Where did the knowledge about the capiron get lost?

[AndyT]

Paddy, that strikes me as a very sensible summary.

Logically, another possible reason why reading on line forums is not the best source of information is this:

Much of the content is written by people who buy a lot of tools. Naturally, anyone who has just spent a lot on a new tool will want to justify their purchase. If they find that it solves a problem (such as tearout) they will say so.
The message becomes "if you have the same problem, you should buy this tool too."

Sometimes a lone voice will be raised saying that you don't need fancy new tools, only to be shouted down.

 

[Trafalgar]

Narcissist alert: every post isn't a response to you.

 

[D_W]

D_W
Just as an example of one of us this side of the pond saying Set your chip breaker right see David Charlesworth's comment on CS's blog http://blog.lostartpress.com/2007/12/31 ... -tear-out/
I doubt I was much into forums in those days and I bet most of my contemporaries were not using forums before circa 2008. I still do not respond much hence less than 100 posts per year and this thread is heading for a record for me.

I'll post what David Charlesworth said in 2012. I'm not sure what the deal was with the cap iron that he was suggesting in Chris's blog post (which I haven't seen before, I'll admit I don't consume that much information from bloggers since people like George Wilson have come on the scene - I can dial his phone number and ask about most anything else other than cap irons, and get a far better answer).

"This chipbreaker information is quite the most exciting thing I have learned in a forty year career. I am quite clear that it was not common knowledge in England and I don't recall seeing it in the whole of Fine Woodworking.

My advice and practice was to set the C/B close for gnarly timbers but not that close!

Learning new stuff is very invigorating.

Best wishes,
David"

I hope David doesn't mind that I've posted what he said, he may find me unfavorable..so might a lot of other folks, that's OK. I *did* get my introduction to woodworking and sharpening through his videos, and never have I had to use a dull tool because of it.

In the combination of settings he discussed on Chris's post, a chipbreaker set at .008 with a mouth set at .003" would lead to the mouth limiting what could get through it such that the cap iron wouldn't be of much use. That would then lead to the question, why not just set the mouth like that, and the answer is because the cap iron still when set properly is better at tearout control, but it doesn't limit shaving thickness to somewhere just south of 3 thousandth.

Note also that Chris (and others who saw the video) didn't do their homework at the bench and try anything. What works best for surfaces and tearout reduction is cap iron angles around 50 degrees. 80 tends to work little or all at once, and when it's in the "all at once" end of things, it tends to smash a chip back into the surface of the wood and if severe enough, the surface of the wood shows that. 50-60 degrees is not so drastic and it provides a wider working range. The suggestion of 80 degrees was made for supersurfacer machines (the intention of the study) and the immediate assumption was that what's good for a fixed set on a machine is good for a plane. I shouldn't say assumption, but more that it was asserted by several people.

What I'm saying is that I gather David's thoughts about the cap iron were not the same in 2007 as they were post 2012, otherwise he wouldn't have said the above. I also think details, like what I just suggested, and constantly beating the drum of leaving the stanley cap iron at stock curvature, etc, are not discussed often enough, and this business of 80 degrees comes up from time to time, leading people to set their planes up in a way that's not very favorable.

 

[D_W]

Narcissist alert: every post isn't a response to you.

Nice try, Charlie.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

One example is Richard Jones who was taught by Wearing in the 60s (from a previous post on this forum). I can think of no reason not to believe him in this, also no reason why Wearing would write about it in his book but not share it with someone he was mentoring. Paddy

Actually Paddy, it was in the early 80s when I went to college (some nine or ten years after I did my initial training as a furniture maker in a workshop) that Bob Wearing was one of my teachers (one day a week I think).

However, it's my experience that even the best tuned and set up plane (cap iron and all) isn't a complete panacea for tear-out free planing. I find, even in the finest hand work I do there's usually at least some call for something else to help a bit, scrapers and abrasive paper for example. I have prepped surfaces polish ready with only hand planes, but it can be very time consuming on particularly intractable woods - scrapers and abrasives can frequently be the woodworker's friend.

That's just my experience. Others may have a different experiences, and yet others might say I don't know how to set-up and use a plane properly, although I've always seemed to get by as a furniture maker with the hand planing I do! Slainte.

 

[Trafalgar]

This chipbreaker information is quite the most exciting thing I have learned in a forty year career. I am quite clear that it was not common knowledge in England and I don't recall seeing it in the whole of Fine Woodworking.

My advice and practice was to set the C/B close for gnarly timbers but not that close!

Learning new stuff is very invigorating.

Best wishes,
David

Amazing, really, when Graham Blackburn stepped in for him at WIA during his illness with precisely this information in 2011. And had been preaching this for years before. It's in his video series.

 

[D_W]

Certainly, by the time as much has been said here, it would've been much easier just to find some archived posts where the cap iron was suggested instead of buying more tools.

I agree with what andy said above, that recent spending tends to promote opinion sharing. Justification of cost type of things, which is one of the reasons I was irritated with the "experts" at the time years ago.

Solving a problem at the bench is usually less popular than the product link that solves the problem, and most of the people who already know what they know disappear after being told they're clueless by people who are far more clueless.

That warren frequents the american forums offering suggestions after being told he's an silly person (paraphrased) over and over is surprising. The same happens to George Wilson (and there may be a George or two who frequents this forum that I don't know about, because I haven't seen enough of everyones' portfolios), but he persists because he loves craft. I could name dozens of others off of the top of my head who have come and gone because it's not worth their time to deal with a newly retired engineer who just watched a sharpening video or just went to a Lie Nielsen event.

Our own David C popped in to woodnet about five years ago, Charlie trolled him several times and he left. When I see the dynamic here, where some of Charlies advice is in earnest, it's something I haven't seen before. re: the axe to grind, I've got not much to grind, but the more familiar charlie was booted from Knots and then Sawmill Creek for heckling without offering much else, thus the increasing preference to not wait for that to return in most cases.

 

[D_W]

That's just my experience.

I would agree with it. Point of the cap iron being if you can't plane something with a stanley 4, it probably can't be planed. Most of those are woods I wouldn't build from, and the biggest challenge is the woods that have hard earlywood and very soft and dusty/crumbly latewood like very dry and perfectly quartered cocobolo.

It hasn't occurred on anything I'd use to build furniture, though.

 

[Trafalgar]

What you call 'trolling' David I call having a memory for dates and places. I guess it's a curse. Several of our friends here on this forum, trained in the British tradition, have distinct memories of being taught the cap iron (read this thread). I have no idea why one would be and another wouldn't be. I guess it's just the quality of instruction or apprenticeship program one may have come up in. It's not a question I can answer. It doesn't really matter all that much. There are other ways of dealing with tear out, if it's even a problem in the first place.

Otherwise, to call it anything but an unfortunate omission in his training is disingenuous to say the least. And to hold anybody to my ridiculously low standard, a self-taught woodworker from Memphis, is beyond absurd. I'm as much carpenter as furnituremaker and don't do justice to either pursuit.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

One example is Richard Jones who was taught by Wearing in the 60s (from a previous post on this forum). I can think of no reason not to believe him in this, also no reason why Wearing would write about it in his book but not share it with someone he was mentoring. Paddy

Actually Paddy, it was in the early 80s when I went to college (some nine or ten years after I did my initial training as a furniture maker in a workshop) that Bob Wearing was one of my teachers (one day a week I think).

However, it's my experience that even the best tuned and set up plane (cap iron and all) isn't a complete panacea for tear-out free planing. I find, even in the finest hand work I do there's usually at least some call for something else to help a bit, scrapers and abrasive paper for example. I have prepped surfaces polish ready with only hand planes, but it can be very time consuming on particularly intractable woods - scrapers and abrasives can frequently be the woodworker's friend.

That's just my experience. Others may have a different experiences, and yet others might say I don't know how to set-up and use a plane properly, although I've always seemed to get by as a furniture maker with the hand planing I do! Slainte.

Sorry for misquoting you. As I've said before on this forum I always have the no. 80 handy, but I use a lot of reversing grain timber and my level of craftsmanship is pretty low, I always feel I've done well if the belt sander stays in the cupboard.
Paddy

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

I agree with what andy said above, that recent spending tends to promote opinion sharing. Justification of cost type of things, which is one of the reasons I was irritated with the "experts" at the time years ago.
.

On the issue of cap irons it's obviously a bit late, but perhaps the message you should/could take from this is that internet forums are not your best resource for learning. That 1950s stanley flier in Jonny PW's post said everything you needed to know. Published book after published book said everything you needed to know. Forums and youtube have their place but their is no point in getting irritated that they will not teach you the craft.

Paddy

 

[D_W]

I agree with what andy said above, that recent spending tends to promote opinion sharing. Justification of cost type of things, which is one of the reasons I was irritated with the "experts" at the time years ago.
.

On the issue of cap irons it's obviously a bit late, but perhaps the message you should/could take from this is that internet forums are not your best resource for learning. That 1950s stanley flier in Jonny PW's post said everything you needed to know. Published book after published book said everything you needed to know. Forums and youtube have their place but their is no point in getting irritated that they will not teach you the craft.

Paddy

I agree, and you're right, this whole cap iron discussion is sort of an after the fact thing. There's no shortage of information now, and the bonus I really wanted to learn from all of it is whether or not I could build a plane better than I could buy (if you can't, and really good planes are really cheap, why bother?).

I tend to default to calling George these days. My interest in the forums has been waning because the people I'd like to learn from probably don't feel it's worth the trouble to post. It's been that way from the beginning, it just took several years to figure it out, and at least better understanding of plane design came of it, because I have a keen interest in that, and there's really very little out there - especially in the case of double iron wooden planes, to help someone build a really good one. Well, that and getting to know George and a few other people who are genuinely helpful and who have an encyclopedic knowledge of scads of things that go from design to execution in a mostly or all hand tools context. Those things have been worth the trouble.

I'm out of this thread at this point, until or unless someone can actually dig up conversation about it before 2012 (more out of archival interest and less out of contest at this point, I just don't think there was much discussion of it - especially for David C. to say what I quoted from him above). For a hand tool forum, there's a a significant amount of planer then sander on this, and I'm not really aiming for that.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Point of the cap iron being if you can't plane something with a stanley 4, it probably can't be planed. Most of those are woods I wouldn't build from, and the biggest challenge is the woods that have hard earlywood and very soft and dusty/crumbly latewood like very dry and perfectly quartered cocobolo.

It hasn't occurred on anything I'd use to build furniture, though.

David, it's sometimes surprising just how tricky it can be to plane even common hardwoods. European ash can be troublesome, as can European beech - so too even the American maples, cherry and walnut, and so on. Even normally compliant wood species such as poplar (tulipwood) can be awkward around knots, and ribbon striped figure is sometimes a bear. I recall once, for example, back in the 80s, prepping some heavily rippled European ash where the only solution in the end really was planing perpendicular to the long grain direction. Even this didn't leave a great surface, being 'flat' but a bit woolly with lots of short fibres sticking up. So it was followed up with abrasive papers, probably from about 120 or 150 grit down to perhaps 180 or 220 grit, then polished. Then there are things like crotch walnut where the grain is all over the place, generally best tackled primarily with scrapers and abrasives right from the off, or abrasive papers all through if power sanding is available, especially for delicate veneers.

Anyway, I'm forever a pragmatist when it comes to working wood polish ready - I do whatever I judge will work best for the job in hand, especially if there is customer paying for it in the end. Slainte.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Sorry for misquoting you.

No biggie Paddy ... except if I'd received any training from Bob wearing in the 60s you'd have put me about twenty years older than my true age - and I'm more than old enough already, ha, ha! Slainte.

 

[D_W]

Point of the cap iron being if you can't plane something with a stanley 4, it probably can't be planed. Most of those are woods I wouldn't build from, and the biggest challenge is the woods that have hard earlywood and very soft and dusty/crumbly latewood like very dry and perfectly quartered cocobolo.

It hasn't occurred on anything I'd use to build furniture, though.

David, it's sometimes surprising just how tricky it can be to plane even common hardwoods. European ash can be troublesome, as can European beech - so too even the American maples, cherry and walnut, and so on. Even normally compliant wood species such as poplar (tulipwood) can be awkward around knots, and ribbon striped figure is sometimes a bear. I recall once, for example, back in the 80s, prepping some heavily rippled European ash where the only solution in the end really was planing perpendicular to the long grain direction. Even this didn't leave a great surface, being 'flat' but a bit woolly with lots of short fibres sticking up. So it was followed up with abrasive papers, probably from about 120 or 150 grit down to perhaps 180 or 220 grit, then polished. Then there are things like crotch walnut where the grain is all over the place, generally best tackled primarily with scrapers and abrasives right from the off, or abrasive papers all through if power sanding is available, especially for delicate veneers.

Anyway, I'm forever a pragmatist when it comes to working wood polish ready - I do whatever I judge will work best for the job in hand, especially if there is customer paying for it in the end. Slainte.

If I were working where time is money and with veneers, I would espouse the same view - especially with the stuff where the straws of the wood are pretty much perpendicular to the surface.

I doubt very many customers would care about any of the stuff I care about when finish planing. Probably none.

 

[G S Haydon]

I'll agree with your summary about my understanding Paddy. In my day job using planes to get a finished surface is a non issue, it does not really happen. Although I can use hand tools I was not having to understand their full potential. D W's writing was a source that helped me understand things more fully.

And when I contrasted that information with vintage tools and books I had previously read (but clearly had not understood fully) there was a match.

One or two oil stones, Stanley cap iron's were perfectly designed industrial genius and setting a cap iron close would tame any tear out apart from ultra, ultra nasty grain. As D W mentioned there are fewer postings about using and practicing with a stock Stanley or Wooden plane than there are about new steels various honing media. I truly don't mind at all as to what anyone uses or how they do it. It just happened D W's efforts were very useful and instructive to me.

 

[JimB]

I must say I've enjoyed this thread. Sixty years ago setting the chip-breaker was one of the first lessons I had in woodwork, and it wasn't by a guru or mentor or whatever; we called them woodwork teachers.
Journalists have a good deal to answer for with headings like, 'best kept secrets of...', 'the secret of...' etc., as if finishing wood, cooking, tourism requires some arcane knowledge on a par with the elixir of life or the holy grail.
All tools have limitations which become less the more you become used to them but there is no perfect tool for all woods. There'd be no pleasure if there were.

 

[bridger]

I'm planing some large panels of alder. It's easy stuff, a sharp blade and moderately set cap and it just gleams. Except for one spot about 3" x 8" where the grain gets tightly gnarled and it is much, much harder than the rest of the board. That area just didn't want to behave. Finally I worked it over with a toothing plane, then just barely took it to smooth with a #4 set close. Looks great.

 

[MIGNAL]

Well there's not a lot to argue over. It's quite clear from a number of responses on this very thread that folk were aware of the cap iron effect long before the internet found it's way into our homes. The knowledge was never lost. I'm not even sure why people are even attempting to associate a relatively recent name with this 'discovery'. It;s a complete waste of time. You would be better served trying to find out when the effect was first observed. A much more interesting question than trying to find out which person was the first to acknowledge the cap iron effect on the internet. Big deal.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Well there's not a lot to argue over. It's quite clear from a number of responses on this very thread that folk were aware of the cap iron effect long before the internet found it's way into our homes. The knowledge was never lost. I'm not even sure why people are even attempting to associate a relatively recent name with this 'discovery'. It;s a complete waste of time. You would be better served trying to find out when the effect was first observed. A much more interesting question than trying to find out which person was the first to acknowledge the cap iron effect on the internet. Big deal.

Hi Mignal

Actually it is a "Big deal".

There is documentation of the "double iron" back to at least the early 1800, perhaps earlier. There has been much discussion in this regard. No one here is attempting to lay claim to discovering the chipbreaker and how it is used. Quite the opposite - it is acknowledged as information missed by most (and in that was "lost"). What is important to recognise is that most woodworkers these days did not get their grounding in handplane use from apprenticeships or training, but from books, magazines, videos and the Internet gurus. How to set a chipbreaker was absent in the recent decades in these media.

We are what we are taught, and many of the teachers we followed (myself included) appear to have had no awareness of the chipbreaker to tune a plane. Teachers such as David Charlesworth (who, to his great credit, acknowledged this publicly), Rob Cosman (many, many DVDs - and he still disavows the use of the chipbreaker), Paul Sellers (ditto), Chris Schwarz (late to the game, but also willing to accept something "new"), just to name a few. There are plenty of modern planemakers who support the single iron/high bed angle design, indicating that they, too, did not grasp the significance of the double iron: Old Street (formerly Clark and Williams), HNT Gordon, Philly Planes, Karl Holtey, and Sauer and Steiner, again just to name a few.

So ingrained was the perception that the chipbreaker just supported the blade, that many refused to acknowledge that it could do anything else - which is probably why Graham Blackburn made no impression at WIA in 2011.

So it may be just a small item to you, but it is a big deal to some. Others will just happily ignore that it exits. For myself, it is one of several methods of working, all important, but I do feel empowered by mastering the technique.

Regards from Perth

Derek