Can you read this in England?

[D_W]

https://books.google.com/books?id=d...V5FjQIHVfjA1MQ6AF6BAgDEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false
That's not a shot at whether or not it's the same English as is used in the states, but I mean does google give you the rights to read it. If they do, I'm going to pull some sections from this because I have an earlier three volume set of this and there are some gold mines in it, but if you are to read the three volume set end to end, you're going to get bogged down in a lot of decorative turning and maybe not be so excited to find the parts that have to do with cutting joints, sharpening tools or setting planes and what type they should be.

I've backed into what works efficiently by hand if you're going to be at a bench working wood from rough sawn to finish and trying to minimize the use of power tools and sandpaper, but I wouldn't have known where to read about it. roubo is too old and I think most people are more interested in the idealistic tights wearing stuff than they are in the woodworking from it, and nicholson is pretty freaking great, but it's seldom suggested and the descriptions are pretty brief. it nails sharpening, though, but holtzapffel hammers it in 1875 to perfection for efficient neat work.

It would be a shame if you can't read this. let me know if you can, and I'll pull some page references from it.

 

[Jarno]

Works in NL.

 

[D_W]

I see in the new version of google books, it's easy to find the reference to fully download the PDF of this, too.

 

[D_W]

page 476 (use the scroller on the side to get to pages - it's long!)
- a list of planes that would be used in a full hand tool context (for flat work, jack, trying, long (24 inch-ish try plane), jointer, a typical smoother and "modeling" (very small) smoother. Jack trying and one good smoothing plane cover everything (there is no wooden plane that i've found that's as good as a stanley four...which is too bad, but so little work is done smoothing after a try plane that it doesn't matter if it's metal)

general function of planes and wedge and abutment and iron, etc follow.

Page 479 - the first bomb - the sharpening of the iron assumes a 25 degree grind and a 35 degree secondary bevel applied by a fine stone with a comment that the ultimate bevel should like 10 degrees from the surface. There is a LOT in this statement, but one of the keys to hand work is eliminating damage to the edge of an iron. In my experience on medium hardwoods without contamination, this starts around 32-33 degrees and the type or hardness of the iron has little to do with this angle - it varies a degree or two from the best to the worst usable. If you are sharpening wear off of an iron, you will be sharpening somewhere around .001". If you nick an irons edge, you will need to sharpen off about .004" to remove the kinds of nicks that will stop a plane from planing.

This is worth considering if you're doing more than a little bit of planing. It takes a long time to hone off 4 thousandths of length accurately.

Page 480 describes mouth aperture and avoiding tearout (which is an enormous efficiency reducer if it becomes anything more than minor chatter in a shaving). Then, as we would find out using a double iron to actually dimension a volume of wood vs. single irons, the literature flatly says that all of the refinements are done in a much superior manner with a double iron.

This statement is pretty flatly made, but where the rubber hits the road is that this action of planing is an economically gainful thing. The double iron does all of it better and faster. I can't imagine there's been any period that cost wasn't an issue.

Further on, it states that the constant employment shows improvement in function, the plane works more smoothly (it does, the cut is never interrupted) but that you can feel resistance and it works "harder" because of it. that is definitely true, but if you plane shavings that are torn and you plane the double iron shavings of the same set thickness and then weigh the two, you will quickly find that you are getting far more wood planed per stroke.

This kind of experiment takes about 10 minutes to do if you have a postal scale and you'll find out *exactly* what work you're doing instead of what it feels like you're doing.

 

[D_W]

The book says that the effect is particularly observable with the jack plane. In my opinon, it's nice to spend the extra money on wood that doesn't require the cap to be set that close to the edge. Occasionally you come upon curly wood that needs the cap iron set closer on the jack but no matter how you jack plane that, it's a slog. Planing it with a single iron is out of the question and if you can saw something to get close to the mark, you'll probably be further ahead.

The text mentions the cap iron being set as close as 1/50th of an inch. I've looked at my cap iron under the microscope on the smoother - it's usually more like .01", but we're not all able to get cuban mahogany or honduran mahogany to plane endlessly.

It also mentions that the cap is "sharpened", and by that, I think that they mean that where it meets the wood, it's neatly done - it's not sloppy and it's not coarse. Some cap irons around this time would've been two piece - a hardened bit attached to a wrought iron blade, certainly still in service. it's important that the cap stays in good shape, but it doesn't get resharpened regularly or anything.

The text then goes on to introduce the back bevel stating that the goal is a 60 degree edge if planing nasty wood. I've found that even an infill with a .004" mouth at 55 degrees is not a match for a stanley plane. it's a treat to see that this 60 degree angle is brought up, because that's about where I found a plane to cease tearing out. It's mentioned here for moulding planes, etc.

This is on page 481, by the way.

the miter plane is mentioned next with the same 60 degree goal. As in, anything other than this is done with the double iron. there is no chasing of common angles and a tight mouth - it's not economically gainful or it would be mentioned.

482 mentions common angles - common pitch for softwoods, york in planes for hardwoods or "stringy" and then 55/60 for single iron planes like moulding planes depending on wood used (60 for moulding planes used with mahogany and birdseye maple).

birdseye is definitely worse than curly maple - curly is often mention now, but it's not that hard to plane. Keeping the grain going toward you and away from you around the birdseyes is much more difficult. drum sanders are really good at it, though.

 

[D_W]

The text on 483 goes on to talk about close woods like boxwood scraping well and then on planing brass. which sounds stupid now, but I've not had trouble getting the edge geometry on inexpensive knives set so that they'll cut annealed brass. never considered planing it, but that's a to-do now. It wouldn't pin if you planed it whereas filing a great amount of it on a plane side can be sketchy due to pinning.

The last bit is about planing "showy woods" where grain direction predictability is poor and you have to resort to planing various directions or to scraping instead.

 

[ChrisWiduWood]

https://books.google.com/books?id=d...V5FjQIHVfjA1MQ6AF6BAgDEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false
That's not a shot at whether or not it's the same English as is used in the states, but I mean does google give you the rights to read it. If they do, I'm going to pull some sections from this because I have an earlier three volume set of this and there are some gold mines in it, but if you are to read the three volume set end to end, you're going to get bogged down in a lot of decorative turning and maybe not be so excited to find the parts that have to do with cutting joints, sharpening tools or setting planes and what type they should be.

I've backed into what works efficiently by hand if you're going to be at a bench working wood from rough sawn to finish and trying to minimize the use of power tools and sandpaper, but I wouldn't have known where to read about it. roubo is too old and I think most people are more interested in the idealistic tights wearing stuff than they are in the woodworking from it, and nicholson is pretty freaking great, but it's seldom suggested and the descriptions are pretty brief. it nails sharpening, though, but holtzapffel hammers it in 1875 to perfection for efficient neat work.

It would be a shame if you can't read this. let me know if you can, and I'll pull some page references from it.

Yes its readable

 

[D_W]

Page 496 - sharpening

two jack planes are mentioned if the work is really rough or dirty. I have a second jack plane set for nasty stuff and figured it was just a luxury (it is). Nice to see that there's precedent, though, too.

plane irons are ground with the stone running toward the edge (I think we all generally do that with powered machines now, but you never know if someone wants to side sharpen even on really coarse work).

A second bevel is applied at 10 degrees more than 25 with an oilstone (separating grinding and honing to make sure you hone the actual iron edge!!!).

There is a short discussion then on holding an iron so as not to remove more steel from one side of the iron than the other. I think it's easier to check the burr periodically and make sure it matches where you want the steel to be removed ( directing pressure where you want the work to be done without actually sharpening only part of the iron).

If the work is important, the iron is laid flat on a stone on the flat side and as the text says, the stone should be kept "quite flat" basically to weaken the wire edge. if you have to tear off the wire edge for some reason, then you should redo the fine work with the oilstone.







Exceptional.

 

[D_W]

that whole section is one of the best I've ever seen on general ideals about how the plane should be set up for various bits of work (I don't think york pitch is ever needed on a double iron plane, but that's a minor thing - it's hardly more pushing work) and the discussion of sharpening and separating sharpening and grinding and taking care not to leave a ragged edge by refinishing after stripping the burr...great.

 

[D_W]

The oilstone that they're referring to is either going to be a washita or a turkish oilstone. Good luck finding a real original turkish oilstone. There is someone still marketing light and dark cretan hones, and they're close, and pretty good once broken in.

 

[G S Haydon]

Hi David. Yes, available to read and thank you for highlighting the useful parts of the text. Google does have quite a few good books on there.

 

[D_W]

Hi David. Yes, available to read and thank you for highlighting the useful parts of the text. Google does have quite a few good books on there.

there's a lot else interesting in the texts, but it can be hard to discern what's practical or useful. there are intermittent write-ups between what I cited above describing a few novel designs that didn't pan out. I can't remember the particulars now, but something to do with cap iron adjustability on the fly or some such thing. It just isn't practically needed, and it's not a surprise to see that the market never caught on.

There's also commentary about the rising popularity of iron planes and their ability to keep the mouth/sole setting without wearing. In the US by this time, the wooden planes were already poor quality, or close to it. there may have still been some legitimate makers in the northeast, but the ohio, auburn, etc, planes were soon to become the norm and they sometimes used very good wood, but the irons were lower quality and hit or miss even at that.

I never even thought about who the actual audience was for these texts in the first place. They're cheap to get reprints of now, at least if they're in print, but they must've been pricey in the 1800s.

 

[Droogs]

No, we are all illegitimate and therefore not allowed. In reality yeah it's fine but reading it in my 2nd print copy is far better and smells nicer too

 

[Jester129]

.......D_W is certainly back, isn't he?

 

[D_W]

.......D_W is certainly back, isn't he?

Probably intermittent - I'm miles deep in metal stuff. There's not that much really to talk about hand work with wood the last year, which is kind of a bummer.

Well, year isn't true - I made two and a half guitars so far this year, but the metal work and figuring things out to make the metalwork better for tools is kind of a side draw.

This holtzapffel text comes to mind even there, though, as I'm trying not just to make plane irons or chisels, but I'm trying to make them better for hand work than anything available - as in fine grained and never carrying nicking that isn't removed by regular sharpening, and not relying on a commercial heat treater or buying an electric furnace to do it, either. Trying to back into what England was doing for skilled process in the 1800s - heat treating by eye, and having good success with it (albeit with the help of some microscopes to actually see test samples).

there are a couple of commercial irons in that pile just to use as templates to trace the slot, but not many.