no 5 1/2 plane clogging really easily

[Racers]

Hi, Chaps

Re moving the frog right back to support the blade.

This is a Record blade sharpened at 25 deg honed at 30 deg


The bevel measures 3.9mm


And transferring the measurement up through the mouth shows where the back of the blade touches, its on the frog.



The blade needs regrinding, so the length of the bevel will be even longer and further up the frog.

Pete

 

[David C]

Spot on Pete.

The width of mouth one chooses will be dictated by the type of work done. The operative word is chooses. I would be interested to hear what thickness of shaving Jacob uses for his "normal planing"?

David

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Pete Maddox, some sense at last, I've been saying that there is no support from the sole beneath the frog for ages. The planes were never designed for that anyway. The mouth only need be set a gnat's wider than the shaving that comes through and will not clog if the cap iron is well fitting and smooth. A wider mouth will introduce tear out. The best way to increase stiffness in the blade assy is to fit a heavier cap iron, and then a thicker blade. Since a 3 mm thick blade is more than twice a stiff as the 2mm stock ones, the benefit is remarkable, and allows the full adjustment of the frog for a fine mouth setting without fussing about where in relation to the back of the mouth the frog is. Thick blades will take heavier cuts without chatter too, which is a boon in a jack as much as anything else.

Mike.

Edit, I was writing this as David C was posting, and sorry, it is Maddex, not how I spelled it, but still good sense Pete.

 

[G S Haydon]

Pete, David, Woodbrains thank you all for making this so clear. I look forward to experimenting

 

[morfa]

Okay, had a go with my worktop and the plane this evening. Seems that doing the following has made a difference:

- Resetting the chipbreaker to be a little further back (it's about 2mm back now, it was more like just under 1mm before)
- Lifting the plane up
- Setting it to take much thinner shavings

Looking at the frog, it could maybe do with being a tidge further back. But as it's much improved now, I'll bear the frog thing in mind and next time I use it properly, I'll do that then. I think that I'll need to do that when I next whan to take thicker shavings with it.

The chipbreaker looks like it's sharpened properly. But it's glad to know about that.

Thanks to all for the advice.

 

[Jacob]

Hi, Chaps
.........
The blade needs regrinding, so the length of the bevel will be even longer and further up the frog.

Pete

Except you've got it wrong, again! I can see why but I'll leave it to you to work it out.
It often can be more useful to actually look at things rather than theorising, calculating, measuring, all of which are prone to error.
If you take a bog standard plane, set it to fine cut, then carefully remove blade, frog, replace blade in frog without disturbing the setting, you get something like this.

You can see immediately how much blade would be seated on the mouth. There'd be even more if you had wound it up for a deeper cut. I've tried this with various planes and depending on details this repeats. You don't have to believe me try it for yourself. This also shows what a good idea it is to have a steep bevel ideally flat at 30º as this gives more support. A longer 25º bevel reduces this.

This is the plane - an old but classy Record 5 1/2

You can also look at the blade in situ if you clean off the dust and shine a bright light into the mouth. I'll try to take a photo tomorrow.

Looking at things can be really useful and save a lot of head scratching! Let me know if you can't work out why you got it wrong. An accurate scale drawing might help but actually it is fairly obvious and an easy mistake.

 

[Racers]

Jacob, If I have overlooked some thing please point it out.

Pete

 

[Jacob]

Spot on Pete.

The width of mouth one chooses will be dictated by the type of work done. The operative word is chooses. I would be interested to hear what thickness of shaving Jacob uses for his "normal planing"?

David

By normal planing I mean anything from the thickest shaving you can take off, to the very thinnest.
When there is tear out you have the option of adjusting the mouth. On a normal plane like my 5 1/2 this is not easy (nor very effective) and it's simpler to pick up another plane with an adjustable mouth.
For me this would be the Stanley SW 4 which is a very good plane - cuts just as well as any of the posh opposition but at a fraction of the price. Or my Clifton 4 which is very nice but the bedrock thing is a PITA though a slight improvement on the standard frog.
I'm selling my LV LA smoother (redundant and too expensive) and I might sell the Clfton for the same reason, though it's a very nice plane

 

[Jacob]

Jacob, If I have overlooked some thing please point it out.

Pete

OK. If the heel of the bevel is say 4mm up from the edge (as measured parallel to the face) and the heel is also 4mm up from the edge of the mouth, the cutting edge is up in the air well away from the sole (depending on the thickness of the blade). You'd have to wind it well forwards to cut. Do a drawing and you will see.

PS if it was bevel up you would be spot on, edge and mouth exactly together.

 

[David C]

Still no wiser about the thickness of Jacob's shavings during his "normal"planing.......

I know that for the work I do in hardwoods four thousandths of an inch thick is hard to push, six thou is about my limit. But I should state that I use my 5 1/2 as a smoother, which might not be to everyones taste.

David

 

[morfa]

Still no wiser about the thickness of Jacob's shavings during his "normal"planing.......

I know that for the work I do in hardwoods four thousandths of an inch thick is hard to push, six thou is about my limit. But I should state that I use my 5 1/2 as a smoother, which might not be to everyones taste.

David

Don't know about Jacob, but I'd always assumed that a no 5 1/2 (and bigger) would take much thicker shavings than a no 4. I'm beginning to realise that assumption might have been wrong.

Anyway, it's working much better now. I had heard somewhere that lifting the plane after each stroke was what you're supposed to do, but I didn't realise why. Also taking much thinner shavings helps.

 

[Jacob]

Still no wiser about the thickness of Jacob's shavings during his "normal"planing.......

I know that for the work I do in hardwoods four thousandths of an inch thick is hard to push, six thou is about my limit. But I should state that I use my 5 1/2 as a smoother, which might not be to everyones taste.

David

Try wider mouth and deeper camber. You will get more material off faster and thicker shavings more easily.

 

[Jacob]

..

Don't know about Jacob, but I'd always assumed that a no 5 1/2 (and bigger) would take much thicker shavings than a no 4. I'm beginning to realise that assumption might have been wrong. ,,,

Yes wrong. A narrow deep cutting (cambered) blade will produce thicker shavings and remove material faster from a wide surface. But if you are planing a narrow board edge then a wide mouth is all you need for thick shavings, whatever the plane.
Arguably, for rapid material removal, long planes* are for board edges, small narrow planes with cambered edges for surfaces. For fine smoothing - short ones (finely set and tighter mouth). But in fact there is a lot of crossover as we all know, and the challenge is to get the job done with whatever plane you can lay your hands on, however cruddy!.

PS the length is for straightness. But you can get things straight/flat with short planes and a bit more hand an eye skill i.e. looking at the work as you go

 

[David C]

Obviously scrub plane type setups remove thicker shavings.

But to return to the original post, there will be no choking with a properly prepared chipbreaker and a fine mouth.

C/B edge 2mm back is really far too far back to be useful for anything except extremely heavy shavings. A setting as close as 4 thou" , with a fine shaving, will virtually eliminate tearout in the most difficult of timbers. see the Kawai & Kato resarch video. However close is probably more practical for general use, say 0.5 mm.

David

 

[Racers]

Jacob, If I have overlooked some thing please point it out.

Pete

OK. If the heel of the bevel is say 4mm up from the edge (as measured parallel to the face) and the heel is also 4mm up from the edge of the mouth, the cutting edge is up in the air well away from the sole (depending on the thickness of the blade). You'd have to wind it well forwards to cut. Do a drawing and you will see.

PS if it was bevel up you would be spot on, edge and mouth exactly together.

Jacob
No you are wrong, in fact I don't know what you are on about, the blade contacts the frog, not the base of the plane so sliding it back won't make and difference.

David C
I have plained some Burr silver birch with the cap iron as close as possible and got crinkled shavings and a no tear out, its a very useful technique.

Pete

 

[Jacob]

Obviously scrub plane type setups remove thicker shavings.

But to return to the original post, there will be no choking with a properly prepared chipbreaker and a fine mouth.

There will if you try to take too deep a cut

C/B edge 2mm back is really far too far back to be useful for anything except extremely heavy shavings. A setting as close as 4 thou" , with a fine shaving, will virtually eliminate tearout in the most difficult of timbers. see the Kawai & Kato resarch video. However close is probably more practical for general use, say 0.5 mm.

David

But for most of the time most planing is not in difficult timber and doesn't involve tear out. It's important to bear this in mind or people will be doing ordinary work with impossibly finely set planes suitable for exceptional circumstances only.
4 thou is a degree of precision irrelevant to most woodworking.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Jacob, explain to me why the sole of the plane, under the front portion of the frog is machined thinner, if it is not to allow the frog to be lower here and contact the end of the blade closer to the bevel, negating the possibility of the blade contacting the rear of the mouth. The manufacturers go through this extra machining process for a reason, so if not this, what? Racers' plane is a perfect example of the frog supporting the blade as low down as possible, it could not be better. The frog can be placed anywhere in the mouth the user chooses and the support is maximum at whatever he/she decides. Why else is the frog adjustable?

I once Owned a Sargent VBM jack that was not machined lower at this critical point. With the frog set level with the rear mouth gave a mouth setting a mile wide and tore out like crazy. The frog moved forwards to where the mouth was more to my liking, left a massive overhang on the blade and the lack of support made for terrible chatter. The plane was a junker and illustrates that a frog supporting the blade as low as possible and the frog adjusted for a fine mouth is essential for the function of the plane. Planing technology is a subtle art, which you obviously do not understand, even with pictorial evidence!

Mike.

 

[Corneel]

Right now I am not sure about the very old American Stanleys with the thinner castings, but on everything made in the UK, Jacob is right. The sole provides valuable support to the blade. Way back, I had a similar discussion with Jacob, even tried to "prove" him wrong with some trigonometrics, but I made the same mistake you are making. The edge isn't touching the wood in your example.

Morfa, the Stanleys are not very prone to clogging, unless there is a problem with the fitting of the chipbreaker to the blade. Moving it 2mm out of the way does indeed "cure" the problem, but you loose all valuable effects from the chipbreaker. First it supports the edge (which isn't a bad idea with the thin Stanley blades) and second it won't help you to break the chips in order to prevent tearout.

Now, first you should decide how you want to use the plane. is it going to be a roughing tool, a big jack plane so to speak? The 5 1/2 is very heavy and wide for this task, but it can be used as a foreplane to flatten panels after a jack. In that case add a camber about 10" to 12" radius to the edge. I you want to use it as a jackplane, add a camber about 8". In both cases the chipbreaker isn't much help to break chips, but it can still help to stabilise the edge, so don't move it too far away.

If you want to take thin shavings with this plane, like a smoother (or if you want to learn something for your nr. 4) then you will have to prepare your chipbreaker with much more care. First it should sit flat over the entire width of the blade. No light visible through the gap! Most any old plane I get is defective in this department and it really makes your plane clogging. I would also make sure your jack, fore and jointer is repaired in this area, beacuse it it so important to prevent clogging. Also make sure the edge of the chipbreaker ends in a rather sharp edge with some relieve behind it, like in this picture:

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In this picture you can see something else, a small steep front bevel. It really should be small, I've seen 0.2 to 0.3 mm mentioned. This is optional! But it improves the chipbreaker's ability to break the chips. In order to actually break the chips it should be set very very close to the edge, just a bit more then shaving thickness. Especially on smoothers and jointers. On a jack or a foreplane it can be a bit further away.

Closing the mouth helps to avoid tearout, but only when it is very tight, just open enough to pass the shaving. You loose the support of the blade from the sole of the plane, and the little helpfull steep part on the front of the chipbreaker gets in the way. And more important, when you learn how to use the chipbreaker, you don't need a tight mouth. So, if you really, really, really want a tight mouth, then by all means, set the mouth tight. But know that you don't really need it so tight and it has adverse effects too.

 

[Corneel]

Here is a picture I found on my harddrive with some meassurements from my UK made Stanley #4 with Ray Iles blade. The bevel is 5.2mm long. The sole at that point is 2,5 mm thick. X = 5.2 sin 20 = 1.8 mm. With the thinner original Stanley blades the sole support is even more (and even more neccessary).

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[Jacob]

Here is a picture I found on my harddrive with some meassurements from my UK made Stanley #4 with Ray Iles blade. The bevel is 5.2mm long. The sole at that point is 2,5 mm thick. X = 5.2 sin 20 = 1.8 mm. With the thinner original Stanley blades the sole support is even more (and even more neccessary).

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That's more like it!
With your set up Pete you have the blade retracted quite some way.

And with a thin blade with a 30º bevel you get even more support, which explains why a thin blade can be so effective if set up in this way.