Vintage Record 09 1/2 block plane

[Ttrees]

Good to have the low angle block in your arsenal, they're a bargain if you gt one for £50
many of the best luthiers advise having one.

Onto my post mainly about the iron with extremely little camber
I recommend you try to plane some inch(ish) wide stock that's less than half an inch thick, using both iron profiles.
Most likely you will find the camber much easier than the near straight iron.

I just don't think you will notice any difference in the no 4 compared to the no 3, I haven't so far.

What do you mean leaving the surface rough ...are you leaving tracks from the edges of the iron?
If so...
This is probably what I was on about about, saying planing with the straight iron, it needs to be more accurately held.
I have noticed myself favour my side of the timber, as its a habit I have formed because of relying on the camber
to do the accurate part for too long.

There's two sides to your argument of wanting a no.3
Yes you will not be making as deep of a plane track, because of the smaller facet from the narrower plane, but ....

The no 3 will be harder in regards to the above accurate use, as you don't have the width to give you more
of a reference ...
Kinda like having a shorter set of winding sticks
The difference is negligible.

As to the planing spruce, I haven't done so.
I presume it will be the no 5 1/2, as with nearly all things, but I'm not sure yet.
I have a billet that I have riven that I hope aint worm food that will be getting resawn soon enough,
failing that, I have plenty of piano soundboards, the grain is a bit wide though.

Good luck

Tom

 

[ED65]

Just need to think how to keep the pipper rust free.

Well my own comparisons in a sweaty kitchen indicate that oil or petroleum jelly or wax will all do the necessary. Wax lasts better on tools that see handling though I think, i.e. doesn't rub off as easily because it's a solid at room temperature, plus you want to wax the sole anyway so might as well....

On the question of the Number 4, chipbreakers and cambers, I currently have got a stanley Number 4 set up with a zero-camber blade and a very close-set chipbreaker for thicknessing hardwoods. It does it's job on tricky hardwoods (I have thicknessed 4 guitar bodies with it, including curly bubinga and a very nasty piece of african mahogany). But leaves the surface a bit rough, which means I have to finish the last 0.5-0.3mm with cabinet scrapers.

I wish we could work some wood side by side with our planes. I just finished a couple of items for my partner's growing calligraphy tool kit, a scriber and a small honing-stone box, both using the same piece of "something or other that looks like mahogany" and it has the classic ribbon-stripe figure, so there's no good planing direction. Anyway, point being I got zero tearout regardless of which direction I planed it (something I checked frequently during the making to confirm this was actually the case).

With the same no. 4 set the same way I do sometimes get a smidge of micro-tearout e.g. around knots but nothing that perhaps 0.1mm taken off with a scraper wouldn't rectify.