closer to flatter work, also seeming to get a feel for how many passes will
remove a certain high spot.

 

[MusicMan]

With the longer plane, you could use the bench as a shooting board (as long as your bench is flat). Clamp the work on the bench, separated by a spacer, say a strip of ply or hardboard. Then use the plane on its side. In one method, the edge of the ply is selected to be straight, and this guides the plane by the small edge of the throat where there is no blade; the edge of the blade cuts a small rebate. Then plane till the board is flush to the ply. In the other method, the edge of the board protrudes over the spacer, and the edge is straightened with the same checks for hollows and bumps as you already use. But the cut is always at right angles to the face.

The plane iron is sharpened straight across in this method, not cambered.

This works especially well with my 30" wooden jointer, which set me back a fiver at a car boot!

Keith

 

[El Barto]

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.

I just picked this up from your recommendation. Easily the best guide on planing techniques I've seen. Thank you!

 

[David C]

Thanks chaps.

Plane Sharpening no 1 dvd and Plane Use no 2 dvd, are both on sale at the moment, from my website.

They are about to be replaced by two fresh versions. These will be more comprehensive, much better filmed and generally better!

Best wishes,
David