Bailey style planes, thin irons and cap-irons.

[Cheshirechappie]

About twelve months ago, I bought a Faithfull number 3 smoother brand new for the princely sum of £17 including delivery. I didn't really expect to get too much for this price, and I wasn't disappointed. The plane was almost useless out of the box, even with the iron sharpened up and the cap-iron nose reshaped to fit. The biggest fault was the banana sole - 6 thou concave. There were several other faults, including a frog that didn't bed properly on the sole because the adjuster screw flange was too large and propped the back of the frog casting off the machined seating on the sole. The wooden handles were quite nice, though.

The plane took a bit of fettling up (obviously!) but did in the end make a reasonable tool. It isn't high class, but it 'does'. I have discovered that I quite like this small-sized, nimble plane, so the investment wasn't totally wasted!

One thing I checked when assessing the plane was the bedding of the iron on the frog face with the plane in working condition. I could get a 10 thou feeler gauge between the frog and blade, and move it up and down the frog quite a way. That obviously means the iron is only contacting the frog at a line close to the mouth, and somewhere at the top of the frog. The iron is 0.081" thick (near as dammit 2mm), though the cap-iron is clearly not the world's finest.

This isn't the only Bailey style plane on which I've noticed this; I've seen it on other, better quality planes too; I've also seen the point raised in the past by others with rather more knowledge of planes and planing than I have.

I have my own thoughts about this, but I offer it up as a point of discussion. Is it a fault that might allow a plane to be more prone to chatter through having a poorly bedded iron/cap-iron assembly, or is it inconsequential?

Over to you, ladies and gentlemen!

 

[Jacob]

Gawd erewego!
I bought a Faithful 10. It was utterly p|ss poor and beyond fettling so I sent it back. It was good in parts though!

Chatter - loose workpiece, loosely held blade, blunt blade, poor technique, etc, could be all any of these.

 

[undergroundhunter]

Yet another can of worms.

but here is my 2p worth.

I have 8 bailey style planes all with "thin" irons and original cap irons, as you say most have gaps between the frog and the back of the iron (I've never been bothered to measure it) but its never once created me a problem. As Jacob has said chatter is normally a human error as apposed to a tool issue. I did get sucked into the hype regarding thick irons and upgraded cap irons so I bought a Quangsheng iron and cap iron from Matthew @ workshop heaven, in my opinion all it did was create me more work (irreversibly widening the mouth) with no noticeable benefit. I'm not a firm believer in if it aint broke, don't fix it.

Matt

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I think Vann had some words of wisdom on this recently in another thread :

ross-no-4-plane-t89988-30.html

Presumably if correctly shaped, the lever cap / cap iron spread the pressure on the cutting iron a bit like the framework of an old-style windscreen wiper blade.

Having tried my Record #6 with a Clifton cutting iron, the very thin Stanley iron it came with, the Clifton 2 piece cap iron, and the thin Stanley cap iron that was in the plane when I got it in various combinations, I concluded that the 2 piece stay-set cap iron made more difference than the thicker Clifton iron. With the stay-set cap iron, the thicker cutter made little difference.

 

[lurker]

I think I bought the same as CC, attraction was it was 17 quid delivered and I did not have a no.3
My expectations were very low but thought it would be OK for parts if nothing else.

It was great!!
Nicely finished, worked out of box
Sole flat to 0.1 mm all over
Edges were a little sharp but I just wiped the corners with a bit of fine emery stuck to some Mdf.
Gave the blade a tickle and it was cutting fine shavings

I think I own about 20 ish planes and this was only the second new one I have.

I admit I have not used it much and the blade may blunt quick but I did give it a work out on a bit of oak and it seemed to hold an edge ( which I was not expecting).

Only thing is, I have found I never needed a no.3 all along

 

[G S Haydon]

One thing I checked when assessing the plane was the bedding of the iron on the frog face with the plane in working condition. I could get a 10 thou feeler gauge between the frog and blade, and move it up and down the frog quite a way. That obviously means the iron is only contacting the frog at a line close to the mouth, and somewhere at the top of the frog. The iron is 0.081" thick (near as dammit 2mm), though the cap-iron is clearly not the world's finest.

I'm a dreadfully sad person. I've though about these things too and moved away from what I initially thought about them. I think pretty much any double iron bench plane iron does this. On the woodies I have the bed is not perfectly flat but it seems set, as you mention, to create pressure at the top and bottom. If you tried to make all of these mating surfaces dead flat I think it'd be a fools errand (I've been that fool).

My Dad's #4 shows a dramatic amount of wear at the very top of the frog. it looks bright because of regular use. But the rest of the frog is a dull "patina" rich colour. I think there is a balance of just enough spring.

In regard cheap planes I picked up a silverline #4 a while back for about £12.00. I did have to spend a bit of time on it but nothing crazy. I even experimented with water stones with multiple steps. While the water stones worked they did not suit me so well as my oil stones.

While it's not "nice" I could easily use it as a smoother, the surface it left behind it was no better or worse than any other plane I've used

 

[bridger]

In his original patent application for the humpback chipbreaker Leonard Bailey described it as making contact at 3 points, much like the stayset does, and for the purpose of controlling bend. It takes careful fettling to make this work, and I believe that the pressure from the lever cap comes into play. However, if you do fettle to that point the blade will sit flat on the frog. I am not sure how much correlation there is between the blade sitting flat on the frog and chatter during the cut.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

CC wrote "The biggest fault was the banana sole - 6 thou concave"

Lurker wrote "It was great.........Sole flat to 1 mm all over"


1mm=40 thou

Some slightly differing views about what is a flat sole!

Paddy

 

[D_W]

Cheshire, what you described is desirable. Bedding at the mouth and at a point near the cam (or screw, whatever it may be) on the lever cap that applies pressure to the lever to the frog.

A little more than 5 years ago, I undertook the process of creating what I thought was an ideal plane. A 55 degree infill with a hugely thick single iron and a mouth of 4 thousandths. I troubled over how the iron should be bedded, biasing at the mouth (as in on metal) and at the top where the lever cap screw would contact (on wood).

I brought it up to Rob lee wondering how they could get a thick iron with little flex to bed nicely on the pretty jeweled frog that's on the bevel up planes (I had one at the time), and he said that they bias theirs just as I did, to make sure the iron beds where it's supposed to.

A point I brought up a while ago in a youtube video is that the idea that the older type stanley planes work better because the whole frog face is milled is hooey. The later belt sanded frogs work just as well, despite having few contact points because of what you're seeing - there is no such thing as a stanley plane that has the iron bedding perfectly evenly from top to bottom on the frog - attempting to make a plane where that happens could lead to a very poor performing plane. As makers of planes, we bias things in our favor. If the iron is flat, we bias the bed. If the iron is biased (as old wooden irons are), then we can make the beds of the planes flat.

 

[G S Haydon]

I have come to the same conclusion. I had thought that the older style was better, might have even said so. However it makes no difference.

 

[David C]

What is generally ignored, is that the C/B /capiron bends the blade. (The only exception may be the Record Stay Set version, although the example I am playing with at the moment is so unflat that it bends the blade as well!.....)

If the frog is reasonably flat the blade contacts it at the heel of the bevel and the top of the frog.

This works fine and the gaps will not be closed up by the lever cap. Check with a cigarette paper or feeler gauge.
Frog to body fit is important and flatness of width of bottom of frog.

Best wishes,

David Charlesworth

 

[G S Haydon]

Nicely communicated David!

I'd agree on the Stay Set. I've only used a couple of them but the planes had the same wear pattern on the frog.

 

[D_W]

I have come to the same conclusion. I had thought that the older style was better, might have even said so. However it makes no difference.

I'm sure I've said the same thing at some time in the past. The best cure against things thought to make a difference vs. not is to make a whole bunch of planes of each type. Bit hard to do that of the stanley type, though.

Trying a bunch of different ones objectively is 99% as good.

 

[David C]

Graham,

Thank you.

The other place to look for contact polish is on the bevel side of the blade.

Polish is usually found just behind the bevel and at a point representing top of frog.

David

 

[lurker]

CC wrote "The biggest fault was the banana sole - 6 thou concave"

Lurker wrote "It was great.........Sole flat to 1 mm all over"


1mm=40 thou

Some slightly differing views about what is a flat sole!

Paddy

I did actually mean 0.1 (corrected my original post) so maybe CC and I were not that far apart.

BUT is does raise an interesting point
This is wood we are talking about, are "engineering tolerances" valid?
I mean for actual end result on the wood, not the hobby of collecting shiny tools.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Thanks all - especially to Sheffield Tony for posting the link to Vann's thoughts and pictures, which I think are very pertinent.

I think the gap I referred to does matter, and it's a fault. I also think that thin irons can be made to serve well, but getting the best from them depends a lot on cap-iron design and fit. I'll try to explain why I think this.

Consider the Bailey-type plane assembly of sole, frog, blade, cap-iron and lever cap. (This also applies to planes with Bedrock frogs.)

First - the lever cap. This applies pressure to the top of the cap-iron at two points; the top of the frog, where it traps cap-iron and blade tight against the top of the frog casting, and across the top of the 'hump' at the lower end of the cap-iron, thus holding the lower end of the cap-iron and blade in place. Lever caps are usually pretty solid and inflexible compared to cap-iron and blade; the effect of lever type and screw type is pretty much the same, except that some adjustment of pressure is possible with the screw type without resetting the 'frog screw'.

Second - the frog. This is in effect a fairly 'massive' casting, which can be considered pretty well inflexible compared to the other components mentioned. The frog casting may be set level with the sole casting, or slightly ahead of it if it is desired to close the plane's mouth. As David C pointed out, a good fit between frog and plane sole is desirable for rigidity of the whole plane assembly.

Third - the blade. This is trapped beween the cap-iron and frog. At it's lower end, the cap-iron bears on it very near the cutting edge, and the heel of the bevel bears on either the lower end of the frog casting or the sole casting - this bearing is effectively a pivot point. At the top of the frog casting, the blade is effectively fixed by being trapped under the cap-iron by the lever cap. When lever cap pressure is applied, load is transmitted through the lower end of the cap-iron to a line across the blade very close to the cutting edge. There is no support directly behind this point because a clearance bevel must exist, and thus this pressure tends to pivot the blade about the heel of the bevel. Since there is little length between cutting edge and heel, not much deflection takes place here, but if the blade is free to float between heel of bevel and top of frog, it can deflect here. Deflection is increased as a cut is taken, adding to the load applied by the cap-iron nose to the tip of the blade.

Finally, the cap-iron. There are three basic designs; bent thin steel, Stay-Set two-piece, and the newer Lie-Nielsen type thick, slab-like type.

Taking the Stay-Set first, the nose-piece is pressed against the blade at two points; a line across the blade right by the cutting edge, and at the joint of the two cap-iron pieces. Lever cap pressure therefore presses the blade into contact with the frog casting at the joint of the two cap-iron pieces, limiting the length of blade lifting from the frog casting, and thus stiffening it against any bending by the pivotting action mentioned earlier.

The Lie-Nielsen type has a very small thickening at the cutting edge, and thus a very small gap between cutting edge and top of frog. In theory, therefore, there is more length of blade between pivot point at heel of bevel and top of frog to deflect, and the blade is thus less stiffly held than with the Stay-Set cap-iron. Because the gap is so small, and the Lie-Nielsen cap-iron fairly thick and rigid, I suspect this deflection is almost self-limiting. (It is also worth noting that the L-N cap-iron is rarely used in combination with a thin iron).

Finally, the bent sheet-steel type. These vary somewhat in their fit to the blade, as Vann's pictures clearly demonstrate. In most cases, they contact the blade in a line across very near the cutting edge, and then have no contact until close to the lever-cap top-end where the blade and cap-iron are trapped against the frog. This means that there's quite a long length of blade between the heel of bevel pivot point and top of frog trapped floating with no support, and able to flex. The Bailey patent specification cap-iron fits across the blade near the cutting edge, but is bent to contact the blade in a similar position to that of the Stay-Set joint; A much shorter length of blade is thus free to flex between heel of bevel pivot point and what might be termed the 'intermediate' trap point. Pressure is applied by the lower end of the lever cap to the top of the cap-iron hump, and thus transmitted to blade at the two ends of the hump. Pressure is also applied by the lever-cap cam or screw at top of frog.

Now - chatter. When the plane hits the work, the cutting edge is driven back towards the heel of the plane, pivotting the blade at the heel of the bevel. If there is a fair length of blade unsupported between heel of bevel and top of frog, there's more flexibility in the system to allow the blade to deflect and act like a spring. If the blade is better trapped to the frog nearer the heel of the bevel, there's less unsupported length of blade, and thus less flexibility. There is therefore less liklihood of that fluttering effect that causes chatter-marks on the work.

Thus - Leonard Bailey got it dead right when he made his cap-irons contact the blade at both top and bottom of the cap-iron hump. Subsequent manufacturers and users forgetting this has resulted in more modern planes being more susceptible to chatter when used with thin blades, but this can be cured by fitting the cap-irons carefully. It could well be that with the blade and cap-iron out of the plane and on the bench, the fi looks bad, but with the blade and cap-iron in the plane and snugged down by lever-cap pressure, all is in order.

Sorry that's all a bit long-winded - trying to describe this without the pictures or sketches my computer illiteracy won't allow me to provide makes it a tad inevitable, I'm afraid!

 

[D_W]

I didn't see that original discussion on the stanley cap. Leonard expects the cap set properly to contact at the front and the back of the hump, and this discussion happened eons ago on the old tools list, with peter mcbride chiding anyone who hadn't properly set an old cap by bending it to fit so that it does contact front and back. I was in the "improved design" cap is better at that time.

In reality, the only probably i've ever seen with a stanley type cap iron is when the lever cap doesn't contact the right part of the hump. Even when they are not optimally set up (as in when they are set like those in the pictures vann showed), they still work fine.

I did have one plane where the lever cap terminated on the back side of the hump - a millers falls 10. It worked most of the time, but when planing something really hard with the cap set really close, the chip could get under it.

So before bending the old style cap around too much, I'd say try using it in a plane first. If I went to look at mine, probably none of them would bed perfectly at the back, either, and they work ideally. Bending them to get the flat part of the iron to bed perfectly could lead to too much pressure on the back of the hump and not enough on the front.

(or should I say, first just get the plane and clean up the front of the cap iron and use it as is - it'll probably be fine regardless of all of the rest of the specific details).

I agree with charlie, I'd believe any of the planes shown couldn't do good work after I'd used them. We've all been there when we think something is the tool, but it's us. Me,too, plenty of times.

 

[Jacob]

.......
Finally, the cap-iron. There are three basic designs; bent thin steel, Stay-Set two-piece, and the newer Lie-Nielsen type thick, slab-like type.

I'd take issue here - the LN isn't a "newer" type it's a reversion to older types, strictly a stylistic exercise in "retro" design - especially if includes the useless norris-style adjuster. Steam Punk?*

.......
Now - chatter. When the plane hits the work, the cutting edge is driven back towards the heel of the plane, pivotting the blade at the heel of the bevel. If there is a fair length of blade unsupported between heel of bevel and top of frog, there's more flexibility in the system to allow the blade to deflect and act like a spring. If the blade is better trapped to the frog nearer the heel of the bevel, there's less unsupported length of blade, and thus less flexibility. There is therefore less liklihood of that fluttering effect that causes chatter-marks on the work.

Dunno there's chatter and chatter. Working a woody rebate plane hard it literally buzzes along leaving a close pattern of chatter lines, which don't usually matter as they are in a rebate and you could tidy up with a gentler pass or two if you wanted to. But I've never see chatter marks like that with a wide plane. Instead they are more like longer jumps and due to something being loose - the workpiece, the plane blade, the operators grip on the plane. Sometimes eliminated by just changing the position of the workpiece in the vice, basically down to technique and adjustment

Thus - Leonard Bailey got it dead right ...... It could well be that with the blade and cap-iron out of the plane and on the bench, the fit looks bad, but with the blade and cap-iron in the plane and snugged down by lever-cap pressure, all is in order.

Yep. If he'd got it wrong there wouldn't be these endless discussions, we'd all know for sure by now!

* Here's a lie Neilsen style motorbike for those who don't know what steam punk is.

 

[D_W]

In non-finish work, the zipper effect of the chatter (feels like someone's opening a zipper while you use it) isn't always detrimental. It just makes for a loud plane when it happens in a bench plane.

The long span cap iron was designed to work with wedge fingers that terminate prior to the hump. It makes less sense over the bailey design when the contact point is the end of a lever cap. Make it heavy enough, and it works fine, but it's not an improvement as it claims to be.

They all work fine as long as they stay set tightly against the iron.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

If people are happy using planes that leave chatter marks and give that teeth-jarring high-pitched squeak, that is, of course, entirely their right. However, planes can be set up to minimise the possibility. Some people may wish to do so.