Plane set-up for flattening oak.

[RossJarvis]

I tend to use my Record 5 1/2 for most jobs and generally it seems pretty well set up for pine at least. wafer thin shavings, easy to use, flattens well and I can get good straight stock. However I find it takes a lot more effort on oak and I'm sure the shavings could be finer, they seem too thick to me. I'm fairly sure the sole is flat, so am wondering what might make it a bit easier to work on oak. Preferably an easy rather than lengthy job. It's an 80s Record with original iron. Might up rating the iron be a good first step? I've had a bit of a search around on t'internet but can't see anything apart from "tuning" "flattening sole" etc recommendations. If I need to, yep I'll do that, but simple up-grades sought first. I had wondered about laminated irons. In the past I had a Ray Iles iron (D2 I think) for my 605, but really didn't get on with the sharpening faff it seemed to require and there was an issue with extending the yoke.

Any recommendations, ideas or links?

cheers

Ross

 

[paulm]

There are others much more experienced with hand tools than me Ross, but first things that come to mind are sharpness and depth of cut.

A blade that is sharp enough to require little effort on pine might not be sharp enough for a harder timber ?

If the depth of cut is already adjusted to be quite fine (assuming you are not trying to remove much stock ?), then maybe a slight camber on the blade to reduce the width of cut would help reduce effort required ?

I'm sure others will be along with much better ideas though !

Cheers, Paul

 

[RossJarvis]

There are others much more experienced with hand tools than me Ross, but first things that come to mind are sharpness and depth of cut.

A blade that is sharp enough to require little effort on pine might not be sharp enough for a harder timber ?

If the depth of cut is already adjusted to be quite fine (assuming you are not trying to remove much stock ?), then maybe a slight camber on the blade to reduce the width of cut would help reduce effort required ?

I'm sure others will be along with much better ideas though !

Cheers, Paul

Might be an issue, but generally speaking the iron is pretty well sharp and has a slight camber. Easily cuts through paper held between two fingers. I use 1000 and 5000 grit Shapton stones and a Veritas Mk II (for my sins) I tend to set up depth of cut by skating across the wood, adjusting the iron a tad each time till it just starts cutting. This gives me this;



...with pine I'm getting this;



Maybe a 5 1/2 is a bit too wide and a 5 1/4 would be better?

 

[Cheshirechappie]

If you're getting wafer-thin shavings, then the plane's sole is adequately flat, so I wouldn't bother with all the faff of 'tuning' it.

Let's assume you have the iron set to take a 2 thou shaving (i.e. very fine); if the plane sole is hollow in length by 2 thou, it'll cease cutting as the whole sole is over the wood. If it still cuts, the sole must be either flat or slightly convex. If the results you're getting are acceptable for flatness and finish, it doesn't really matter whether the sole is dead flat or slightly convex - it still performs adequately.

Oak is a much coarser wood than pine, so fine shavings tend to break up. On really fine settings, you may get little more than coarse dust. Don't worry too much about that - judge things by the quality of surface on the wokpiece. If it's straight, flat and smooth, you're set up OK.

For flattening hardwoods, it pays to do the bulk of the work working across the grain. The wood cuts much easier that way. It's even faster if you set the plane up like a true jack - an iron with a strong camber (say 1/16"), cap-iron set well back, and frog set back to give an open mouth. Set the iron to give the deepest cut you can reasonably achieve without exhausting yourself too quickly (going cross-grain, that'll be deeper than you think!) and attack the high spots on the rough board. Keep checking progress - you can take off too much very easily if you don't keep track of progress. Once you've got the board level and taken off the rough-sawn surface, revert to try plane (or try-plane set-up with the jack - fine set with a near-straight iron, close cap-iron setting and tighter mouth) and take out the jack-plane ripples by working the try plane along the grain. Since the jack did the bulk of the wood-shifting, the trying-up doesn't take long.

 

[RossJarvis]

For flattening hardwoods, it pays to do the bulk of the work working across the grain. The wood cuts much easier that way. It's even faster if you set the plane up like a true jack - an iron with a strong camber (say 1/16"), cap-iron set well back, and frog set back to give an open mouth. Set the iron to give the deepest cut you can reasonably achieve without exhausting yourself too quickly (going cross-grain, that'll be deeper than you think!) and attack the high spots on the rough board. Keep checking progress - you can take off too much very easily if you don't keep track of progress. Once you've got the board level and taken off the rough-sawn surface, revert to try plane (or try-plane set-up with the jack - fine set with a near-straight iron, close cap-iron setting and tighter mouth) and take out the jack-plane ripples by working the try plane along the grain. Since the jack did the bulk of the wood-shifting, the trying-up doesn't take long.

Hmm, yes, maybe I'm using the wrong technique, cutting along the grain and getting knackered. And maybe I'm expecting too much from the one plane/iron. I've got a wooden Jack with a good camber to the blade. Maybe I should be using this to flatten the oak and finishing with the 5 1/2 or possibly the 4 (I don't want to buy any more planes, I'm trying to cut down on them :? ). I'd been pretty pleased with the flatness/straightness and finish I was getting, just knackered.

 

[Jacob]

The single most effective thing for improving plane performance and ease of use is a squiggle of candle wax on the sole

 

[Cheshirechappie]

The wooden jack sounds ideal - means you can leave the 5 1/2 set up for try-plane work. Jack planes (old name 'fore plane' because they come before the rest) don't need the fine set-ups of try and smoothing planes; wide mouth, well-cambered iron, rank set.

It makes for quicker work if you can have three bench planes set up - jack, try and smoothing. Changing between planes is then just a matter of putting one down and picking up the next - no replacing of irons and resetting of frogs.

When you've been used to planing pine, the hardness of seasoned oak comes as a bit of a shock! The more you can take off cross-grain, the better. One thing to watch is that you do get break-out on the off-side of the board you're preparing. You can either run a generous bevel along the back edge before you start, or leave the board a good 1/4" wide while you surface the two faces and face edge, then clean up the raggy bits when you finish the back edge to final width.

With some boards, it's a toss-up whether or not to plane off excess width, or saw off most of it and just clean up. All down to individual circumstances, really.

 

[matthewwh]

For flattening hardwoods, it pays to do the bulk of the work working across the grain. The wood cuts much easier that way. It's even faster if you set the plane up like a true jack - an iron with a strong camber (say 1/16"), cap-iron set well back, and frog set back to give an open mouth. Set the iron to give the deepest cut you can reasonably achieve without exhausting yourself too quickly (going cross-grain, that'll be deeper than you think!) and attack the high spots on the rough board. Keep checking progress - you can take off too much very easily if you don't keep track of progress. Once you've got the board level and taken off the rough-sawn surface, revert to try plane (or try-plane set-up with the jack - fine set with a near-straight iron, close cap-iron setting and tighter mouth) and take out the jack-plane ripples by working the try plane along the grain. Since the jack did the bulk of the wood-shifting, the trying-up doesn't take long.

One of the best summaries I have read for a long time.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Thank you, Matthew. Coming from yourself, that's praise indeed!

 

[RossJarvis]

When you've been used to planing pine, the hardness of seasoned oak comes as a bit of a shock!

Crumbs, yes indeedy :shock:

The bit which is still befuddling me is that I can't get a finer shaving or dust than I'm getting. Even coming in from the edge, the cut is either "off or on", if that makes any sense. I've also got the cap/back iron set very close to the cutting edge, so maybe adjusting that will give a noticeable improvement. There's an awful lot to this planing business that I don't know. I'd love to spend some time with a master and learn from that, I think I need to set more time aside to just practice with all the adjustment I've got to really find out how to use the plane on different woods.

Thanks for the great help guys

 

[Lawrence Hill]

Have you considered a slightly steeper honing bevel say 35 deg instead of the usual 30? Also a spot of ruler trick on the back may help shift the attack angle slightly to give a scraping angle cut (remember the No5 will have a 45 deg bed angle good for softwoods but less ideal for tougher hardwoods (hence Norris pitched at 47.5 degrees and the LN frogs at other pitches).

(Now you have the perfect excuse to buy an infill...)

Is the timber very old? Oak sometimes casehardens for want of a better phrase, as it ages.

Hope this helps.

Regards
Lawrence

 

[Kalimna]

I would echo Jacobs suggestion - a squiggle of wax really does ease things up nicely.

Adam

 

[Paul Chapman]

I've also got the cap/back iron set very close to the cutting edge, so maybe adjusting that will give a noticeable improvement.

I would try setting the cap iron back a bit. Some people recommend a close set cap iron but, in my experience, this doesn't always work well unless you fiddle about honing the cap iron to an optimum shape. It can also lead to shavings getting jammed if you have a close-set mouth.

Ideally, I would echo Cheshirechappie's recommendation of having three planes - a jack, jointer and smoother - set up ideally for their respective functions. The more you get into planning, particularly with hard woods, the more you will find that one plane can't do everything and the way the plane is set up is just as important as the sharpness of the blade.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[RossJarvis]

Thanks very much for all your replies. Generally I think I've got a very good 5 1/2 and I'm probably asking a bit too much of it. However I'm also very pleased that I can plane pine and oak and get a good finish on both as well as flat and square. A 5 1/2 may be a Jack of all trades but it's b****y good at a lot of them if not perfect at all of them. I'm getting both a good finish and a good rate of flatness and straightness. I'm probably also trying to wimp out a bit and avoid hard effort. I got very knackered producing two bin bags of shavings, profiling a 4' door cill and 4' weather bar, when a bit more skilful sawing or cutting may have saved a lot of effort.

I've used both camellia oil and wax which reduce the effort, but do worry a bit about how this might effect later finishes, maybe a rub over with white spirit will solve this.

At the end of the day though, I am coming to the conclusion that a 5 1/2 with one blade will do more jobs than anything else, as long as you accept it is a jack of all and a master of none and are proud of it.

 

[RossJarvis]

double post

 

[RossJarvis]

Thanks very much for all your replies. Generally I think I've got a very good 5 1/2 and I'm probably asking a bit too much of it. However I'm also very pleased that I can plane pine and oak and get a good finish on both as well as flat and square. A 5 1/2 may be a Jack of all trades but it's b****y good at a lot of them if not perfect at all of them. I'm getting both a good finish and a good rate of flatness and straightness. I'm probably also trying to wimp out a bit and avoid hard effort. I got very knackered producing two bin bags of shavings, profiling a 4' door cill and 4' weather bar, when a bit more skilful sawing or cutting may have saved a lot of effort.

I've used both camellia oil and wax which reduce the effort, but do worry a bit about how this might effect later finishes, maybe a rub over with white spirit will solve this.

At the end of the day though, I am coming to the conclusion that a 5 1/2 with one blade will do more jobs than anything else, as long as you accept it is a jack of all and a master of none and are proud of it.

 

[RossJarvis]

H

Is the timber very old? Oak sometimes casehardens for want of a better phrase, as it ages.

Hope this helps.

Regards
Lawrence

luckily I've been working on new seasoned oak, the last time I worked on old oak (100years+) I think I'd have been better off with a Death Star Disintegrator.

 

[bugbear]

Whilst people's comments on general plane tuning are helpful. no-one has addressed the reported issue.

The plane is taking a (much) thicker shaving on oak than pine, at the same depth setting.

My own guesses are either concave sole (with the harder oak sucking the plane down in the concavity once the blade engages),
or a poorly bedded iron (ditto, but on the iron).

BugBear

 

[Richard T]

Hmmm yes ... What BB says. How do your other planes compare in use with Pine and with Oak?

(Notice that I am assuming that you have other planes...)

 

[RossJarvis]

Thanks BB and Rich T. I think I need to do a bit of investigating here. For some reason it just didn't occur to me to compare with other planes #-o and for the life of me I can't remember how the block plane compared and I'm sure I used that along the grain. It seemed fine on the end-grain and produced a fair amount of dust there.

I'm starting to wonder if the sole isn't as flat as wot I thought!