Corneel
Established Member
I saw in a corner of my eye some discussion about the "loss" of knowledge about the correct use of the capiron, in another thread. And I thought, why not start a new one? It is kind of interesting how these things work in this world.
My interpretation:
The capiron was invented in the 18th century and got real momentum in the 19th century, to the point that almost all bench panes were equiped with capirons (chipbreaker, topiron, double iron). That includes all the woodies, the Baileys, the infills. Single iron planes became rare. Then, after the war (the 2nd WW), the electric motor became so cheap that the handplane became more and more dormant. A hobby woodworker from the 1970's would rather use a sanding attachment on his drill then learning how to sharpen and use a handplane. He would buy his wood in finished sizes from the local "do it yourself" shop in the neighbourhood. I am not too familiar with the trades, but even there I can't imagine a very prominent position for the handplane, compared to the 19th century shops. The result was a decrease in availibilty of new handplanes and knowledge was more and more dispersed to isolated islands. It was described how to use the capiron in every woodworking instruction book, but usually only in one sentence.
Then came the "handtool renaissance", somewhere in the 1980's - 1990's. At the same time the Internet was develloped and enthusiasts gathered together on usenet and later on various forums. The first users of the internet were university people, software engineers came first, then the others. Overall, there were very few real trades people on these forums in the beginning. The typical behaviour of people like that is to diagnose a problem first through thinking hard about it, then do some experiments in the lab (the tinshed in the garden) and then compare the results to the thinking. Literature study showed that the capiron was supposed to break chips and help against teraout, but they couldn't replicate that in their tinshed, so they decided almost unanimously that the caprion was a useless part of the plane and the only way to cope with tearout was a high cutting angle and a really tight mouth. See the rising popularity of the bevel up planes and see how the famous modern infill makers stopped reproducing the antique double iron designs in favor of very thick single irons and see the high angle frogs from Lie Nielsen. On the forums I can only find two names argueing in favor of using the capiron to combat teraout, Warren Mickley who works in the restauration business, and Todd Hughes who was tool tinckerer and trader.
Then came 2012. Let me describe that event from my point of view. I am a hobby woodworker, never had any formal training. I had occasionally trouble with tearout, I knew that the capiron was supposed to help, but never could get it to really work. Setting it close didn't help. Setting it closer only caused a clogged mouth. In 2012 the video from Kato was again made available for the publicum at large. For me (schooled as an engineer, so thriving on numbers) it was an eye opener because it actually contained some numbers and because it clearly showed how it works. It's difficult to measure these things but I fumbled with a vernier gauge and saw that my own experiments didn't get the capiron any closer then 0.4 mm from the edge. So I opened the mouth of a test plane, set the capiron twice as close and it "clicked".
I am sure there have been plenty of people all along who knew exactly how to use a capiron against tearout, but it was kind of lost in the very vocal Internet world of woodworking, it also wasn't teached in the magazines and you had to be a carefull reader to find it in the woodworking instruction books.
So, and now my coffee is finished and I am going to do some woodworking.
My interpretation:
The capiron was invented in the 18th century and got real momentum in the 19th century, to the point that almost all bench panes were equiped with capirons (chipbreaker, topiron, double iron). That includes all the woodies, the Baileys, the infills. Single iron planes became rare. Then, after the war (the 2nd WW), the electric motor became so cheap that the handplane became more and more dormant. A hobby woodworker from the 1970's would rather use a sanding attachment on his drill then learning how to sharpen and use a handplane. He would buy his wood in finished sizes from the local "do it yourself" shop in the neighbourhood. I am not too familiar with the trades, but even there I can't imagine a very prominent position for the handplane, compared to the 19th century shops. The result was a decrease in availibilty of new handplanes and knowledge was more and more dispersed to isolated islands. It was described how to use the capiron in every woodworking instruction book, but usually only in one sentence.
Then came the "handtool renaissance", somewhere in the 1980's - 1990's. At the same time the Internet was develloped and enthusiasts gathered together on usenet and later on various forums. The first users of the internet were university people, software engineers came first, then the others. Overall, there were very few real trades people on these forums in the beginning. The typical behaviour of people like that is to diagnose a problem first through thinking hard about it, then do some experiments in the lab (the tinshed in the garden) and then compare the results to the thinking. Literature study showed that the capiron was supposed to break chips and help against teraout, but they couldn't replicate that in their tinshed, so they decided almost unanimously that the caprion was a useless part of the plane and the only way to cope with tearout was a high cutting angle and a really tight mouth. See the rising popularity of the bevel up planes and see how the famous modern infill makers stopped reproducing the antique double iron designs in favor of very thick single irons and see the high angle frogs from Lie Nielsen. On the forums I can only find two names argueing in favor of using the capiron to combat teraout, Warren Mickley who works in the restauration business, and Todd Hughes who was tool tinckerer and trader.
Then came 2012. Let me describe that event from my point of view. I am a hobby woodworker, never had any formal training. I had occasionally trouble with tearout, I knew that the capiron was supposed to help, but never could get it to really work. Setting it close didn't help. Setting it closer only caused a clogged mouth. In 2012 the video from Kato was again made available for the publicum at large. For me (schooled as an engineer, so thriving on numbers) it was an eye opener because it actually contained some numbers and because it clearly showed how it works. It's difficult to measure these things but I fumbled with a vernier gauge and saw that my own experiments didn't get the capiron any closer then 0.4 mm from the edge. So I opened the mouth of a test plane, set the capiron twice as close and it "clicked".
I am sure there have been plenty of people all along who knew exactly how to use a capiron against tearout, but it was kind of lost in the very vocal Internet world of woodworking, it also wasn't teached in the magazines and you had to be a carefull reader to find it in the woodworking instruction books.
So, and now my coffee is finished and I am going to do some woodworking.
I wonder if we can trace the modern use of the screwdriver. Maybe an article by one of the internet woodworking guru's who discovered the lost art of how to fasten together two bits of chipboard with a screw. Anyone?
