How to avoid hours of handplaning

[Corneel]

On the popular woodworking blog is a blog from Chris Schwarz about efficient handplaning. He urges us to do all handplaning at once before the wood starts moving, cupping, bowing, twisting whatever. I don't really understand this one. Would't it be better to leave some material to be able to remove the cupping after the wood stabilised again? Not that wood ever becomes 100% stable. But often there is some tesion release after the wood has been made thinner.

 

[D_W]

I would assume he's thinking you can plane to dimension and the bend the boards into place later (for lack of a better way to put it).

I think it's a lot more convenient to thickness and size boards as you need them right before assembly, but maybe I'm doing what he's suggesting by doing that.

 

[Zeddedhed]

Although i don't do my dimensioning by hand (normally finish off by hand for the last 1 - 2 mm) as a rule I would not remove a whole load of material (either on the PT or TS or BS), then finish plane and then cut joinery and glue up on the same day.

Maybe I'm over cautious but my normal routine is to face and edge a board on the PT then leave it for 24 hrs. Then I'd rip/resaw to about 5mm from finish and leave it again. Finally I'd hand plane to a finish. Then the joinery and glue up. I've had way too many boards go seriously wonky on me after being dimensioned fully square flat and true. If there's no more room for planing again then you've either got to accept narrower/thinner boards for your project (in other words re-design) or buy another board.

To be commercially viable it requires some careful planning to ensure that there is plenty of other work that can be done in between stages but I still think it makes sense when possible.

As an example I recently made an oak dresser whose top needed to be 30mm thick. This came from 35 (ish) sawn boards. The apprentice got a bit over enthusiastic and took them all the way down to 30mm full square in one operation and the next day they were seriously cupped across their width combined with some bow along their length. The project couldn't be re-designed for various reasons so the boards were wasted, more boards were ordered, money and time lost etc etc. I think I barely broke even on the job in the end.

 

[swagman]

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodw ... andplaning

 

[D_W]

I can't remember a time where I try planed something and came back a couple of days later to find that it had moved too much to be smoothed - except when using really poor stock.

If you're dimensioning by hand, it's relatively important to be able to take a thick shaving with a smoother in the case that something does move a little. It shouldn't take fives times as long. The thick shaving is, of course, where the cap iron is important in this process.

I think if I had dimensioning questions, though, I'd default to the folks who are doing it by hand and still making some money doing it (and that's not many).

Of course, he has to fill his blog with something.

 

[pedder]

He can live with a little woodmoving, if just the wood is smoothed.
If it is not smoothed, he can't live with the moving, just because he can't
smooth the lightly cupped wood and has to walk backwards.

This is how I understand it.

If you have to resmoothe before finishing, this won't help you much, though.

Cheers
Pedder

 

[D_W]

One other thought about dimensioning - if we start dimensioning rough wood by hand, there's not a lot of instruction that we need (or opinion from anyone else). Of all the things that you can learn to do well in woodworking based on experience and sweat, planing and sawing are at the top. It is impossible not to get good at it - sheer laziness will make you better because you have so much time while you're doing it to think about getting better at it and so much physical incentive to find the easiest way. The subtleties that are acquired are not well learned on a blog (how close you can get to a line, how neat you have to be on saw strokes, when you can work with something cut right off of the saw, how you like to handle cupped boards or boards with a lot of runout, how neat does the back side of the cut need to be, when can you take through strokes and work faster rather than working across grain......and a million other little things).

 

[D_W]

If you have to resmoothe before finishing, this won't help you much, though.

Cheers
Pedder

Inevitably, any board that's going to require half blinds or something (if it's of substantial enough size) is going to be handled and laid on a bench enough that the surface is going to be affected.

 

[swagman]

http://www.thisiscarpentry.com/2010/09/ ... -movement/

 

[D_W]

http://www.thisiscarpentry.com/2010/09/03/moisture-content-wood-movement/

Something lost over time has been sawing material pith on center. We see the end charts all the time, and we build knowing what will occur in terms of expansion, contraction and cupping, but without the pith sawn on center, then we can still have twist.

When I order plane wood, I always request every piece be dead quartered and pith sawn on center, and the mill that cuts and dries beech without fail delivers every single piece cut like that. It is fabulous to work with (but expensive).

I only wish I wasn't so cheap as to forgo that type of material when building something for in the house, but it costs double of regular market rates to be that picky.

I see this discussion has carried over elsewhere, but it is to me, an indication that people cannot use a smoother properly for anything other than the thinnest shavings, or they are using stock that should've been used for kindling.

Also, someone who is preparing wood hand dimensioned should be getting within smoother shavings with a try plane and have a finished surface quality or near it already before then. If the follow up to that several days later is as hard as its made out to be on that blog, something is drastically wrong.

I forgot one lesson that I learned long ago. Putting together a blanket chest, a friend and I were using very figured maple, and when we had it thicknessed, it was too wide for my planer so we took it to a shop that had a gigantic 52" three drum Beach sander that could remove material faster than my lunchbox planer. In almost an instant, our panels were sanded, and I wanted to use a scraper plane days later. It was agonizing, because those panels had moved, and I ended up card scraping them at the time. They didn't move much, but enough to make something that can't remove stock at any decent rate trouble to use, and we had 12 panels to deal with.

They would be a twaddle to finish plane now, and I wouldn't worry about it. For a part time woodworker, it's unrealistic to go to a shop and have that stock thicknessed and think you'll have a chest assembled quickly, and it's also unrealistic to think you'll finish plane them right away and never mar or mark any of them before finish and assembly. Of course, it would be a twaddle to thickness plane them now, too, but with the high angle planes I had back then, it was wrist breaking.

 

[Corneel]

One thing for sure, I can't dimension, do the joinery, add some decoration and assemble a typical project in one day! Usually it takes me a year at least. And then I bring it from the garage to inside the house. I am afraid some cupping is unavoidable. I do like to sticker the boars for a project and put a heavy weight on top.

 

[D_W]

One thing for sure, I can't dimension, do the joinery, add some decoration and assemble a typical project in one day! Usually it takes me a year at least. And then I bring it from the garage to inside the house. I am afraid some cupping is unavoidable. I do like to sticker the boars for a project and put a heavy weight on top.

Fortunately, you know how to use a cap iron so that you're not bound to taking a million thin shavings.

 

[G S Haydon]

D_W "twaddle" > doddle

I think the thrust of the article seems to be don't get caught planing a bunch of timber one week and then drop onto it weeks later expecting good results. Prep and build asap!

I think this is an issue in the home workshop more than a busy workshop where things tend to have more momentum.

 

[Corneel]

I think I understand the blog now. It is about MACHINE dimensioning and then smooth planing to remove the ripples. That' exactly how I work too when using the tailed planer: use the smootinh plane immediately. What happens after that is one of life's challenges.

 

[D_W]

D_W "twaddle" > doddle

Well, you know, we still haven't mastered the language you guys flung on us!!

 

[G S Haydon]

You're welcome, it's about 80% French origin so blame them!

 

[G S Haydon]

Good point Corneel!

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

You're welcome, it's about 80% French origin so blame them!

Actually it's closer to 80% German and 20% French.

 

[G S Haydon]

I know Paddy, bit heavy perhaps. I think Michel Thomas said it on one of his audio CD's. It seems it varies from 29% to 70%. It's fair to say it's a very mongrel tongue!

 

[D_W]

You're welcome, it's about 80% French origin so blame them!

Actually it's closer to 80% German and 20% French.

Well then, 80% of it is fairly logical and 20% is emotional random senselessness!