The point is you rotate the boards so the error is in opposite directions so they cancel out.
Planing a board flat - Is there literally no light when testing with a straight edge?
- Thread starter Arthur Dent
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Arthur Dent
Member
Hi mate, after I held my ruler correctly at 90° the light underneath was much less vibrant. Some spots would have little to none, some spots you could see a very thin line, I don't even want to guess the diameter. But I am sure like many pointed out, the ruler I am using is more than likely not 100% straight anyway.
Honestly it was "good enough"
and when I glued it together using the 2 flattest faces there were no massive gapes, so suited me fine.I did re-read the planing section in Wearings book that was mentioned and I am keen to try the exercises in there. I read them previously but forgot about them. It think they'll help.
Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
In theory they should join at 180º i.e flat, but this depends on the accuracy of your planing, and a camber would oeuf it up completely. But however well you do that you still have to plane a dead straight along the length, or there'd be gaps anyway.
It's one of those many woodworkers "good ideas" which put to the test aren't so good, unless you are lucky!
It’ll be bowed end to end whatever way you put it together.
Planing a flat edge end to end with a plane is actually easier than getting it exactly 90 degrees side to side. It is the second issue that planing two boards together solves.
If you are getting a convex edge then you have poor technique. It is invariably the result of applying pressure to the toe and heel of the plane incorrectly as you make a pass. With practice you can actually use planing pressure to advantage and put a very small concave edge on the boards which some say gives a more reliable joint over time.
Sgian Dubh
Established Member
It's interesting to read people discussing preparing two perfectly straight edges in order to join a number of boards to create a wider panel as might be used in a table top, cabinet top/side, or door panel, etc.
This is something I've never aimed to achieve having been taught to produce a sprung edge joint away back in the depths of time, perhaps even before some of Wearing's books were published: actually I know that last bit is a fact because Bob Wearing was one of my tutors at college. Excluding the times when I've been tasked with pure machine working, i.e., creating edges for gluing together on machines, in hand work I've been producing sprung edge joints with my no 5 or no 7 plane ever since those early days.
As far as I'm aware the sprung edge joint in hand work has been standard practice for perhaps centuries, but I could, of course, be all wet and wrong on that bit of traditional wisdom and working methodology.
Apart from saying what I've just said I think this thread has more than enough protagonists arguing their positions already, so I can't see me needing to say much, if anything, more, ha, ha. Slainte.
This is something I've never aimed to achieve having been taught to produce a sprung edge joint away back in the depths of time, perhaps even before some of Wearing's books were published: actually I know that last bit is a fact because Bob Wearing was one of my tutors at college. Excluding the times when I've been tasked with pure machine working, i.e., creating edges for gluing together on machines, in hand work I've been producing sprung edge joints with my no 5 or no 7 plane ever since those early days.
As far as I'm aware the sprung edge joint in hand work has been standard practice for perhaps centuries, but I could, of course, be all wet and wrong on that bit of traditional wisdom and working methodology.
Apart from saying what I've just said I think this thread has more than enough protagonists arguing their positions already, so I can't see me needing to say much, if anything, more, ha, ha. Slainte.
raffo
Established Member
How about rubbed joints?
Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
Was that Loughborough? Did you know Mr Mackenzie? Brian's dad? a.k.a. @Modernist (of this parish)
I get something like your "sprung edge joint" by making sure the joint is tight at each end, which amounts to the same thing I suppose. As per post #50 above. Planing a board flat - Is there literally no light when testing with a straight edge?
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I find mine need a bit of a rub after too much planing. It’s the age I guess.
Would you use the sprung edge joint if you were joining more than two boards together?
Sgian Dubh
Established Member
Yes.
Oh, what the hell, here's a link to something I wrote about edge joinery a while back.
I suspect all questions about my opinions and preferences are answered in the above link.
I'm out of this thread now ... I think. Slainte.
Read your article, very informative.
I was just curious if it became a problem the more boards you had in your panel, the ones further out needing to move more than the central boards.
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raffo
Established Member
Just to throw more opinion on this matter... my cousin Carlos Herrera continued the woodworking business his father started. I was chatting with him about bombe chests and what he is outputting lately. He sent me pictures of their construction process. There's a lot of complex laminations in those pieces, but it's one of many steps. It's done and on to complete the project. The laminated pieces are probably run through a planer, the hand work goes on the shaping of the curved faces and, of course, the inlays.
My father used to make similar pieces, not artsy like Carlos, on the traditional sense.
My father used to make similar pieces, not artsy like Carlos, on the traditional sense.
Sgian Dubh
Established Member
No. Shrewsbury.
I didn't know Brian Mackenzie's father. To be honest, your mention of the connection is the first I've heard of Brian's (Modernist's) father - or maybe I've heard of him, but forgotten. I'm guessing he was a tutor at Loughborough. Interestingly, the head of the course I was on, John Price, was a Loughborough alumni.
There's something of a thread in the studies/learning I got at Shrewsbury, which goes back to Loughborough, and back again to the Barnsley's and the Arts and Crafts movement.
The furniture craft world during the late 1800s and through much of the 1900s of training and practitioners, which I experienced perhaps somewhat towards the end of its strong A&C influence and mores, was part of a pretty tight world of interconnectedness that all seemed, one way or another, to lead back to Barnsley and others of that movement. Everybody seemed to know everybody else, where they'd come from, and been and where they moved on to, that kind of thing. Slainte.
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Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
Another one I just noticed today - grinding an old laminated Stanley plane blade on a coarse oil stone you can hear the difference as you dip from 30 to 25ºish and move from the hard steel to the softer backing - almost a growl!
I was doing it to impart a camber - the stone is dished both ways and does it automatically. Also good for sharpening small axes etc.
Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
Moving shop,need smaller bench. This is the "beam"; some very 2nd rate sycamore boards planed up and stuck together. Pleased to be able to use them as they were not much use for anything else - knots, wormholes, bark inclusions etc.
Lots of planing fun! Nice camber on a 5 1/2 and a 7 planing across at 45º to flatten it nicely. No flat shavings, what am I doing wrong?
On the light testing theme, see below.
Plane on edge gives a shadow and the light shows up much better. What I do next is to slip a pencil in and mark a line where there is no light showing, i.e. high points. (Couldn't photo this, not enough hands!) Do this all over the board and you end up with lots of pencil marks. Next step - plane off just the marked areas, and take down the high points. Repeat until flat, testing as you go with winding sticks for twist and squinting down the long edges for straightness
Lots of planing fun! Nice camber on a 5 1/2 and a 7 planing across at 45º to flatten it nicely. No flat shavings, what am I doing wrong?
On the light testing theme, see below.
Plane on edge gives a shadow and the light shows up much better. What I do next is to slip a pencil in and mark a line where there is no light showing, i.e. high points. (Couldn't photo this, not enough hands!) Do this all over the board and you end up with lots of pencil marks. Next step - plane off just the marked areas, and take down the high points. Repeat until flat, testing as you go with winding sticks for twist and squinting down the long edges for straightness
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Arthur Dent
Member
Good tip Jacob, must try that sometimeMoving shop,need smaller bench. This is the "beam"; some very 2nd rate sycamore boards planed up and stuck together. Pleased to be able to use them as they were not much use for anything else - knots, wormholes, bark inclusions etc.
View attachment 161146
Lots of planing fun! Nice camber on a 5 1/2 and a 7 planing across at 45º to flatten it nicely. No flat shavings, what am I doing wrong?
View attachment 161147
On the light testing theme, see below.
Plane on edge gives a shadow and the light shows up much better. What I do next is to slip a pencil in and mark a line where there is no light showing, i.e. high points. (Couldn't photo this, not enough hands!) Do this all over the board and you end up with lots of pencil marks. Next step - plane off just the marked areas, and take down the high points. Repeat until flat, testing as you go with winding sticks for twist and squinting down the long edges for straightness
View attachment 161148
also nice workshop.
Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
Thanks for that. But it's not really just a tip - it's how you do it. You identify the "waste" and remove it.Good tip Jacob, must try that sometime
As pointed out by Angela some years back, though she had it as "waist" which sounds more like slimming to me. Amounts to the same thing?
I think what she meant was that you identify and remove the waste material until what is left is what you want.
It may be by working to gauge lines, or removing scribbles on the high points as above, or by just remembering where you have to take more off.
What you don't do is to expect a perfectly set up plane or other tool to do it for you, like a machine.
The plane doesn't know, but you do.
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This! I’m slowly getting better at hand planing, but most of the time if the stock is flat it’s quicker to just stick the nice blade in the saw. Or just use the plane for cleaning up the sawn edge as mentioned above.I used to spend hours planing a perfectly flat edge for joining boards. Then I realized that a good blade in the tablesaw achieves the same results in minutes. I stick to Freud blades and make sure they are absolutely at 90 degrees to the tablesaw bed with a digital inclinometer. I have a DeWalt 746 saw ( sadly no longer available ) with a separate trunnion so that's a help. Not a purist approach for woodworking but it works for me.
Out of twist -- crucially important. Dead flat to the point of no light showing when testing length and width -- much less important.
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