Original, wooden low angle plane described

[Corneel]

Hello,

A miter plane was/is used to plane and fit mitered surfaces, AND TO SQUARE UP/SHOOT SQUARE ENDS, and this latter work is very common in a woodshop: miter shooting clamps could have been called "squaring up clamps" instead.

A five degree clearance angle is large enough in a hand plane, especially in a plane intended for planing end grain.

The wear and rounding of the cutting edge is natural, and the remedy is not a large clearance angle, but frequent sharpening.


János

Well, yes, but did the woodworker of yesteryear need a special plane for that purpose? He could have used normal planes with staight sides just as well. When you look at surviving planes, you could conclude that the special miter plane, or shooting board plane is quite rare. And not every woodworker shoots boards square all the time. In fact you can do loads of woodworking without ever shooting an edge, relying on a square from the straight side to mark out and cut the joinery. Miters need to be very precise, ends of boards rarely so.

And I won't go to deep into the clearance angle, it's a wasps nest in some woodworking circels :lol:
I just like to keep a generous clearance angle and 5 degrees seems pretty low to me, especially in endgrain where spring back of the woodfibers is very possible. But that's just me, I don't know how others feel about this.

 

[János]

Dear Corneel,

In our age of amateur woodworkers and DIY, we have a tendency to forget the fact, that our hand tools were developed for professional craftspeople. A picture framer cut and cleaned a lot of face miters, cabinetmakers squared up lots of board ends for such purposes as drawer making, partitions in furniture etc.

These tasks could be accomplished with standard bench planes, and freehand work, but using a miter plane and a shooting clamp, or even a simple shooting board eases the task, and speeds up the work, eg. improves efficiency. If you were working for a living, you would be mad about speed and efficiency, I think.

If well cut miters and squared ends are so uncommon in woodcraft, then the evolution of the electric miter saw presents a real mystery to me. :wink:

Have a nice day,

János

 

[Corneel]

No I don't forget the old professionel craftsman. In fact now I use handtools more and more, I think about them all the time! With admiration.

Btw you forgot the third possibility, a shooting board with a standard benchplane.
Maybe that's why miter planes weren't much more common.

 

[bugbear]

No I don't forget the old professionel craftsman. In fact now I use handtools more and more, I think about them all the time! With admiration.

Btw you forgot the third possibility, a shooting board with a standard benchplane.
Maybe that's why miter planes weren't much more common.

Yeah.

In my wandering round auctions, specialised tool auctions, car boot sales etc, I've seen many shooting boards, a handful of mitre jacks, 1 donkey's ear, and zero specialised shooting planes, of either the smaller low angle type or the large skew bladed type.

And picture framers tend to jump straight to the "real deal";

http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/ ... px?id=8884

So - not that many dedicated mitre or shooting planes "in the wild", which I guess is why we find them so interesting.

BugBear

 

[Corneel]

While traveling home with the train I thought a bit about how much a typical 18th/19th century cabinetmaker would plane endgrain on a shooting board. I think he would try to avoid it as much as possible, because planing endgrain costs time and eats edges.

For frame and panel with M&T joinery you certainly don't need square ends. Neither for the panel which is burried in the groove. The sides and drawers, you would want accurate square ends, won't you? But when you can saw accurately to a line, then you don't really need the end square to the face of the board. The cabinetmaker would mark the baseline with a square. Of course he doesn't mark the pins, because he cuts them freehand. And when he has sawed the board accurately to a square marking line, that's good enough to transfer the pins to the tail board. Pins and tails are bit proud, so he would plane the drawer or case after it has been assembled, but this can be done with any smoothing plane. The only place I can see where he wants to use a shooting board is when he wants to miter the mouldings. When he uses a donkeys ear, a normal plane can be used here too, or the floggers plane

In a table it's the same. The ends of the tabletop were buried in a breadboard end. The rails were morticed in the legs, and the legs don't need beautifull ends either.

Just some random thoughts from me. I am interested in the ideas from others.

 

[Jacob]

Well yes end grain planing gets too much attention. Not that much of a feature of joinery or furniture making. I've hardly ever felt the need for a shooting board. Table top ends are often exposed (bread board ends are a bit specialised) but shooting board wouldn't be any use. Architraves and mouldings I've always done in a freehand way which would not be approved of! Donkey's ear looks like too much trouble
Come to think, most of the end grain I've planed has been for plane testing purposes and otherwise pointless - just fiddling about really.
The odd thing about shooting boards is that you need to mark up with knife or gauge, but once you've done that you don't need the shooting board, unless you are just easing things in a freehand way.
I made sets of little breadboard/platters from sycamore offcuts - all hand planed on all 6 faces, never occurred to me to use a shooting board. What for?
I don't know why we are all burbling on about it so much!

PS I've just remembered - I did use a shooting board a lot for cleaning up box sides when I used to make toys (jackinaboxes) and it was ideal for getting a nice edge on a lot (100s) of small pieces of thin (6mm) timber. It's long repetitive jobs like that which could make a specialised plane useful, but not for the odd one-offs.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I've hardly ever felt the need for a shooting board.

I rate a shooting board as an essential piece of equipment and use mine frequently. I have three - one for 90 degrees and two for 45 degrees Suppose it depends on what you are making and how you like to work.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Jacob]

I've hardly ever felt the need for a shooting board.

I rate a shooting board as an essential piece of equipment and use mine frequently. I have three - one for 90 degrees and two for 45 degrees Suppose it depends on what you are making and how you like to work.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

What did you last make with it and when?

 

[Paul Chapman]

I've hardly ever felt the need for a shooting board.

I rate a shooting board as an essential piece of equipment and use mine frequently. I have three - one for 90 degrees and two for 45 degrees Suppose it depends on what you are making and how you like to work.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

What did you last make with it and when?

I used it when doing some repairs to a piece of furniture very recently. The pieces were quite small and had to be very precise so that the repair didn't show too much.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Dear Mike, to answer your question: yes, there has been a bevel up mitre plane. And this plane has had a high pitch, around 60 deg. This tool was a British tool, often made from very heavy and dense tropical hardwoods, and with that ingenious mouth key. You might find descriptions and illustrations in the aforementioned Whelan book, or in Hack, Garret: The Handplane Book, for example.

The wooden miter plane with a bevel down blade has the lowest cutting angle amongst the different "mitre planes":

Bevel down wooden miter plane: 32-35 deg
Bevel up wooden mitre plane: 55-65 deg
Bestosshobel: 45 deg
Stanley No.9 metal mitre plane: has a 20 deg bed angle, so with a 30 deg blade angle the cutting angle is 50 deg
Low angle block, smooth, and jack planes: have a bed angle of 12-15 deg, so with a 30 deg blade the cutting angle is 42-45 deg.
Low angle block, smooth, and jack planes: have a bed angle of 12-15 deg, so with a 22 deg blade (which is the practical minimum for planing end-grain) the cutting angle is 34-37 deg.

So the bevel down miter plane has the lowest cutting angle, and a blade sharpened to 25-28 deg.

It would be possible to produce a low bed angle metal plane with a bevel down blade, with a 30 deg bedding/cutting angle for example, but the idea has not appealed to manufacturers yet.

Have a nice day,

János

Hello and thanks for the reply. This is my point, really, if these mitre planes were made with BU irons, they would be less use than regular pitched and bladed planes for endgrain work, with an EP of 60+. So what was the percieved advantage? Why take the trouble to make a BU plane when a regular one would be just as good/better at endgrain. Also, a coffin sided one would not work on a shooting board, so even less suitable for the task.

Are we (me?) missing something? Jacob mentioned that a donkeys ear was a bit of a fuss, (para phrasing, sorry) but a donkeys ear is for long grain, not endgrain mitres. Could this be the answer? perhaps these BD mitre planes were for use on a donkeys ear; coffin shape no disadvantage but more comfortable to use and a higher EP might be an advantage to prevent tearout as the plane would likely be used in only one direction on the donkeys ear, so going with the grain might not always be possible.

Mike.

 

[János]

Dear Mike,

The bevel up wooden miter plane and the metal plane with a 20deg bed angle are not the best tools to plane endgrain... But British planemakers have been drawn to higher pitches: their shoulder planes are bedded similarly, at 18-20 degrees, which is not a really good choice for the tools' intended purpose. I have no appetite to speculate about their reasons. :wink:

There are three kinds of mitres:
-The face mitre, like on wide mirror and picture frames, which is cut obliquely into endgrain. This miter could be planed from one direction only on a shooting board.
-The end mitre, like on box sides, which is cut crosswise into endgrain. This miter could be planed from either direction on a suitable shooting board.
-The edge mitre, like on built up furniture legs and pedestals, which is cut with the grain. This miter could be planed from either direction on a suitable shooting board.

The first two type gain from the use of low cutting angle planes, the third profits from higher cutting angles.

The main disadvantages of simple shooting boards are serious: you should use straight sided planes, lain on their sides, offering a not too comfortable grip. The blade of the plane needs frequent sharpening, as only a small portion of the cutting edge could be used. Ramped shooting boards are not a real solution to this problem.

The miter shooting clamp is a much more adequate solution: either coffin or straight sided planes can be used, you can use the full width of the cutting blade, and could change your "direction and angle of attack". And the tool is suitable to trim miters and to square up ends, in just one contrivance. Very, very clever, indeed...

Have a nice day,

János

 

[Corneel]

I have never really understood the miter clamp. All my own fault of course. How do you avoid planing the clamp instead of your miter?

 

[Jacob]

I have never really understood the miter clamp. All my own fault of course. How do you avoid planing the clamp instead of your miter?

Yep.
I've never bothered with one myself.

 

[AndyT]

I have never really understood the miter clamp. All my own fault of course. How do you avoid planing the clamp instead of your miter?

The usual advice is to stick cardboard on the surface so that any accidental nicks don't mess up the clamp itself. The cardboard can then be renewed as needed.

The end of the workpiece will have to be projecting past the oblique surface of the clamp - so it can be cut. I guess there must be a knack to knowing when you've made that last cut, and then resisting the temptation to do one more for luck.

 

[bugbear]

I have never really understood the miter clamp. All my own fault of course. How do you avoid planing the clamp instead of your miter?

The usual advice is to stick cardboard on the surface so that any accidental nicks don't mess up the clamp itself. The cardboard can then be renewed as needed.

The end of the workpiece will have to be projecting past the oblique surface of the clamp - so it can be cut. I guess there must be a knack to knowing when you've made that last cut, and then resisting the temptation to do one more for luck.

It's no more difficult than planing down a protruding dowel on a joint.

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

It's no more difficult than planing down a protruding dowel on a joint.

BugBear

Maybe I'm over-thinking this, but I don't think it's the same. With the dowel, it's ok if the last stroke of the smoothing plane takes away a few wisps of the surrounding wood. But you don't want to keep planing bits off the reference surface of a mitre clamp, however thin they are.

 

[barkwindjammer]

The wooden (coffin shaped) low angle plane + a shooting board (ramped or flat) when used in combination.
One advantage I can see with a coffin sided small plane is that the radiused sides would allow this little plane to execute a skewed cut-either skewed in the 'up' or 'down' direction, and even oscilated during a cut ?
Just a thought

 

[János]

Hello,

Dear Corneel, to put it shortly: yes, you plane the clamp itself along with the work, so the accuracy and fit of the jaws should be checked and restored (with planing) from time to time. The jaws wear down slowly, as they are made from hard woods, like beech, maple or hornbeam. The surfaces touched by the plane should be waxed heavily with paraffin wax, as waxing reduces wear. The purpose of this tool is the shooting of well sawn mitres and crosscuts, with a finely set plane. And that finely set plane have a tendency to "skid off" the waxed jaws, instead of cutting them.

The main problem with this tool is its sensitivity to climatic changes, as the heavy, large pieces of the tool could swell and shrink quite a bit, ruining the accuracy.

I have no images of my own clamp, but have found this very short "users' guide" for the clamp:

http://www.woodworking.de/cgi-bin/forum ... ad/id/5459

Have a nice day,

János

 

[Corneel]

Thank you Janos.

 

[Jacob]

I had a go with my recently found coffin shaped low angle (40º) single iron plane. It cuts along the grain perfectly but is hopeless across the grain. Too light, too short, too difficult to hold, too difficult to adjust precisely. No good at all. Virtually any steel plane would do a better job.