A Smoother for Gnarly Woods.

[iNewbie]

Gentlemen your opinion(s) please.

At some point I'd like to work with Flame/Birds Eye maple and other woods that are known for giving problems when it comes to smoothing - tear-out.

I've read about York/Middle pitch frogs and LN appears to be the only one who has a replaceable frog - not sure I'd want to do that though.

The Veritas BU smoother looks interesting and I've read about Norris infills being the old weapon of choice. Though some of those are way out of my price range. I wouldn't mind a clifton, but would there be any point --- when I could buy an old stanley. I feel like I'm going around in circles now.

Meanwhile: I'm sure I read online a piece by Chris Swartz saying get the chip breaker up really close and you can use a normal frog.

Thoughts - any most welcome.

 

[bobscarle]

Weapon of choice for Gnarly wood is, IMO, my Clifton No.4. Get the blade sharp. No, get the blade really sharp! Close the mouth a little, and get the chipbreaker close. Take fine shavings. I can also get my QS No.6 to do almost as well. However I have trouble with my LN No.62 with which I get a lot of tear out. You may find that a half size will give you a bit more weight and cut easier (I haven't got one so don't know).

That's my opinion, no doubt somebody else will recommend a bevel up plane.

 

[Peter Sefton]

I would use either my Clifton with a 15 to 20 degrees back bevel (which can be difficult to sharpen and repeat unless you are experienced) but using the Veritas MK11 honing guide does help or go for the Veritas Low angle Smoother or Jack but make sure you do use the 50 degree blade as the standard blade will just make things worse.

http://peterseftontoolshop.com/epages/e ... RPLABEVSMO

http://peterseftontoolshop.com/epages/e ... ERPLAJACLA

http://peterseftontoolshop.com/epages/e ... ABLAJKA250

Cheers Peter

 

[dunbarhamlin]

Heavily back-beveled ~25° (approx because freehanded) in a cliffie....but then I do have a bit of a British racing green fixation. A sharp iron? Nope, sharper.

 

[undergroundhunter]

This may help or it may add to your quandary.

http://www.workshopheaven.com/tools/Clifton_Plane_No.4-1-2_video.html

I found this helpful.

Hope it helps.

 

[Jacob]

As you will see from threads like this (there are many) virtually any plane can be made to do the job but if you want to cut the cackle and spend a lot of money the LV smoother might be the answer.
That's what I settled on - just the one plane and one blade, to go where my Stanleys and Records won't.
No point in having more than one posh plane, the others are perfectly OK for almost everything.
And freehand honing makes life a lot easier if you want a camber (you definitely do) and if you ever want to raise the angle above 30º and experiment.

But if you don't want to spend a lot then a Stanley 80 scraper will do it but will need frequent sharpening. Once again - freehand and oil stone makes this much easier than any of the other systems, except with these short blades a little holder is handy - just a piece of 2x1" or similar, with a saw kerf to locate the blade.

 

[Corneel]

I have no real troubles with curly maple, or ribbon striped Teak and Jatoba when planing with my humble UK build Stanley #4. I did invest in a thicker blade from Ray Iles, and that does help to "stabilise" the plane, but the stock iron is usable too. In very hard woods the stock iron has a tendency to chatter on the start of the cut.

The trick? Learn to use the chipbreaker and sharpen the blade as good as you can.

The chipbreaker has been in use for over 200 years now and has all that time been used as the ultimate weapon against tearout. In the last decades when handtool woodworking became almost extinct, the knowledge about using the chipbreaker was a bit obscured. With the recent rediscovery of the Japanese planing video from Kato, there was a surge of enthousiastic woodworkers on the Internet who finally learned how to really use their duble iron plane. Chris Schwarz is one of the original naysayers who turned 180 degrees on this subject and is now using his chipbreaker to full effect too.

Information about how to use it, you can find for example on my blog:

http://seekelot.blogspot.nl/2012/06/capiron-or-chipbreaker.html

PS: high angle planing is still very usefull for moulding planes where a capiron is not possible of course.

 

[Paul Chapman]

If you have a lot of material to remove from wood subject to tearout, consider the use of a toothed blade. There's a good demonstration here by Deneb Puchalski http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl8Tj1lU ... F&index=31

Deneb is using a bevel-up plane but you can get them for bevel-down planes as well - just make sure that the cap iron is set back so that the shavings don't get trapped

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[MIGNAL]

I work with flamed Maple often. Even some of the deeply flamed stuff can be relatively benign but most will give some tearout if planed in the normal manner. I haven't had that much improvement from a higher pitched blade. The most effective method that I've come across is to plane across the grain i.e. going with the flame. Even with a humble Stanley I can get near zero tearout, nothing that can't be rectified with a few swipes of a cabinet scraper.

 

[iNewbie]

Thanks for all the links/replies, people.

I guess its like the old saying: theres more than one way to skin a cat. Only, I only want to skin one, once - due to cost.

 

[bugbear]

Thanks for all the links/replies, people.

I guess its like the old saying: theres more than one way to skin a cat. Only, I only want to skin one, once - due to cost.

High Effective Pitch is the direct answer to tearout, (although the usual planing "standards" of sharp edge blade and well supported blade are also required).

High EP can be achieved with a high bevel in a bevel up plane, a high bedding angle, or a back bevel, hence the plethora of proposed solutions.

BugBear

 

[Anima]

I like him the way he is.

 

[iNewbie]

High EP can be achieved with a high bevel in a bevel up plane, a high bedding angle, or a back bevel, hence the plethora of proposed solutions.

I understand - I just can't make my mind up about which way to go.

 

[Corneel]

High Effective Pitch is the direct answer to tearout, (although the usual planing "standards" of sharp edge blade and well supported blade are also required).

High EP can be achieved with a high bevel in a bevel up plane, a high bedding angle, or a back bevel, hence the plethora of proposed solutions.

BugBear

Well, when you allready have a nice Stanley or Record smoother and cost is an issue, then the direct answer to tearout is not high pitch. The direct answer is setting the chipbreaker very close to the edge. That's for free.

A backbevel seems easy and cheap but it means buying another blade, or a grinding session when you don't want to use that backbevel anymore.

 

[bobbybirds]

I love my Veritas BU smoother. It is pricey yes, but if you spend the money it make so many smoothing jobs so much easier! I have 2 blades I use, one I keep at 35 degrees, and one at 50 degrees, but that said you can easily get away with just one. If you have a the lower angle blade and are getting some bad tearout on some gnarly wood, just hone a tiny micro-bevel at 50 degrees and go to town! Yes you will need to re-hone when done but you can get away with one...

I have vintage Stanley #4, LN #3 and I find time and time again, the smoother that gets used the absolute most with the best performance is my Veritas BU Smoother, bar none. That's the cool thing though, different strokes for different folks. Ideally if you could try one from a member in your area, you can decide for yourself which seems to suit you best...

 

[Argus]

If you have a lot of material to remove from wood subject to tearout, consider the use of a toothed blade. There's a good demonstration here by Deneb Puchalski http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl8Tj1lU ... F&index=31

Deneb is using a bevel-up plane but you can get them for bevel-down planes as well - just make sure that the cap iron is set back so that the shavings don't get trapped

Cheers :wink:

Paul

One problem with bevel down toothed blades (on my planes at least, Record No: 4 and 5 and the like) is that if you set the cap too far back on the blade then you are beyond the limit of the adjuster and it will not assemble properly.

A solution exists where the cap iron can be set at its optimum - about 1.0 to 1.5 m back.

Take a smear of hard-setting bathroom sealer and put a tiny bead - not too much! - along the contact edge of the cap-iron so that it fills the ridges when assembled tight close to the edge of the blade. Wipe off the excess and allow it to set. It seals the blade from bits getting jammed and when it is disassembled, the sealant can be peeled off. Clean out the ridges with a wire brush to get the obstinate bits off.

Hope this tip helps.

.

 

[Paul Chapman]

One problem with bevel down toothed blades (on my planes at least, Record No: 4 and 5 and the like) is that if you set the cap too far back on the blade then you are beyond the limit of the adjuster and it will not assemble properly.

Yes, you're right. I ground a bit off the end of the cap iron in that picture so that I could set it back far enough.

Cheers :wink:

Paul