Washita and Smooth Planing

[D_W]

I had a chance today to do some woodworking, something uncommon mid week.





I am doing the world's slowest job of building kitchen cabinets, partly because I haven't been that diligent about ignoring the static here and just going into the shop, and also partly because I'm not using shortcut joinery in them.

What the picture doesn't do a good job of conveying is the clarity of the surface off of the washita stone, and the iron in this plane is a little hard, which means it takes a slightly better edge off of the washita.

The cap iron on this infill plane says "anderson" or something like that. It's sort of plain, though the screw is quite nice, and the rest of the plane must've been made from plans or copying as the proportions are lovely and it's a delight to use to smooth the sticking.

I wish I could get a better job of the clarity it leaves behind, though!

A couple of years ago, someone accused me of advocating compromised or low quality edges because I was suggesting sharpening with a single stone (which is easier and far faster than just about anything else).

 

[G S Haydon]

Surface looks plenty good enough to me David. It'll come together to make a fine kitchen some day

 

[D_W]

Surface looks plenty good enough to me David. It'll come together to make a fine kitchen some day

I'll bet if we have to move, I could finish it quickly for the next buyer Otherwise, it'll probably be another 6 months before I finish the last two cabinets as I get about two hours per weekend to woodwork (wife's choice). I left the two worst cabinets for last.

I recall spraying the first group of cabinets right after my son was born.... He just turned 3 :roll:

I have gotten to work a lot of the solids by hand, though, which has been nice.

 

[MIGNAL]

Never used one but approximately what grit are these washitas, or do they vary? Do you have to create a slurry?

 

[D_W]

They vary, but they are generally a bit coarse when slurried or scuffed. What they compare to is hard to say, they cut more like a slurried arkansas stone and less like a synthetic stone and their speed depends on the hardness of what's being sharpened. On a softer tool steel (like buck chisels or french irons like freres), when freshly lapped, they cut about as fast as a fine india stone - even if they're broken in, they'll cut that stuff fast and raise a substantial wire edge (as they will also do on things like pocket knives of vintage persuasion or new vintage style, which generally are a touch soft in my experience). The closer you get to 64 or 65 hardness or so, the less they cut and somewhere around there, they pretty much stop cutting. They won't do anything other than brightly polish the hardest of japanese white steel chisels.

They don't shed particles, so you can let them break in. The stone I used with this one is probably cutting similar to a 4k grit synthetic stone in some ways, but the edge is finer in quality and tougher.

There's also a range of them, the fastest and coarsest are the pure white types that don't have a really compact pattern on them (like the old pike lilywhites that had an end label that said "soft and fast cutting"). The finest of the washitas will make an edge similar to a translucent arkansas, but with more cutting strength.

The more you use them (as in gaining experience and experimenting) the better you can get them to work on the fine side.

Not something I'd chase down if you have a regimen you like, but if you find a clean one for two bucks at a boot sale, worth picking up.

 

[bugbear]

What the picture doesn't do a good job of conveying is the clarity of the surface off of the washita stone, and the iron in this plane is a little hard, which means it takes a slightly better edge off of the washita.

I noticed an extreme case of this effect when using 60 Grit AlZi to strip the ridges from a butchers steel when making a scraper burnisher. Throughout the process (which was extremely hard work) the metal was very shiny, which I put down the hardness of the steel.

Your test may also be slightly skewed towards good results by the use of an infill; Joel Moskowitz has commented (based on his extensive pile of planes) that a freshly sharpened Bailey (esp Bedrock) is every bit a match for a freshly sharpened infill.

But he says that as the blade becomes "less than fresh" the infill continues to work well, long after the Bailey has started to give poorer results.

Something worth checking, at least.

BugBear

 

[MIGNAL]

Why? What is it about an infill that results in it performing for a longer period of time? Taking into account the steel of the blade of course.

 

[D_W]

Why? What is it about an infill that results in it performing for a longer period of time? Taking into account the steel of the blade of course.

It's more about matter of weight than type of plane. Infills are about 1 1/2 to 2 times as heavy as wooden and Bailey smoothers (except for some 4 1/2s and bedrocks) and stay in the cut and little better with loss of clearance. The weight also creates the perception that a plane is cutting better than it is. You can get a little bit of surface imperfection that you'd feel on a lightweight bailey 4 and not feel it in a heavy infill, but the surface imperfection is still there - it just feels like the plane is doing better than it is.

It doesn't affect the surface quality, though. In this case, the iron is just a good match for the washita based on its hardness.

I think Joel's post has created a perception that there is a wildcard ("magic power" or whatever) of some sort in favor of infill, but it's just weight, and given the choice, I prefer a Bailey type plane. But if you're not doing bunch of planing to get tired of the weight, they're fun. The older types of infills were a lot more practical than a lot of the near zero mouth new ones, too. If you are intending to do preliminary work on a surface and take a heavy shaving, you can't much do that with a plane with a 4 thousandth mouth.

 

[bugbear]

Why? What is it about an infill that results in it performing for a longer period of time? Taking into account the steel of the blade of course.

It's more about matter of weight than type of plane. Infills are about 1 1/2 to 2 times as heavy as wooden and Bailey smoothers (except for some 4 1/2s and bedrocks) and stay in the cut and little better with loss of clearance. The weight also creates the perception that a plane is cutting better than it is. You can get a little bit of surface imperfection that you'd feel on a lightweight bailey 4 and not feel it in a heavy infill, but the surface imperfection is still there - it just feels like the plane is doing better than it is.

It doesn't affect the surface quality, though. In this case, the iron is just a good match for the washita based on its hardness.

Joel is very explicit that he's talking about tearout as his performance measure, not the "feel" of the plane.

BugBear

 

[MIGNAL]

I might go along with weight. The most difficult timber that I've planed has been some birds eye maple. Pretty much every plane I tried resulted in some tear out. I was taking the sharpening to 8,000 G and stropping after, cap iron set very close, very tight mouth. No luck. Then I tried my Stanley SW (the newer type). I don't use it much, it's very heavy compared to a standard No. 4, the reason why it sees little use. That Stanley did the trick though. Just to clarify I have two No. 4 's, an early Record with square cut blade and a Stanley with a Ray Iles blade and Clifton chipbreaker. The Stanley SW out performed both of them in that particular case.
The Stanley SW still sits on the shelf not doing very much. It's brought out when the battle really gets tough.
Just my personal experience.

 

[D_W]

Why? What is it about an infill that results in it performing for a longer period of time? Taking into account the steel of the blade of course.

It's more about matter of weight than type of plane. Infills are about 1 1/2 to 2 times as heavy as wooden and Bailey smoothers (except for some 4 1/2s and bedrocks) and stay in the cut and little better with loss of clearance. The weight also creates the perception that a plane is cutting better than it is. You can get a little bit of surface imperfection that you'd feel on a lightweight bailey 4 and not feel it in a heavy infill, but the surface imperfection is still there - it just feels like the plane is doing better than it is.

It doesn't affect the surface quality, though. In this case, the iron is just a good match for the washita based on its hardness.

Joel is very explicit that he's talking about tearout as his performance measure, not the "feel" of the plane.

BugBear

I don't know what the case would be where the infill would do better than a stanley plane unless someone doesn't know how to set the cap iron. At the time that Joel wrote stuff about infill planes, I don't think he was using the cap iron to control tearout (I wasn't, either). I have liked some stanley planes better than others (and my favorite is a modern blue plane with beech handles), but it's minor preference for proportions, etc, and the fact that the plane is less used and nothing is beat up on it so it adjusts very smoothly. Same plane, though, has the only stanley iron that I felt the desire to replace - a very soft iron that would be OK in a coarser plane, but I don't like much in smoothers.

It's possible in mignal's case that the cap iron on one plane is set up a little differently than it is on another.

I do notice with my infills that it's possible for me to have a "that feels great" thought, and then look at the surface and see minor imperfections that I just couldn't feel in planing - the kind of things that you'd have on quartered wood where finish would blotch due to a bit of roughness. As far as infills working further in the sharpening cycle without tearout, though, not if the cap iron is set properly on both planes.

 

[MIGNAL]

Well cap iron is one factor. They are all different. The Clifton and the SW is the same as supplied, I haven't done anything to them. The original Record cap iron . . . . I'm not sure. I probably checked that it was seating the blade correctly, no idea if I altered any geometry. Probably not, just polished the surface a little.

 

[D_W]

I think the best usable cap iron geometry is pretty close to stock. honing and polishing the front of the rounded bow is probably going to make it a little steeper, but as long as it's crisp, it's probably not very critical.

It's unusual for me to find one that has been prepared properly. They're usually beat up, or someone mangled a steep bevel onto them with something very coarse. Leads me to believe not many people were using them to control tearout - maybe they were bought and used by carpenters, not sure.

I see the same thing with old wooden planes, though - not sure how they were put away by the last experienced user, but the cap iron is generally not prepared well enough to eliminate anything other than coarse tearout.

 

[swagman]

DW; not a big fan of your 1 stone approach, but if it suits your style of work that's all that matters. It would suggest you have a lot of honing stones in your workshop that will need to be off loaded in the near future. That should keep you rather busy on ebay. Should give me enough time to purchase the odd item you didn't want in the uk.

Stewie;

 

[MIGNAL]

Most 'one stone' approaches are actually two, if you include some form of grinding the primary bevel. It works very well if that second stone cuts fast, like a waterstone. Even my scotch hone cuts fast enough to use the one stone approach. I grind with a hand crank at 100G. Providing you get the polished glint all across the tip of the edge then that's what you are left with, the 'grade' left by that stone, nothing more nothing less.

 

[D_W]

Most 'one stone' approaches are actually two, if you include some form of grinding the primary bevel. It works very well if that second stone cuts fast, like a waterstone. Even my scotch hone cuts fast enough to use the one stone approach. I grind with a hand crank at 100G. Providing you get the polished glint all across the tip of the edge then that's what you are left with, the 'grade' left by that stone, nothing more nothing less.

You're right, it's two stones if you count the grinder or separate grinding stone, and accurate grinding is a must. The grinding could be argued to be more important than the honing because it's responsible for leaving the area to be worked as relatively small.

 

[MIGNAL]

Which is why I use a hand crank, it allows you to creep back to just short of the very edge, so that you don't go past the polished glint. Doing that and using a fine stone means you are never removing much steel at all. It fails if you do go past that edge with the coarse grinder though and that does happen to me when I'm being careless or rushing things.
You might be able to do the same on a powered grinder. No idea, I've very little experience of them.

 

[D_W]

Which is why I use a hand crank, it allows you to creep back to just short of the very edge, so that you don't go past the polished glint. Doing that and using a fine stone means you are never removing much steel at all. It fails if you do go past that edge with the coarse grinder though and that does happen to me when I'm being careless or rushing things.
You might be able to do the same on a powered grinder. No idea, I've very little experience of them.

I have a standard power grinder, and the same is possible. I will run all the way to the edge sometimes, but not enough to create any significant wire edge on the back side. It's a matter of practice, like anything else, but not as difficult or as potentially damaging as it might be made out to be in a tormek brochure. I have done it with brown aluminum oxide wheels, and other similar cheap wheels, but splurged last year or a little before maybe and bought a CBN wheel, which makes it an even lazier process. With the cheap wheels, it's important only that the wheel is coarse and periodically dressed.

I have burned my fingers grinding, but not with that - strangely enough, if I have freehand ground an iron on my sandpaper lap out of convenience (since it is what I use to remove minor pitting on a new-to-me iron, I will create a primary with it if I am already standing at it). It gets hot very quickly.

 

[D_W]

DW; not a big fan of your 1 stone approach, but if it suits your style of work that's all that matters. It would suggest you have a lot of honing stones in your workshop that will need to be off loaded in the near future. That should keep you rather busy on ebay. Should give me enough time to purchase the odd item you didn't want in the uk.

Stewie;

Technically, that's correct. I have a lot of stones that don't get used much. I think my current buying spree is coming to a close, but I don't intend to sell off any appreciable number of stones. They don't take up much space and as todd hughes used to say, I guess I sort of collect them. (I did just get two more green stones from the UK this week).

There is one shortcoming of using a one-stone approach (aside from the fact that you have to be able to hone off of the primary a little bit, and it's not a very nice method to use with a guide - it relies on touch and judgement). That is, the level of polish doesn't quite approach that of a submicron stone edge - but even that is easily achievable. I've found that four or five swipes (very little) on a piece of horse butt that's liberally oiled with some dursol on it will polish the wood at least as brightly as the most expensive stone.

That's far from what sellers does, rounding a bevel significantly, it takes very little to work the bit of scratchiness off of a washita edge. No need to work the back of the iron further (the flat face), it has little effect on the level of polish on the wood if it has been done with a stone that doesn't leave deep grooves.

The benefit of that vs. a progression of stones is that it takes about a quarter of the time or less, the polish of the edge is just as bright (in terms of what it does to the wood), the edge longevity is just as good (I guess technically, it's much cheaper to do), and the clearance isn't affected significantly if the passes on the leather lap are sparing.

 

[MIGNAL]

I have a little razor frictionite hone that works well as a single stone. It comes with a little slurry stone. Someone from the states brought two of them over (a few decades ago) and gave one to my friend, who then gave it to me. He also gave me the Scotch hone. I think that frictionite has gone up in price since the 1980's! Crazy what they'll pay for these things. I must admit that using a slurry stone annoys me a little. I much prefer a quick squirt with oil or water and get on with things.