Face side

[D_W]

Charlie - did you find your pre-2012 post referring to planecraft and suggesting that someone might use the cap iron to control tearout?

Because Warren is the only person I can recall mentioning it. I doubt he discovered anything other than to read 18th century excerpts. It's clear that it was already well discovered when it eliminated all other plane types from any significant market share almost all at once.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Not quite sure why I'm even getting sucked into this but

"There are five cures for tearing
1. Reverse the direction of planning
2. Sharpen the blade
3. Take a very fine cut
4. Set the cap iron very close
5. Close up the mouth
Any one of these or combination will prevent tearing"

taken from "The Essential Woodworker, Skills tools and methods", page 13 by Alan Wearing, published 1988 B T Batsford, London.

This is from a widely read well respected text. I have no idea what the people you were discussing tearout with on a internet forum were saying in 2012, but be aware that forums represent a tiny proportion of woodworkers.

I agree with your basic premis that a decently set up Stanley can do at least as well as premium bevel up high angle tight mouth planes. It is the idea that this was rediscovered in 2012 (perhaps it was by a small number of people discussing it on an internet forum but as I have demonstrated above it is clearly outlined in the published literature) and that setting the cap iron close eliminates all tearout, with some grain scraping is the most efficient way to deal with tear.

As discussed in another thread Wearing's book is quite basic but is well worth a read. The internet can be a useful place for learning and discussion but lacks the authority of quality published texts. If one started with Wearing rather than infomercials from tool company's and discussions on forums then the information about cap irons was there from 1988, and undoubtedly from much earlier in other texts (don't have a particularly well stocked woodworking library).
Paddy

 

[Trafalgar]

Charlie - did you find your pre-2012 post referring to planecraft and suggesting that someone might use the cap iron to control tearout?

Because Warren is the only person I can recall mentioning it. I doubt he discovered anything other than to read 18th century excerpts. It's clear that it was already well discovered when it eliminated all other plane types from any significant market share almost all at once.

You keep asking everybody this foolish question.

I can barely remember the details of last Christmas (without referring to photos!) much less what I may have been ranting about in 2012 or earlier on a woodworking forum. But you're right, all of this is subject to your own personal recollection. There could have been half a dozen or more people making the same point back then, but perhaps not as stridently. Or you missed the posts. Have you read every post on every woodworking forum before 2012? You seem to be asserting as much. What about individual woodworkers' sites, i.e. not woodworking forums? Or does it even matter? It's been in print since the 1920s in one of the most 'famous' woodworking publications in Western woodworking.

Otherwise, some of us have gotten along quite well with the list Paddy posted right above which is wholly consistent with Planecraft and several other books published essentially simultaneously with it through the years, Wearing being one of the best-known examples.

Are you sitting down?

Prepare to be amazed: I have adjusted a cap iron before all of this 'stuff' hit the internet. I've also adjusted mouth aperture, honed the cutter, and adjusted it to take a light cut. The only thing astounding about this whole issue is how infatuated you are by it and this linkage to a mysterious fellow named "Warren." One is hard pressed to understand why the internet and "Warren" seem to have become your measure of things.

 

[D_W]

Because Warren is the only person I recall who ever actually consistently advocated using the cap iron.

Sure, you can get by without it, it'll just take longer and require more tolerance for spending and dust.

I'll duck out of this for now until I actually see evidence that anyone else ever addressed someone and offered that (cap iron) solution. There are copious responses to Warren suggesting he's wrong and nobody agreeing with him until 2012.

To suggest that there is much else out there is just incorrect. Except in texts that people failed to recommend until after 2012.

 

[Trafalgar]

It's sad to see somebody double-down on being an absolute ignoramus.

 

[Droogs]

@ DW
Can I ask, is Warren his first name or surname? Can you tell us his/her full name and where they've published/posted? Just so I know who you are talking about and can look up what they said.
Just so you know, I was told about adjusting the cap iron to account for the size of shaving being taken and avoid tear out, as part of school woodwork lessons in the 70's and 80's. Part of the standard practice at the time and being asked it's purpose during exams. So not new

rgds
droogs

 

[Penfold]

How about a LA sharpened to give an effective cutting angle of 52 deg or use a Stanley no 80.

 

[Trafalgar]

Graham Blackburn Steps in for Ailing David Charlesworth

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodw ... lesworth-2

By: Megan Fitzpatrick | September 19, 2011

Planing for the Perfect Surface

Graham Blackburn has joined the list of expert woodworkers instructing at this year’s Woodworking in America Conference (Sept. 30-Oct. 2 at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center). Friday, Sept. 30, 2-4 p.m & Saturday, Oct. 1, 4:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m. (2011)

For the perfect surface you need to be able to plane any piece of wood in any direction, regardless of grain. This is what planes are designed to do. Watch as Graham demonstrates the secrets of the cap iron, a jig-free method of sharpening, and the basic user techniques for guaranteed accuracy in order to turn virtually any bench plane — wooden, Stanley-type, or high-end — into the ultimate finishing tool.

Sound familiar?

It's my understanding that the same information is imparted in Blackburn's video series that came out in 2005.

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/video ... -one-place

Cheers,

Charles

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

P

 

[Sgian Dubh]

To be perfectly honest, I don't properly understand how in recent years the setting of a cap iron, or as it seems recently to have been renamed, the chip-breaker, became contentious. I've been using standard bench planes since (and I rather dislike admitting this) the 1960s. The cap iron was a standard item then, as it had been for decades before that as far as I know. I quite quickly became aware of the different adjustments a user could make to a plane, e.g., sharpening (straight with bevelled corners, or curved), move the frog to open or close the mouth, adjust the cap iron for a fine or relatively coarse cut, flatten the sole, etc. I became aware of these adjustments because I was shown them by the joiners and furniture makers I worked with, including Bob Wearing who was one of my teachers at a fairly early point in my career.

Well, I guess this is one of those things that has simply left me a bit baffled, ha, ha. Slainte.

 

[AndyT]

Richard you are not the only one who is baffled.
I'm baffled at what this circular discussion of "who said what about the cap iron" has to do with marking the face side on a piece of wood, and why a few people seem to drag so many hand tool threads round into the same whirlpool, from which there seems to be no escape.

I've no idea who Warren is, or was in 2012. Has he been banned?

 

[David C]

I think Charles & David should take their private conversation elsewhere.

It is of no interest.

David

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Returning to the matter of face sides and edges, I can see the logic in using the inside surfaces of carcasses as the face side. However, having used the show side for as long as I can remember, I can see the logic in that, too. The important point is to be consistent.

A point not so far mentioned (I think) is that whichever faces and edges are chosen and marked as the references, those are ALWAYS the ones from which marking-out or measuring is done. Marking and mortice gauge fences run on the face edge or face side, and the stock of squares seats to the face side or edge - NEVER on the non-reference side or edge. If any measuring or comparing of diagonals has to be done during trial fits or assembly, it is done to the face sides or edges.

 

[Trafalgar]

It depends on the method of carcase construction of course but one would never want the inside of a carcase to be the convex side if it started to move. It also should be the most accurately prepared surface so it's best that it be the reference surface. It's possible one can run out of thickness in treating the opposite side. If this happened to be the outside of the carcase it would be much less an issue.

This doesn't affect selecting the 'pretty' side one bit unless that side would tend toward the concave which would represent a potentially devastating error in construction.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I think if a carcase component warped, one has a problem whether it becomes concave or convex. Sound construction methods and allowing timber to stabilise as much as possible are usually sufficient to avoid the problem, or at any rate are regarded as good practice to limit the liklihood of such problems.

I don't in any way suggest that selecting the inner faces of a carcase as the reference faces is 'wrong', indeed I see the logic in so working. However, I was taught to use the outer (show) face as reference, and have done so without problem since. This seems a classic case of 'different ways', with arguments to made in favour of either, and it seems from previous posts that different craftsmen have taken either approach in the past, and produced lasting work.

My real point was to emphasise that whichever method is chosen, to think through what is intended to be achieved and then to be consistent through the whole job. Also, most importantly, only ever use the reference surfaces (face side and face edge) to measure or mark from, whether with marking or mortice gauges, square and marking knife, or measuring devices during trial fits or final assembly.

 

[Trafalgar]

If the carcase sides are to be solid slabs (not post and frame) and there is plenty of thickness to work with then it's probably not a problem. If thickness is close, it's better to make sure the inside surface is true and therefore the reference surface. The inside surfaces are of course nothing more (or less) than the side opposite the one the cabinetmaker has chosen to show to the world.

Wood always moves. Letting it come to equilibrium with the shop environment doesn't prevent future movement. During the process of coming into equilibrium the cabinetmaker is given the opportunity to see where the future movement will tend to be and then the construction should be planned accordingly. Letting wood come to equilibrium in the shop only prevents excessive movement during the build itself. And of course we're only talking about previously properly kiln dried or properly air dried wood.

In a solid sided carcase the drawer runners help prevent that side from cupping concave but one must have oriented the slab so that it would cup in that direction in the first place. The runners are much less effective in preventing movement the other way. If the side is glued up of many narrow pieces then it's less an issue, though overall cosmetics may very well be if the article isn't veneered -- a matter of style and taste not the subject of the thread.

 

[RB61]

Thanks to all. This is one of the most informative and interesting posts that this Yank has seen.

Ray
in the Colonies

 

[Bluekingfisher]

If the carcase sides are to be solid slabs (not post and frame) and there is plenty of thickness to work with then it's probably not a problem. If thickness is close, it's better to make sure the inside surface is true and therefore the reference surface. The inside surfaces are of course nothing more (or less) than the side opposite the one the cabinetmaker has chosen to show to the world.

Wood always moves. Letting it come to equilibrium with the shop environment doesn't prevent future movement. During the process of coming into equilibrium the cabinetmaker is given the opportunity to see where the future movement will tend to be and then the construction should be planned accordingly. Letting wood come to equilibrium in the shop only prevents excessive movement during the build itself. And of course we're only talking about previously properly kiln dried or properly air dried wood.

In a solid sided carcase the drawer runners help prevent that side from cupping concave but one must have oriented the slab so that it would cup in that direction in the first place. The runners are much less effective in preventing movement the other way. If the side is glued up of many narrow pieces then it's less an issue, though overall cosmetics may very well be if the article isn't veneered -- a matter of style and taste not the subject of the thread.

Thanks. A very valid point, particularly for a hobby woodworker (such as me) such information can be overlooked in simply exposing the most attractive face.

David

 

[Trafalgar]

The Mona Lisa was painted on board (poplar) in the very early 1500s, is housed in a rigorously controlled environment, and still the wood moves and gives its curators fits.

 

[custard]

If the side is glued up of many narrow pieces then it's less an issue, though overall cosmetics may very well be if the article isn't veneered -- a matter of style and taste not the subject of the thread.

Here's an interesting thing, given enough time any horizontal surface almost always tends to cup up at the edges, in other words the top surface tends to become concave. I've seen hundreds of antiques that follow exactly this pattern, which included single wide boards with the heartside both up and down, as well as jointed surfaces that ranged from two boards to many small staves.

I've heard an ingenious explanation which if I can remember correctly goes along the lines that the uppermost surface will initially collect the moisture condensing from the air, so will tend to cup downwards, in other words become convex. But because the surface is generally fixed to the frame below the wood cells in the very top layer eventually become compressed, almost crushed, and over time lose some of their elasticity, so the "resting" position eventually becomes concave.

Whether or not this is correct I don't know, but the statistical prevalence of top surface concavity is too significant to ignore.