And the reason that when someone asserts they never do it, I assume they don't do that much with hand tools...
I have a pair of guitar parts sets, but missing a second body blank, and out of curiosity, I want to make a second body out of inexpensive flatsawn cherry (mahogany is typical for the style of guitar I'm making).
I always true the soles of smoother and jointers. And I true them to a pretty tight spec, because once you do, then flatness is achieved as a matter of planing and doesn't need to be checked with anything.
To join two boards far too wide to be match planed, I check nothing but squareness at both ends. In the rare case that you join two boards like this that are 62 inches long instead of 22, then checking in more places and spot removing with a smoother might be needed - but probably not.
This pair of boards, from both sides, are just planed and checked with the square and no additional work. If the plane sole isn't flat, this doesn't work. There are no stop shavings or super thin shavings or anything, just set the cap iron, plane through, fix any squareness issues with continuous cuts and you're done. It takes about one minute per edge. I seriously doubt cabinetmakers were lazy about the flatness of the soles on their wooden planes (by the time metal planes came around, this kind of work was mostly dead).
if you look closely at the last picture, it appears the boards aren't in the same plane, but look closer to the joint and you can see the top board is a bit cupped looking (which it is, not just looking like it is). That kind of stuff doesn't really matter as you'll not be planing until after the boards are glued.
I have a pair of guitar parts sets, but missing a second body blank, and out of curiosity, I want to make a second body out of inexpensive flatsawn cherry (mahogany is typical for the style of guitar I'm making).
I always true the soles of smoother and jointers. And I true them to a pretty tight spec, because once you do, then flatness is achieved as a matter of planing and doesn't need to be checked with anything.
To join two boards far too wide to be match planed, I check nothing but squareness at both ends. In the rare case that you join two boards like this that are 62 inches long instead of 22, then checking in more places and spot removing with a smoother might be needed - but probably not.
This pair of boards, from both sides, are just planed and checked with the square and no additional work. If the plane sole isn't flat, this doesn't work. There are no stop shavings or super thin shavings or anything, just set the cap iron, plane through, fix any squareness issues with continuous cuts and you're done. It takes about one minute per edge. I seriously doubt cabinetmakers were lazy about the flatness of the soles on their wooden planes (by the time metal planes came around, this kind of work was mostly dead).
if you look closely at the last picture, it appears the boards aren't in the same plane, but look closer to the joint and you can see the top board is a bit cupped looking (which it is, not just looking like it is). That kind of stuff doesn't really matter as you'll not be planing until after the boards are glued.
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