Dimensioning by hand

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I'll give you a couple of more unsolicited thoughts as I think more people would like to dimension by hand. Sharpening saws yourself is a must mostly the rip saw, and a big rip saw is the easiest thing you'll have to sharpen - you just go over the teeth of a saw in decent shape in a matter of a couple of minutes and don't overthink it.

From a productivity standpoint, though - the cap iron is an absolutely essential part of the process for the second and finish planes. It would quarter the number of trips to the stones by wood volume, eliminate any residual tearout aside from runout fuzzies that you'll get when wood grain orients into the face, and it will keep surface quality pretty consistent whether an iron is dulling or freshly sharp.

Point 1 other than this - if you do dimensioning and stick with it, you will be surprised how "highbrow" it is instead of low brow. It demands accuracy, but the accuracy is pleasant and it will be very easy to see where it pays off. Just simple rip sawing at 75% speed but accurately instead of wailing away will save far more time in the follow up, and you'll get to a point quickly where you can rip as accurately as a cheap table saw with no ball-drop events like you can have fighting wood in a cheap table saw.

Point 2 - everything has to be done in a position that is you working wood and not working to hold yourself up or being rigid and fighting your own body. Power comes from pushing your shoulder and arms do nothing but extend and hands guide things. Leaning forward as part of the extension generates great constant continuous power as long as the leaning isn't so far over that it's like bending down and coming back up. I am fat, at least relatively, and would be fit only compared to a median care home resident, but I can get after it for hours. Most of the reason that I can is neural development over time, there's some residual stamina, but a lot of it has to do with what *not* to do. No hard squeezing things, no wristy forearm killers, no leaning over and getting red faced, no stooping. Most of it is like a brisk walk.

Point 3 - it matters not so much how fast you're going but what efficiency you're getting with each stroke. Plane 95% as fast as you can and then contrast that with planing 2/3rds as fast and ensuring the plane starts on a board evenly across length and down width. The latter feels like half the work and you can think while you do it - it's engaging. It'll turn out far greater volume of work if you weigh the shavings, despite feeling like you're not doing much.

Point 4 - everything you use in much volume has to pull itself into the cut but not stop you or be "sticky" feeling in the cut because it's too aggressive. As soon as something requires you to bear down on it to work smoothly, different tool or sharper tool. Even rushing the last quarter of an hour will lead to problems - it is really measured like taking a brisk walk and refusing to run or stop.,

Shooting for accuracy in the rough work vs. just exercise seems like a pain at first, but you will be shocked at how good you are at the fine work even without doing much of it - the neural development carries over.
 
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Get a scrub plane, they are nice to work with. The EC Emmerich ones with the lignum base are my favourite, but any wooden smoother with a curved iron will do.

No doubt someone will pipe up soon and say that you don't need one, but I guess they prefer to push around a heavier plane than necessary.
I have seen them on fine tools.com aka Dieter Schmid, they have a hornbeam sole, I think I might invest in one....Hand tool work is underrated even in a commercial setting.
 
They can also give a lovely tactile, textured, almost burnished surface if kept very sharp. Nice for work that is going to be touched, like doors.
 
I have depended on a jointer thickness planer combo for the last forty odd years. There is however always a project that comes along that is too big for the machines. An example is a dining table I made from local walnut slabs.
I have a large collection of hand planes and use them constantly but still, with all the talk of scrub planes I would like to suggest the power hand plane.
They are surprisingly cheap, especially on the used market, and hugely effective. With a solid straight edge, I made one using the factory edge from a sheet of 3/4” plywood, and with a chunk of blue carpenter’s chalk you can quickly identify high spots. Used with a set of shop made wind sticks twist can be taken out.
With the blades sharpened to a fine edge the planer can be set to a surprisingly fine cut.
 
I have depended on a jointer thickness planer combo for the last forty odd years. There is however always a project that comes along that is too big for the machines. An example is a dining table I made from local walnut slabs.
I have a large collection of hand planes and use them constantly but still, with all the talk of scrub planes I would like to suggest the power hand plane.
They are surprisingly cheap, especially on the used market, and hugely effective. With a solid straight edge, I made one using the factory edge from a sheet of 3/4” plywood, and with a chunk of blue carpenter’s chalk you can quickly identify high spots. Used with a set of shop made wind sticks twist can be taken out.
With the blades sharpened to a fine edge the planer can be set to a surprisingly fine cut.
Very intrested in your post, do you releive the corners of the blade or just use as is? The reason I ask is that like you I find I can remove lots of wood effortlessly but it will leave a step line that is surpriseingly hard to get rid of.
Steve
 
Very intrested in your post, do you releive the corners of the blade or just use as is? The reason I ask is that like you I find I can remove lots of wood effortlessly but it will leave a step line that is surpriseingly hard to get rid of.
Steve
Nearly all planes are better with at least a slightly cambered blade.
Planing a surface wider than the plane is taking a series of scoops, then setting the plane finer and taking the tops of the ridges between the scoops. Much like levelling the top of a tub of ice-cream with a spoon, if you've ever tried such a thing!
A dead straight plane blade edge is only good for board edges, not faces. A slight camber will do both.
 
Quite Jacob, point taken, but how to camber the edges of an electric planer blade,,and has that been done in Johns post above?,,,In fact Ive just thought about it,,power plane off the worst and finish by hand,,,inc any ridges the power plane creates?,,
Steve.
 
You’re correct about the ridges of course but as you get closer and closer to a finished surface you keep lessening the depth of cut. My old Makita is capable of just dusting the surface, very light cuts indeed.
Of course you can switch to a hand plane at any time but any sort of convex plane iron is going to leave a series of dished cuts too.
 
......... any sort of convex plane iron is going to leave a series of dished cuts too.
Any sort of cutter which is less wide than the workpiece is going to cut a channel of some sort or other, whether powered or not.
The point about a cambered blade is that this is the best you can do, if you aren't going for further flattening - scraping, sanding etc
 
You’re correct about the ridges of course but as you get closer and closer to a finished surface you keep lessening the depth of cut. My old Makita is capable of just dusting the surface, very light cuts indeed.
Of course you can switch to a hand plane at any time but any sort of convex plane iron is going to leave a series of dished cuts too.
Sure, even scrapers dish somewhat. That’s how come the good lord gave us those lovely (festool) random orbit sanders.
Or, lacking that some nice 80 grit sandpaper stuck to a flat board.
 
If 80 grit sandpaper on a board is even a tenth as fast as hand planing, something is really wrong. Same with dual mode sanders and 80 grit - they work, but they outwork planes only when someone is not very good with a plane.

I just spent a large part of last week running a dual mode sander on edges and corners of floors, so not unfamiliar. The dual mode sander with coarse paper can't really even match a good floor scraper for speed, but it can be run by someone who doesn't know how to design or quickly sharpen a floor scraper.
 
Very intrested in your post, do you releive the corners of the blade or just use as is? The reason I ask is that like you I find I can remove lots of wood effortlessly but it will leave a step line that is surpriseingly hard to get rid of.
Steve
Similar to John DeLapp, I've undertaken almost all my primary flattening of wide boards with a surface planer. However, like him, there have been occasional boards too wide for the surface planer I've had to deal with, e.g., even at times when I've had 500 mm of cut width planers available. The option then has been all hand planing or grab a hand held power plane. I generally preferred the latter to hog off the worst of the high spots followed up with hand planes, generally a mix of a no 5 and a no 7. I just use the power planer as is with the square cornered knives, but you can set it finer and finer to reduce the ridges left needing removed with hand planes.

Hand held power planers are really best suited to narrow edges, of course, but they can be put to service to take some of the grunt work out of the initial removal of high spots in wide faces. And those wide faces don't even need to be 500 mm or more wide because a hand held power planer can do a similar job on narrower stuff too e.g., 200 mm or less wide, if required, or perhaps preferred, although it's not my method of choice for smaller stuff: at narrower widths I generally head straight to the surface planer if I can. Slainte.
 
Whos doing it? At the minute i can't afford a thicknesser. I understand the principles of dimensionsing by hand and have done it a couple of times but wondered who else does it? Its a romantic view of woodworking but i always found myself chasing my tail with it
It's what we learned for the duration of my C&G course in 1982. Doors, windows, staircase (only a short one!) other stuff entirely by hand. No machine at any point, except the stuff would be from rough sawn boards, which means not really needing a scrub plane.
The key thing is not to plane anything at all until you have crosscut and/or rip sawn ALL components to size first, from your cutting list, from your design or for whatever other reason. Except small components can be left in one length to be cut afterwards, for ease of handling. Allow for planing and a bit over length.
This is to avoid potential beginner basic mistake No 1, which is to plane up stock first, in imitation of timber-yard lengths of PAR (ready planed all round). This can be a disaster!
Is that what you are doing? What problems do you have thereafter? Do you know the sequence of work and the marking up process?
It's hard work but quite doable if you get the process right.
If doing a lot you'd really have to stick with trad sharpening for quick results (a little and often, no machines!) and not go through any of the modern time wasting routines.
 
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It's what we learned for the duration of my C&G course in 1982. Doors, windows, staircase (only a short one!) other stuff entirely by hand. No machine at any point, except the stuff would be from rough sawn boards, which means not really needing a scrub plane.
The key thing is not to plane anything at all until you have crosscut and/or rip sawn ALL components to size first, from your cutting list, from your design or for whatever other reason. Allow for planing and a bit over length.
This is to avoid potential beginner basic mistake No 1, which is to plane up stock first, in imitation of timber-yard lengths of PAR (ready planed all round). This can be a disaster!
Is that what you are doing? What problems do you have thereafter? Do you know the sequence of work and the marking up process?

why would a hand tool woodworker with a reasonable supply of lumber need to rip and crosscut all of their parts out of lumber before planing anything?

That makes no sense. one of the benefits of hand tool work is that it isn't a big deal to work through some number of components, whether it's 1 or 10, without considering some far off idea of efficiency such as progressing through thicknesses on a thickness planer.

It's better to have some variation in the work being done to be able to keep rhythm and avoid boredom or loss of focus.
 
Similar to John DeLapp, I've undertaken almost all my primary flattening of wide boards with a surface planer. However, like him, there have been occasional boards too wide for the surface planer I've had to deal with, e.g., even at times when I've had 500 mm of cut width planers available. The option then has been all hand planing or grab a hand held power plane. I generally preferred the latter to hog off the worst of the high spots followed up with hand planes, generally a mix of a no 5 and a no 7. I just use the power planer as is with the square cornered knives, but you can set it finer and finer to reduce the ridges left needing removed with hand planes.

Hand held power planers are really best suited to narrow edges, of course, but they can be put to service to take some of the grunt work out of the initial removal of high spots in wide faces. And those wide faces don't even need to be 500 mm or more wide because a hand held power planer can do a similar job on narrower stuff too e.g., 200 mm or less wide, if required, or perhaps preferred, although it's not my method of choice for smaller stuff: at narrower widths I generally head straight to the surface planer if I can. Slainte.

I don't often use a power planer, but the hand held power planers can be a blessing for quick correction if you have a way to deal with the shavings that come from them.

Mine will generally clog most dust extractors if working at a fast rate, and the extractors don't hold much. I've used a power planer perhaps fewer than half a dozen times, but those cases were just knocking corners off of really large slabs or something wide where leaning far into a piece with a power planer is far less back stress than planing stock off by hand.

Anyone who has learned to hand plane stock flat will probably have a far better feel for keeping a large surface relatively flat with a power planer, too.

If someone new to hand tools is expecting to go from a power planer to a few shavings with a hand jointer, though, probably won't have much luck. More than a few, maybe, but if there is a lot of stock to remove on a wide surface like a large slab, probably better than back breaking planing over the middle of a wide slab. Hand planing is physically easy. Hand planing a lot on something 20 inches away from the torso and with lots of length, not so much.
 
plus,
if it all gets a bit much try out Jacob's ice cream.....n scoff the lot.....
learn how to do it by hand then buy a decent thicknesser...
early modern machine are really good.....Electra Beckum, Makita even DeWalt....
I still have my ELU from years ago...
luckily I have a monster prof jointer thicknesser but I wont sell the above...

If u get lucky a decent machine 240v will be around the £300 mark...
My planes like hand saws are little used now...
never enough time and my body is junk.....hahaha....
 
I have and know the steps. Its just practice. I do fear however, like you said, sizing parts to rough dimensions and then flattening etc by hand and then over shooting one part in thickness. Is it not easier to attempt to flatted the whole piece and then go by the cutting list and get that so correct dimensions as each component will be the same thickness?
 
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