Cabinetman
Established Member
Ok, I’ll be the fall guy here. Would you mind explaining please Ttrees what an influenced shaving is?
Hand Plane setup, sharpening & how to plane properly - in person course
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Ttrees
Iroko loco!
Lol, should you be traveling to PA then I think you will find out fairly soon, although
I did give you a link before to the "setting a cap iron" article on a wood central article.
I've tried my best to show influenced shavings which a smoother was designed to do. (if necessary), so that probably covers 70% of all timbers anyone might have.
Planing some wet ash rounds recently, and the cap iron needed to be set far away from the edge, haven't too much of an answer for that,
at best I could reckon that the through shavings had enough strength to keep together
and resist tearing, but a pure guess, I haven't mucked about with much ash, but be interesting to see the fancy flooring offcuts is anyway similar.
One could see straight shavings, so guessing the cap likely could have had effect/influence, much what looks like what Follansbee's cuts.
Strength of the shaving "breaking the chip" without need for any "pressing down of the fibres" with the mouth.
Could waffle on about "influenced" shavings, Kato & Kawai video, its an old Japanese? video of an experiment where they rigged up a double iron (like on a Bailey plane)
and experimented with the cap iron, there is no mouth involved, so takes it out of the equation.
Never mind that, just look at the shavings, straight, burnished, greasy, crinkled, for an idea of what an influenced shaving looks like.
Then look at the work, or for a surprise, look at the work of the hardest examples of tricky grain you can find, for a glass like finish. (chatoyance)
Whether that's your bag or not, is not the important part.
Being able to plane timbers without tearing out is.
I've tried to demonstrate this in a normal occurrence for me, some knotty pitch pine
and some of my iroko, but I obviously failed.
No mad sharpening either, if it cuts hair its good enough, and if relying on sharpness for this technique, the cap iron isn't having enough influence.
I like mine honed just over 50 degrees, like in the photo what Adam posted from some old book, the steeper this is honed at, the further it can be set away from the edge.
Thinner panels are a perfect example though, in that you likely need to take a light cut
to suit the close set cap iron, should you have less than easy working timbers.
I think for anyone who want's to get the best out of their plane, and is planing thinner stock, will find anything which will deflect the work a hindrance, i.e wedges or dogs bending the work.
should they need to use a fine shaving like above, as pressing down on the work
to keep it in the cut will likely break the finer shaving of the smoother plane, leaving a lump which might cause some to advance the cut,
and thus have a horrible time trying to plane using the cap iron to its potential, or it just not working.
Maybe you folks would like to see both the winding sticks and a flat bench approach?
Well I haven't seen Brain do any checks on the bench, clickedy clacks or pivoting,
but reckon the technique might be in some more of his videos.
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Sorry, Ttrees, I'm afraid I still don't follow. Could you possibly explain what an influenced shaving is in simple terms that I can understand?
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
I can try, the straight shavings is the best indicator of the cap iron working to its potential.
Taking a fully influenced shaving is guaranteed not to tear out the grain.
I mostly use three planes, a beater plane with a bit of camber for hogging off material,
and two other planes that take an influenced shaving
(5 1/2 and a smoother)
Maybe Adam has a better word for this in his book rather than influence,
I've certainly not heard of a better description.
Possibly stems from this old video
One could try finding some Graham Blackburn articles to see what he says.
I've heard of "type two" shavings talked about before, but have heard that is strictly concerning fine shavings only?
Ya'll probably read David's article before on the subject before...
https://www.woodcentral.com/articles/test/articles_935.shtmlHe has videos on the subject too,
Should be able to see with your own eyes, if anyone still thinks this is bull.
Tom
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Adam W.
A Major Clanger
Is that me you're refering to Tom, or another Adam ?
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Ttrees
Iroko loco!
Yes, you shared a piccy from an old book, unless it's some new publication
and the dog just spilled tea over it.
Did it give much of a clue, or did it just refer to that as smoothing, a smoother shaving, finish shaving?
Be interesting to know what the book was, might have been told already, but I have a head like a sieve.
Tom
and the dog just spilled tea over it.
Did it give much of a clue, or did it just refer to that as smoothing, a smoother shaving, finish shaving?
Be interesting to know what the book was, might have been told already, but I have a head like a sieve.
Tom
thikone
Established Member
When I was learning how to plane I read and saw a lot about winding sticks and was going to make some, of course. But when I built my workbench 100+ kg and flattened the top with #7 it turned out so great that I used it to check other surfaces for flatness. It also takes seconds to use. I just have to flip the board and remove any shavings or dust from underneath. I think my fingers can feel it better if there is any rocking, better than my eyes would see out of parallel winding sticks. Am I alone in using this technique? Is it less efficient than winding sticks still? I've hear some people say they use cast iron table top of a table saw to check for flatness, but I think those who do rarely plane anything by hand...
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
Jacob
Pint of bass, porkpie, and packet of crisps please
I think the notion of "reference surface" has slipped in from engineering and metal work - I'd never heard of it until I came on to chat groups.
Never heard of "type 2" shavings or "influenced" shavings - until today!
Never watched Daves vids on setting up planes nor read his article.
Never achieved "through" shavings except by chance.
Somehow think I've not missed anything much. Could be wrong, too old to change anything now!
I'll just carry on, head down brain off as usual.
PS winding sticks are just a fundamental, DIY, simple, cheap, highly effective tool. I don't see the point of struggling to manage without them - which is a new idea for me too and I'm not going to try it!
What about having a go at things with one hand tied behind your back? Does anybody do this? I'll report back later and do a vid!
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Ttrees
Iroko loco!
If you've got one why not use it? if you've gotta make small things/jigs extremely accurately or efficiently.
I spend more time on that sort of stuff than any woodworking.
Only just bought a 2 meter fancy level milled on both edges, partly to keep my not so temporary bench in check, as making bits from offcuts can bite you in the arese sometimes.
The vernier caliper tells all, often more so than an engineers square, without having to read it.
Then the granite block may make sense.
Attachments
Sporky McGuffin
Light entertainer
Me neither! I can't see any description in any of the posts of the shaving itself, and what constitutes an influenced shaving vs an uninfluenced shaving.
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Ttrees
Iroko loco!
The shaving jumping out of the plane is what you're looking for,
note that it stays straight, and doesn't curl.
Have a watch of this guy, Dusty splinters
Kees who I believe has a lot on the subject,
Or even Mr Chickadee
Richard Mcguire, and only one or two others you will find.
Derek Cohen has some good stuff on the subject should you look.
One could say Cosman too, but it's clear that there isn't enough influence on some stock,
as he promotes certain tools for the job, like high angle or back bevels,
rather than teaching how to get by just fine without super edges, or spare irons.
It would be a harder sell if one had to demonstrate sharp chisels,
and compete with a cheap strop.
You should be able to see some damage to the shavings I have, might leave a hair of a line, but the plane still works regarding not getting tearout.
If one is relying on going back to that super edge for tearout elimination, then there's not enough influence of the cap iron, so needs to be closer or steeper.
Note Kees and Cosman are likely some of the only people I know to have the cap honed at lower angles.
I'd have to set my smoothers cap too close for my timbers, if I did that, as it wouldn't allow for any minute camber cuz it would overshoot on the corners.
Having it further away means it's less likely to get damaged.
Makes sense to hone at 50somethin
Whether, I'm actually at 50somethin is another matter, taking the hump out of the equation, I just eyeball the flat section and pay no heed to the curved bit.
If the cap wont pair with the iron well, and the iron is flat,
then use the corner of a hone or a strip of very fine abrasive, and hone the middle a little so it's flat.
Full length strokes afterwards will have two points of contact instead of one,
This should only take a stroke or two to get it bang on.
Hopefully that answers that, whether it's necessary to bring it up is another matter,
which we don't know is relevant or not
Just making the point that working on thin difficult timber species adds more
things to the equation, which may or may not be in any courses, be it online or somewhere else.
All this might be a consideration for the OP, in regards to the type of work one wants to do.
note that it stays straight, and doesn't curl.
Have a watch of this guy, Dusty splinters
Kees who I believe has a lot on the subject,
Or even Mr Chickadee
Richard Mcguire, and only one or two others you will find.
Derek Cohen has some good stuff on the subject should you look.
One could say Cosman too, but it's clear that there isn't enough influence on some stock,
as he promotes certain tools for the job, like high angle or back bevels,
rather than teaching how to get by just fine without super edges, or spare irons.
It would be a harder sell if one had to demonstrate sharp chisels,
and compete with a cheap strop.
You should be able to see some damage to the shavings I have, might leave a hair of a line, but the plane still works regarding not getting tearout.
If one is relying on going back to that super edge for tearout elimination, then there's not enough influence of the cap iron, so needs to be closer or steeper.
Note Kees and Cosman are likely some of the only people I know to have the cap honed at lower angles.
I'd have to set my smoothers cap too close for my timbers, if I did that, as it wouldn't allow for any minute camber cuz it would overshoot on the corners.
Having it further away means it's less likely to get damaged.
Makes sense to hone at 50somethin
Whether, I'm actually at 50somethin is another matter, taking the hump out of the equation, I just eyeball the flat section and pay no heed to the curved bit.
If the cap wont pair with the iron well, and the iron is flat,
then use the corner of a hone or a strip of very fine abrasive, and hone the middle a little so it's flat.
Full length strokes afterwards will have two points of contact instead of one,
This should only take a stroke or two to get it bang on.
Hopefully that answers that, whether it's necessary to bring it up is another matter,
which we don't know is relevant or not
Just making the point that working on thin difficult timber species adds more
things to the equation, which may or may not be in any courses, be it online or somewhere else.
All this might be a consideration for the OP, in regards to the type of work one wants to do.
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Jacob
Pint of bass, porkpie, and packet of crisps please
I see what you mean by "through" shavings - it's what you get from the edge of a board, especially with easy wood like poplar.
Normal really, I get them all the time! But not so often from the face of a board.
Can't say I'm bothered whether they are straight or curly, in fact I've never given it a thought.
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
Interesting comment Jacob.
Whether the term through shaving and influenced shaving are interchangable
is kind of a grey area to me.
Through unbroken shavings with less infulence, seem to work in Rob's favour, Follansbee's, my case for the chopped ash rounds which might make nice boxes.
I've messed about going steeper with the cap, but never gave it the chance,
as I had it too close, just like I was used to with 50somethin.
Very immediate light to heavy shaving, (at the distance I'd been using for 50)
Warren Mickley's been using this technique since 1980's and works by hand
for money.
He recommends going very steep, not knowing what sort of plane, (could be woodies with thick irons?)
wood (dry or wet?), nor type of work he's producing,(need for hefty removal or small stuff?) hard to know if that is also suitable for myself to give another shot.
I just know what works for me, if it doesn't and I get tearout, it's only a case that I don't have enough influence.
Tom
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Plane a shaving about 3 thousandths thick. Notice that it curls up in a tight spiral and sits inside of the plane (if it's good wood). It's been severed from the surface of a board without anything holding it down.
Set the cap iron close enough so that it is exerting some force on the shaving (which will be needed if it has the strength to lift out like a splinter and then break off below the surface progressively as you plane (this is tearout - the shaving lifts and nothing keeps it from lifting in the grain below the cut level).
when the shaving is influenced by the cap iron, it will be bent past the point that it just springs back and will come out of a plane flat or showing that it's been bent. This change indicates that the cap iron was pushing back on the shaving so that at it would be held down to the wood for the plane iron to cut it flush with the surface without anything breaking and lifting out.
This is a heavier shaving as I was planing stock for moulding, but this is the type of work where the cap iron is most useful (not smoothing, but the moderate work to a mark with a slightly heavier shaving - it's also useful for smoothing, of course, and saves time with both, but this step is where it saves the most).
Notice how the shaving is straight in sections - the cap iron has altered the shaving where it was forced into the cap (but the alteration happens after the shaving is severed, so the surface is still clear.
Power planers with back knives do the exact same thing as this, but most people don't really gather what they're doing or why - the same thing is done all over the place in woodworking where tearout control is wanted but without having to take all of the poor compromises that come along with scraping in great volumes or planing with very high angles.
(I found another picture that illustrates this well - a very heavy shaving of curly maple - no tearout, no interruptions - I think most people who don't work entirely by hand for some period will never really get that good with planes. If you try to do neat work and work entirely by hand, it will be almost impossible to not get good at this stuff as it leads to completing work with more pleasure, with less effort, with less ruined materials and no marks missed.
but at the same time, no limit on just how nasty wood can be with standard planes).
It also eliminates the need to waste money on all of the gimmicks (scraping planes, high angle planes, modern infills, etc).
The vintage infills generally are set and work identically to a common stanley plane. If they're not being set the same way (they have cap irons and have the inside of the sole filed so that they can be set close to prevent tearout), then a lot of the planes' capabilities are being left behind and time is wasted.
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To the OP, using hand planes in actual work and not defaulting back to power tools is what will make you good with them quickly. There are two things you need to do (and all of the other details are secondary).
1) learn to sharpen reliably and quickly in a way that the plane iron both holds up well and has enough clearance (this isn't' that tall of an order, but when you're not hitting it every time, it is. Charlesworth's video with a three bevel system is a very good place to start, and you can move away from it to gain speed as you get better at things). Charlesworth's method gives you results and the hardware used to do it isn't very expensive (eclipse style guide- any of them).
2) if you're going to do much planing with modern lumber, you need to learn the cap iron second for everything sometimes (as in even needed for the roughest of work on very bad wood), and for middle and smoothing work otherwise.
If you learn 1 and 2, you will be able to use inexpensive planes to plane anything -better and faster and with better results than the typical hobbyist will use very expensive planes.
It's using the tools as they're designed to be used that's important, and not so much whether it's cosman or sellers, etc, as neither of those guys teaches a very complete (they're overwrought playing with bits of the planes that make no difference) or accurate view of planing.
Once you get through 1 and 2 above, you can more or less start to focus on actual planing of wood (if you want to do a lot of it) - which is generally a matter of not wasting energy or motion when planing, or getting stuck in prescriptive methods besides loose rules. Nicholson's texts have a breif discussion of planing (I can't remember which as I didn't learn from them, but their description is accurate). You plane the high spots off of a board so that you can plane continuous through shavings, and generally with the grain (and not across it) where possible.
1) learn to sharpen reliably and quickly in a way that the plane iron both holds up well and has enough clearance (this isn't' that tall of an order, but when you're not hitting it every time, it is. Charlesworth's video with a three bevel system is a very good place to start, and you can move away from it to gain speed as you get better at things). Charlesworth's method gives you results and the hardware used to do it isn't very expensive (eclipse style guide- any of them).
2) if you're going to do much planing with modern lumber, you need to learn the cap iron second for everything sometimes (as in even needed for the roughest of work on very bad wood), and for middle and smoothing work otherwise.
If you learn 1 and 2, you will be able to use inexpensive planes to plane anything -better and faster and with better results than the typical hobbyist will use very expensive planes.
It's using the tools as they're designed to be used that's important, and not so much whether it's cosman or sellers, etc, as neither of those guys teaches a very complete (they're overwrought playing with bits of the planes that make no difference) or accurate view of planing.
Once you get through 1 and 2 above, you can more or less start to focus on actual planing of wood (if you want to do a lot of it) - which is generally a matter of not wasting energy or motion when planing, or getting stuck in prescriptive methods besides loose rules. Nicholson's texts have a breif discussion of planing (I can't remember which as I didn't learn from them, but their description is accurate). You plane the high spots off of a board so that you can plane continuous through shavings, and generally with the grain (and not across it) where possible.
This is not surprising.
GerryT
Established Member
I’m at a loss here as to what an “influenced shaving” is.
Surely the term influence in the title of the older video above is applied to the position of the cap iron to the iron and it is this that has an “influence” upon the timber being planed and producing a shaving of some type.
Either close or not so close depending on the timber or type of surface required.
Anyone new to this forum would think that simply planing a piece of timber to flat and square needs a PhD in either maths or metallurgy.
Its no real surprise that folk come on here and lack the confidence to sharpen and plane because they are getting the impression that it’s some recondite art that only the chosen can do.
Sure, we can understand that the placement of cap iron on an iron can “influence“ the type of shaving that you can get but the shaving itself is not called an “influenced shaving”…or am I missing something ?
Surely the term influence in the title of the older video above is applied to the position of the cap iron to the iron and it is this that has an “influence” upon the timber being planed and producing a shaving of some type.
Either close or not so close depending on the timber or type of surface required.
Anyone new to this forum would think that simply planing a piece of timber to flat and square needs a PhD in either maths or metallurgy.
Its no real surprise that folk come on here and lack the confidence to sharpen and plane because they are getting the impression that it’s some recondite art that only the chosen can do.
Sure, we can understand that the placement of cap iron on an iron can “influence“ the type of shaving that you can get but the shaving itself is not called an “influenced shaving”…or am I missing something ?
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
I think it's just someones hobby, which they like to talk about all the time.
Part of the problem is all of the gadgetry and trinkets being used (and paint by number methods).
You sharpen a plane iron. If the wood is very agreeable, then cap iron setting doesn't matter -you just plane down grain.
More common in modern lumber that's just sawn flat off of a cant, there will be opposing grain somewhere. So you set the cap iron in the middle and fine work so that it holds the shaving down against the face of a board. You literally then plane the high spots off of a board (with short strokes, working just those spots) and take overlapping through shavings. That's it. When you have overlapping through shavings end to end and side to side, you know that you have a planed surface that's going to be relatively clear.
Other than that, it's just a matter of how much planing you have to do before you hit a depth mark.
The use of winding sticks and other things is relatively infrequent as it slows things down. A wider board can be seen well by eye, and even a narrower one can - it is a skill to learn. Joints and edges of boards are planed until they're true to the plane and they will generally be ready for glue without anything else. To do this right is much simpler than most of the overwrought methods taught to beginners.
For cap iron setting, for people who need to measure things, getting in the ballpark of where a cap is set right, you aim for twice as far from the edge of an iron as the shaving thickness. That's about where the shaving will come straight out of a plane. Depending on the wood
It's not necessarily that easy to explain just how simple this is because of how much overwrought stop and start checking there is in most planing instruction.
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