Low angle Jack+ Pine = Any Reduced Tearout?

[MrDavidRoberts]

I'm realising I enjoy working with handtools ( well just the planes) more and more every day,probably because I finally learned how to properly sharpen them
99% of the time I'm working with pine (cheap/sometimes free & readily available), however working with pine it's not a smooth sailing ,
I can easily get a great finish when there are no problems with the wood (knots/crazy grain changes) , however in those problematic areas I'm still getting some tearout which I have to ''fix'' with a sander which kinda sucks as I like the Plane finish much better.

I recently learned you can considerably reduce such tearout problems if you have a Low angle plane + high ~50deg pitch blade.
I'm thinking about getting the QUANGSHENG NO. 62 LOW ANGLE JACK PLANE , however I wanted to know if this also applies when you are working with Pine and can you actually get significant improvement with this kind of combo?

I currently have old Record standard angle no4 and no6 planes.

 

[D_W]

Your record number 4 will do the job just as well, just clean up and use the cap iron to reduce tearout.

Presumably, your trouble areas are runout into the surface/face, and areas behind knots?

Set your cap iron as close to the edge as you can, move it around until you see reflection off of the iron and then once you have it set right at the edge, set it just back from there (so there is a tiny sliver of the back of the iron showing). If you still get tearout, set it closer. If the plane is jamming or the shaving looks like a tight accordion, set it just a bit farther from the edge.

 

[Racers]

Watch this video, it shows the effect of a cap iron.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdk4uRYioZg

Pete

 

[knockknock]

You could also watch the gnat's nadger video.

 

[custard]

I've never found a high angle plane to be reliably effective on softwoods or even on the softer hardwoods like Tulipwood. I don't use a great amount of softwoods beyond Yew, but that's been my experience. Furthermore scraping, as a way of removing tear out, seems to be a very poor solution with softwoods. I know a couple of furniture makers who are using increasing amounts of Douglas Fir for environmental reasons and they say much the same thing, if they encounter boards that are inclined to tear out they tend to go straight to a drum sander.

 

[MattRoberts]

Whilst no expert on hand planing, I've recently been planing my new workbench with my 62 1/2 - it's made from CLS so a very similar softwood to pine. I found that I would get a fair bit of tear out on some boards due to the grain direction, knots and all the fact that the layers are so spaced out (I assume because it's quick growth wood).

When I put a 50 degree blade in, I got significantly less tear out, though it wasn't eliminated completely by any stretch. I think a blade at that angle needs to be razor sharp to be effective too.

I've recently been reading about the cap iron's effect, and have yet to try that out (but don't think it applies to a 62 as there isn't one?)

 

[thetyreman]

set the cap iron closer to the blade edge and move the frog forward to create a finer set, that should eliminate most tearout on pine.

 

[D_W]

Whilst no expert on hand planing, I've recently been planing my new workbench with my 62 1/2 - it's made from CLS so a very similar softwood to pine. I found that I would get a fair bit of tear out on some boards due to the grain direction, knots and all the fact that the layers are so spaced out (I assume because it's quick growth wood).

When I put a 50 degree blade in, I got significantly less tear out, though it wasn't eliminated completely by any stretch. I think a blade at that angle needs to be razor sharp to be effective too.

I've recently been reading about the cap iron's effect, and have yet to try that out (but don't think it applies to a 62 as there isn't one?)

Something around 62 generally is an eliminator of tearout (even 55 total angle is usually decent, but 50 is not enough without resorting to really thin shavings). Going that high can create other problems in softwoods, though, and cleanly planing pine that has knots and such is really a challenge to do quickly.

The trouble with really steep angles in pine (as well as setting the cap iron too close to the edge) is that you can crush the surface of the wood fairly easily and leave either a hairy surface or one that has evidence of the crushing (just as brightly finished pine can still show crushing from planer knives if enough of the chatter plus some isn't removed).

The cap is probably your best bet with pine, with shavings thinner than the cap effect works for as the final passes. That is, if a cap iron is set so that a 4 thousandth thick shaving straightens up, the finish shavings could be a third of that, and the cap will have little effect (but the shaving should be too thin to break at that point, so it's safe). The cap allows you to work up to the point that you can take those thing shavings fairly quickly, so there is no resetting of it, just get an initial surface, back off the shaving, and give it a final go.

Planes like LA jacks have a fault for a significant amount of use (otherwise, they're quite a nice rig to get rid of tearout at the outset, or indefinitely if you're using hard wood and not removing a lot of volume). That is, the angle is fixed and depends on sharpness and good clearance. You have to constantly sharpen them to keep the plane from coming out of a cut, whereas a plane with a cap set will stay in the cut a lot longer. (coming out vs. staying in meaning that you have to lean down hard on a plane to keep it cutting well - a sign that it's time to sharpen so that you don't waste energy or focus on pushing the plane into the cut).

 

[Ttrees]

set the cap iron closer to the blade edge and move the frog forward to create a finer set, that should eliminate most tearout on pine.

You might find the plane a lot harder to push when the frog is set forward, and the cap iron is set, too much infact!
I have my frogs set all the way back on my Baileys, and have never wanted to move them even a bit
forward...
Maybe on my maroon 70's Stanley with the huge gaping mouth on it, as it could clip a corner of
something accidentally behind the cutter

DavidW
I read about a Norris that you have got, which has the front infill carefully worked, so the cap iron
can be set close by the new owner by the sounds of it.
Guessing this a plane for only the finest of shavings with that tight of a mouth?
Why bother?, when the cap does the work....
Did they have a different line of planes for heavier work?

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

Ok I think I know where my fault is:
I actually converted my no4 for heavy stock removal when I first started ( grinded out the mouth A LOT, cambered the iron,set the chipbreaker a good 5mm away from edge) - actually at first that was the only way I could get any shavings as I hadn't learned how to sharpen the blade very good and I would get chips stuck between blade/chipbreaker as well.

I guess my best bet is getting another £10 no4 plane from Fleabay and setting it up to be an actual smoother instead of spending £150 for the quangsheng low angle?
Has anyone played around with sharpening a BACK BEVEL on the regular plane blade? -thus increasing the actual angle and in theory getting the same performance as a low angle plane +high pithc blade would get?

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

I'm realising I enjoy working with handtools ( well just the planes) more and more every day,probably because I finally learned how to properly sharpen them
99% of the time I'm working with pine (cheap/sometimes free & readily available), however working with pine it's not a smooth sailing ,
I can easily get a great finish when there are no problems with the wood (knots/crazy grain changes) , however in those problematic areas I'm still getting some tearout which I have to ''fix'' with a sander which kinda sucks as I like the Plane finish much better.

I recently learned you can considerably reduce such tearout problems if you have a Low angle plane + high ~50deg pitch blade.
I'm thinking about getting the QUANGSHENG NO. 62 LOW ANGLE JACK PLANE , however I wanted to know if this also applies when you are working with Pine and can you actually get significant improvement with this kind of combo?

I currently have old Record standard angle no4 and no6 planes.

David, there are two answers here.

Firstly, BU planes are easy to set up and easy to get good results from. While a high cutting angle will not give you quite the clarity of a lower cutting angle on a softwood, such as Pine, it will produce a great finish that is tearout free. A #62 is a good all round plane (shooting, smoothing, jointing) but, as the saying goes, it is a master of none. For the above you need two blades (one for high angle and one low angle for shooting). For a smoother, I would rather get the Veritas BUS.

Secondly, a Record #4 is capable of producing a better finish than the BU plane with a high cutting angle. Perhaps not yours now since it was butchered - get another or a Stanley #4. However, these planes can offer a new/old trick, namely learning to set the chipbreaker, as others here have mentioned. The extra time expended in learning to master this method is definitely worth it.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Ok I think I know where my fault is:
I actually converted my no4 for heavy stock removal when I first started ( grinded out the mouth A LOT, cambered the iron,set the chipbreaker a good 5mm away from edge) - actually at first that was the only way I could get any shavings as I hadn't learned how to sharpen the blade very good and I would get chips stuck between blade/chipbreaker as well.

I guess my best bet is getting another £10 no4 plane from Fleabay and setting it up to be an actual smoother instead of spending £150 for the quangsheng low angle?
Has anyone played around with sharpening a BACK BEVEL on the regular plane blade? -thus increasing the actual angle and in theory getting the same performance as a low angle plane +high pithc blade would get?

Hi - I've not needed to resort to trying it, but Paul Sellers refers to it as "poor man's York pitch" https://paulsellers.com/2012/08/on-the- ... ur-throat/

I have a QS 62 with alternative blades, which I like very much. Most of the time I can manage perfectly well - even on knotty spruce - with my QS Bailey 5 1/2 with a freshly sharpened blade, and a tuned chipbreaker (i.e. no gap under it for shavings to get stuck, and a "snub nose" to direct the new shaving at a sharp angle ) set within a few gnat's body-parts of the cutting edge. The 5 1/2 has the weight to whizz through even dead knots in pine.

Cheers, W2S

 

[D_W]

set the cap iron closer to the blade edge and move the frog forward to create a finer set, that should eliminate most tearout on pine.

You might find the plane a lot harder to push when the frog is set forward, and the cap iron is set, too much infact!
I have my frogs set all the way back on my Baileys, and have never wanted to move them even a bit
forward...
Maybe on my maroon 70's Stanley with the huge gaping mouth on it, as it could clip a corner of
something accidentally behind the cutter

DavidW
I read about a Norris that you have got, which has the front infill carefully worked, so the cap iron
can be set close by the new owner by the sounds of it.
Guessing this a plane for only the finest of shavings with that tight of a mouth?
Why bother?, when the cap does the work....
Did they have a different line of planes for heavier work?

Yes on the different planes. This is a norris 2, and the mouth wasn't a spec sheet mouth where it was exactly x thousandths every time, they were hand made. I would speculate that the mouth is a little bit over a hundredth, so it can limit tearout for an unskilled user, but it won't eliminate it. that said, it's also really not in the way for any reasonable smoother shaving, because it's twice as large. The shape of the plane isn't suitable for anything else.

Norris sold jointers, but few bought them. The larger panel planes (A1, and sometimes other models - I just managed to find a rosewood A13 15 1/2 inch *panel* plane) are less tight in the mouth area.

The key here is that the soles are relatively thick. if they had just been filed straight up at 90 degrees, even a mouth of a hundredth would be a problem, but they didn't do that. they very deliberately filed inside the casting so that the escapement total angle is greater than 90 degrees, making it so that you can have a plane with a relatively tight mouth, but also set the cap iron all of the way down and have no clog.

I bring it up, because this is a very deliberate move that they made, knowing that they could keep the mouth relatively tight for dummies, but make it so that the fine workers who would've certainly used the cap iron to great effect would not be bothered.

At the height of all things, to me, there is some value in a tight mouth. It basically makes it impossible no matter how dopey you're being to catch the edge of a plane on a thin cross section (for example, beveling something that is narrow, or catching a fat mouthed plane on the edge of a board at the start of a cut). I see no real use for it in controlling tearout unless it's just over the thickness of shaving, and there hasn't been a mass produced plane, to my knowledge, that had both a neat and tidy mouth as well as a gap that small. I made an infill like that. It was 4 thousandths when i made it, and it has moved to slightly less than that over time (should we start a rumor of infill creep?). I don't know why it did that, but it's not like it would be difficult to fix. I did that because I go way into things and at the time, I thought you could basically make a foolproof smoother. I didn't realize that Leonard bailey had already done that.

When I make infill planes, I strive to do the same thing as norris, which is to limit lateral slop on the mouth (the mouth should be nearly exactly the same width as the iron) and to make the mouth small as a display of making skill, but small is not the same as the single iron plane mentioned above - it's more like a hundredth so that it's not adding unnecessary resistance.

there, that was a maker's brain dump.

 

[thetyreman]

set the cap iron closer to the blade edge and move the frog forward to create a finer set, that should eliminate most tearout on pine.

You might find the plane a lot harder to push when the frog is set forward, and the cap iron is set, too much infact!
I have my frogs set all the way back on my Baileys, and have never wanted to move them even a bit
forward...
Maybe on my maroon 70's Stanley with the huge gaping mouth on it, as it could clip a corner of
something accidentally behind the cutter

DavidW
I read about a Norris that you have got, which has the front infill carefully worked, so the cap iron
can be set close by the new owner by the sounds of it.
Guessing this a plane for only the finest of shavings with that tight of a mouth?
Why bother?, when the cap does the work....
Did they have a different line of planes for heavier work?

you can move the frog about though, having a fine set is a good idea on a smoothing plane in particular, you 'bother' because it reduces tearout, which is what this subject is about, lets not go off an a tangent. If the blade is razor sharp it should not be a problem pushing it.

 

[thetyreman]

mass definitely helps as well

 

[David C]

I have used back bevels in a bench plane for many years. They can be very small.
For domestic hardwoods like ripple ash, 15 degrees does well.
For hard interlocked exotics, 25degrees is excellent.
Shavings must be fine.

David Charlesworth

 

[Ttrees]

you can move the frog about though, having a fine set is a good idea on a smoothing plane in particular, you 'bother' because it reduces tearout, which is what this subject is about, lets not go off an a tangent. If the blade is razor sharp it should not be a problem pushing it.

On a Bailey, a tight mouth will render the plane unusable if one sets the cap iron for influence.
and with a slightly more open setting you may find the plane warming up in front of the mouth.
This means extra resistance in my book.

 

[D_W]

set the cap iron closer to the blade edge and move the frog forward to create a finer set, that should eliminate most tearout on pine.

You might find the plane a lot harder to push when the frog is set forward, and the cap iron is set, too much infact!
I have my frogs set all the way back on my Baileys, and have never wanted to move them even a bit
forward...
Maybe on my maroon 70's Stanley with the huge gaping mouth on it, as it could clip a corner of
something accidentally behind the cutter

DavidW
I read about a Norris that you have got, which has the front infill carefully worked, so the cap iron
can be set close by the new owner by the sounds of it.
Guessing this a plane for only the finest of shavings with that tight of a mouth?
Why bother?, when the cap does the work....
Did they have a different line of planes for heavier work?

you can move the frog about though, having a fine set is a good idea on a smoothing plane in particular, you 'bother' because it reduces tearout, which is what this subject is about, lets not go off an a tangent. If the blade is razor sharp it should not be a problem pushing it.

If the mouth of a plane is not unacceptably large with the frog set even with the casting, that is the set that will give the overall best performance.

You *can* recondition the back of the mouth to be like an infill plane if you're willing to do it (they're coarsely cast, but file easily), and you can almost eliminate tearout if you're willing to turn the plane into a one-trick pony and set the mouth slightly greater than the thickness of the shaving (perhaps three to five thousandths of an inch). Slightly greater than that, and it will prevent bad tearout, but won't provide a nice surface, and the shaving moving around the mouth will be like driving with the parking brake on.

There are a lot of things you can do, but none of them work as well or with as little effort as setting the cap iron. The cap just allows you to work in rhythm, without taking a million tiny shavings, and without constantly sharpening.

In regard to setting the plane with the frog even with the casting, I have set the frog forward on a plane or three, even recently, just to narrow the mouth a little (on a sloppily-made plane with a garish 1/8th mouth or something, you can end up with the troubles i described above), and the stability is just less. Why that is, I don't know, because the span of unsupported area between the bottom of the frog and the work is so short, but maybe it's enough to make a difference. I haven't done it enough times to form much of a conclusion, and would be interested in hearing if anyone else finds the same thing. A really fat iron would eliminate it, but that just creates other problems. I prefer just to not have a smoothing plane with a mouth that wide - selling and buying another is a better solution.