Planing rough or recycled stock

[Bluekingfisher]

Now that i have been bitten by the the hand plane bug I will be asking lots of what may seem silly and obvious questions. However, I suppose that is the way to learn (other than actually trying it your self of course).

I was practicing my planing on some recycled oak (old table leg) last night having taken the advice on sharpening to gauge my success with honing. I am now very pleased with the results of the sharpening advice give, thanks all, however I have a couple more questions which originate from lasts nights experience.

1. I managed to chip the blade ever so slightly having caught a spot of hardened varnish. Having looked at the timber a little more closely it had all sorts of contaminants on it. repairing the chip was not an issue although not something I would want to do too often on my tuned and favoured plane. Q - Do you have a "rough" plane set aside for dealing with such stock, or is that the job of the Jack plane?

2. Having ended up with a glass like surface on the oak I found the plane sole almost sticking to the planed surface. I thought of more contaminants but after I left the shop I figured it could have been caused by a vacum effect caused by the lapped and polished sole of my #4 Stanley. Q - Is it a good idea to polish a plane sole or perhaps leave it in a more roughened state, say 360 grit?? to prevent such issues

My questions may seem obvious, I would however appreciate some input from you hand plane aficionados.

Regards

David

 

[johnwc812]

Hi David
A (frequent) rub of candle on the sole of the plane should avoid the "sticking".
Cheers John

 

[bugbear]

1. I managed to chip the blade ever so slightly having caught a spot of hardened varnish. Having looked at the timber a little more closely it had all sorts of contaminants on it. repairing the chip was not an issue although not something I would want to do too often on my tuned and favoured plane. Q - Do you have a "rough" plane set aside for dealing with such stock, or is that the job of the Jack plane?

The ideal (for convenience) is to have a "don't care" plane to hack off the outer surface (with all the varnish and grit). One can get by with a "don't care" blade.

This doesn't help with nails and tacks which go below the outer surface of course, but that's life (and why big companies have sensitive metal detectors on their valuable planing machines)

BugBear

 

[Bluekingfisher]

Thanks boys, I have an old plane or two which could easily fit into the "don't care" bracket and good to know I can keep my polished sole.

Thanks again.

David

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If you haven't a candle, a drop of linseed or even a wipe of furniture wax will do. The sole of your plane is fine, and a very small chip will come out in the course of normal sharpening - if it's not causing a problem, don't worry about it.

 

[Bluekingfisher]

If you haven't a candle, a drop of linseed or even a wipe of furniture wax will do. The sole of your plane is fine, and a very small chip will come out in the course of normal sharpening - if it's not causing a problem, don't worry about it.

You are right mate, chip already taken care of but my heart did sink when I heard the "tick" of the blade engaging the hard knotty bit.

I was just concerned about having to muss up my shiny sole plate due to the sticking, a swipe of Briwax should do the trick then.

Cheers

 

[mind_the_goat]

A question that's bothered me for sometime. How do you avoid any candle wax or other lubricant coming off on the wood and discolouring it or interfering with other finishes?

 

[Kalimna]

If you only wax the sole ahead of the blade, then any wax deposited on the wood will be removed with the shaving. Other than that, not sure, but I've not so far noticed it to be a problem.
Cheers,
Adam

 

[bugbear]

A question that's bothered me for sometime. How do you avoid any candle wax or other lubricant coming off on the wood and discolouring it or interfering with other finishes?

I've never seen a convincing explanation of why it doesn't cause trouble,
but I've seen many reports from people I trust to be both knowledgeable and honest
stating the observation that it doesn't cause trouble.

BugBear

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Now that i have been bitten by the the hand plane bug I will be asking lots of what may seem silly and obvious questions. However, I suppose that is the way to learn (other than actually trying it your self of course).

I was practicing my planing on some recycled oak (old table leg) last night having taken the advice on sharpening to gauge my success with honing. I am now very pleased with the results of the sharpening advice give, thanks all, however I have a couple more questions which originate from lasts nights experience.

1. I managed to chip the blade ever so slightly having caught a spot of hardened varnish. Having looked at the timber a little more closely it had all sorts of contaminants on it. repairing the chip was not an issue although not something I would want to do too often on my tuned and favoured plane. Q - Do you have a "rough" plane set aside for dealing with such stock, or is that the job of the Jack plane?

2. Having ended up with a glass like surface on the oak I found the plane sole almost sticking to the planed surface. I thought of more contaminants but after I left the shop I figured it could have been caused by a vacum effect caused by the lapped and polished sole of my #4 Stanley. Q - Is it a good idea to polish a plane sole or perhaps leave it in a more roughened state, say 360 grit?? to prevent such issues

My questions may seem obvious, I would however appreciate some input from you hand plane aficionados.

Regards

David

You may well have come across the stuff that follows - in which case I apologise for teaching you to suck eggs!

The usual compement of 'bench planes' consiste of jack, try and smoother. The jack for roughing out, the try for bringing stock to dimension, and the smoother for final finishing. (Some people keep an ultra-rough 'fore' or 'scrub' plane for really rough work as well.)

Taking the jack first, it has a 'cambered' iron - shaped to a slight curve, so that the middle of the blade shows about 1/32" when the corners are just barely showing. This can be sharpened to about 'fine India' - no need for an ultra-keen edge. The plane itself is usually about 13" to 15" long, and the iron either 2" or 2 3/8" - so that's a number 5 or 51/2 on the Stanley numbering system, or about 15" to 17" long with a 2 1/4" or so iron in a wooden plane. The mouth of the plane is quite open, to pass a thick shaving, and the cap-iron set quite well back - say about 2mm from the edge. In use, it's purpose is to level out the gross humps and bumps in sawn timber, usually by planing across the grain, or diagonally - there's much less resistance to cut, that way. The resulting surface is pretty much flat, but by no means smooth, having a lot of shallow hollows across the board, so the next step is to smooth those out and bring the board to rquired dimension.

For that, the try plane is used. These are longer - about 22" or 24" for a 7 or 8 (Stanley numbering) or about 22" for a woody. Irons are 2 3/8" for metal planes, and about 2 1/2" for woodies, sharpened (Fine India again, maybe with a bit of stropping) pretty well straight across, but with the corners taken off, and the cap-iron set closer - say about 1mm or finer. This plane is used longways of the grain with a fairly shallow setting and tightish mouth, to bring the timber to a decent straight, smoothish finish, flat and level - in other words, 'tried and true' - hence the name try plane. The length of the plane helps here, in that it rides over any slight hollows, and takes off humps. Once the whole surface is down to level of the lowest hollow, you're done. It's important to keep checking progress with a straightedge along and across the grain (the edge of the plane is often used) and with winding sticks to ensure all twist is removed from the board. The next stage is usually any marking out and cutting of joinery, with smoothing left 'till last.

Smoothing planes are usually much shorter - about 9", with irons of about 2" width (there are minor variations). They usually have irons sharpened pretty well straight across with the corners removed, or to a very shallow camber, and kept very keen - use your polishing stone! They have tight mouths, very shallow depth of cut, and often have the cap-iron very close to the edge. Used for final surfacing of components - insides of things before assembly, plus anything that won't be accessible after assembly, and for outside surfaces after gluing up.

For really rough work, some people keep a 'fore' or 'scrub' plane - often single-iron (no cap-iron) and with an aggressive camber to the blade, and a very open mouth. One cheap way to 'aquire' one of these is to buy the cheapest, roughest wooden jack plane you can find, and grind a really sharp camber on it. It's used like the jack plane, removing old finishes from reclaimed tmber, rough sawn, dirty and possibly gritty surfaces from new timber and similar. Sharpening can be straight from the grinder, or coarse India; if the plane iron gets nicked on a nail, don't bother, just carry on (well - maybe remove the nail!) - any lines in finished surface will be taken off by subsequent try-plane dimensioning operations.

The scrub/jack and try planes are the handplane equivalent of the planer thicknesser. The smoothing plane has no real power equivalent - unless you count power sanders.

There are a number of Youtube videos on how to prepare rough stock by hand, which will help to amplify the above.

Hope that's of some use or interest!

 

[deema]

+1 for above

 

[JimB]

For the first cut at least have it set deep enough so that the blade gets under any abrasive dust or paint on the surface.

 

[Dovetaildave]

+ 2 for a very accessible and clear explanation. =D>

 

[Bluekingfisher]

Thanks fellahs, useful stuff, much appreciated.

David