No More Finger Eaters

[ihocky2]

I'm working on a project that will be given to my brother in law that is going to be fairly big. It is inspired by a BC Rich Beast. It is about an inch taller than an Explorer, so after I glued up all of the body blank, there was no way this thing was even getting close to fitting in my 12-1/2" planer. So I hit up my father in law who is a shop teacher that has had the chance to clean out a few of the school shops that were getting rid of the program, to see if he had any hand planes. Well it turns out I managed to land a #4, a #5, and a #6 Stanley along with a spokeshave and a few drawknives. The #6 is in pretty poor condition and needs work before I can even think about using it. But I started using the #5 for the little bit of leveling I needed to do and while it didn't work great it worked decently. I took a better look at it and realised it desperately needed to be tuned. After a good sharpening and full tuning I went back at that piece of poplar. OMG, the thing practically pulled it self through wood. I ended up getting the wood close enough to level that a little work with the random orbital and I will be set. I can see my planer sitting on the shelf more and more from now on. That #5 was a joy to use. And sooo much quieter.

I also decided to pick up a cabinet scraper when I bought a new honing stone. I could not believe how smooth that thing can get the wood. I had been a little intimidated about using one since I have seen so many people say that they couldn't turn a hook or get the thing to cut for them. Right out of the package this baby was making nice thin curly shavings with almost no work. With a quick tuning on it it was working even better. I have no idea what I was so afraid of with this thing.

[Myka Guitars]

Welcome to the world of invisible glue lines.

~David

[Mattia]

Welcome to the wonderful world of edge tools.

There's something absurdly satisfying about jointing with a hand plane, and I'd be lost without a scraper.

[bentwood999]

and when there sharpened properly you cant beat em hands down!!

[RGman]

Welcome to the world of invisible glue lines.

~David

+1 to that, i was so scared that i would screw up my work but with a little tuning and sharpening i was pleasantly surprised!

[jmrentis]

To be honest I really want a 13 inch planer, but I enjoy the little bit of hand planning I do. I kept hearing this since I came here and last year I went and bought this super cheapo hand plane from Home Depot, to be dead honest the first pass was terrible as is most peoples first experience with no knowledge of planers, I glanced at some instructions and realized I didn't have the proper tuning equipment, so I ghetto honed with some 600 sandpaper and the table saw table and the next pass was butter. Recently I got some more and better planes, not by much though I believe stanley contractors grade or something and wow, I like them more everytime I use them and they can whip through a job in a heart beat, especially nice cleaning up the glue joints and scarf joints!

Quick question does anyone use those cool little honing devices, the one with the little wheel? I got one from rockler fairly cheap and it seems to work fine, it was around $14 versus around 30 from LMI, though I imagine there is qualty difference. The first one was off and would hold the blade at an angle, but I exchanged it and this one seems fine. I'm just curious if anyone had tried one. They are kinda a pain with the stones because you have just a small area before you run the wheel off the stone, but it seems to work fine.

One other question I've seen pictures of different ways to hone the blade and often times the say a nice rounded front edge is better than the flat edge the blades come with. I can see how both might work better in certain situations, but what is actually best for a standard plane of glue lines and body planing? J

[ihocky2]

I bought the Veritas Mk II honed guide. A little more expensive, but very easy to use and easy to get the correct angle every time and then add a micro bevel. I've been using the scary sharp technique. Just do a search for it on Google.

From the reading I have done, the more rounded you have the blade the better it is for roughing out thickness. When you get down to a smoothing plane, you want the blade almost perfectly straight with the edge slightly crowned. This is to prevent the edges from digging in at all and creating lines from each pass. I set my jack plane with about a 1/8" camber which will give about a 4" radius to the blade front and the mouth set to about 1/8". This is not as aggresive as a scrub plane, but removes material pretty quickly. The smoothing plane and fore plane I have the edges of the blade just barely rounded to get them above the level of the cut. The smoothing plane I have the mouth set to about 1/32" and the fore plane will be set between 1/32" and 1/16". Just so I can take a little heavier cut for jointing.

I have a 12-1/2" Delta planer that works really nice, and will still get used for thicknessing. There is no way I am going to be able to remove milling marks or flatten rough lumber and remove 1/4" or more in five minutes by hand. So that is not getting put away for good, but once I start getting wider blanks glued together I have no choice but to level them out by hand. Plus I have found that hand plane shavings start the fireplace very very well.

[jmrentis]

Thank you for that excellent response. Thats kinda what I thought on the front edge being that each style had its own applications. Once I have finished buying the rest of the more expensive tools, I will start setting myself up on some better planes and honing my skills and honing abilities, right now I can do well with them, but I have long to go before I am dialed in and know all the ins and outs. As you said though there is still place for the planer mainly as a thicknesser, which is my next purchase. This will one in particular will save me a lot of pain and problems that hand planing does to me(severe back problems). Anyhow, thanks again for all the detailed info, thats everything I needed to know. Right on! J

[ihocky2]

I had bought one of the books on hand planes and learned a lot of info from there that I would have taken quite a while to figure out on my own. Check out amazon and see what they have. I've realised that a $25 book that is being sold for $6 used still contains the same info as a brand new one.

[PunkRockerLuke]

+1 on mattia

[Bainzy]

When I realised there was no way you could put 1 piece body blanks through thicknessers, and that they often tear out certain woods, I tried learning how to use the rusty and dirty Stanley #4 we had stuck in a drawer that used to be my grandads. Since I first managed to get shavings instead of scratching the wood, I've never looked back and only occasionally use my jointer for quicky roughing in certain pieces such as maple neck blanks, since it simply can't match the accuracy I get with a well tuned hand plane. If you're getting into hand planes, two must have books are 'The Handplane Book' by Garrett Hack, and 'Working With Handplanes', which is a selection of the best Fine Woodworking articles on tuning and using planes, spokeshaves and scrapers.

If you want a high quality plane that works out of the box, and can only afford one, get a Lie Nielsen 5 1/2 Jack with the 50 degree frog. While I love my Stanley planes, none are as dependable and enjoyable to use as the LN. I can tackle anything from quilted maple to cocobolo without ever getting any tearout, and with a bit of wax on the sole it practically flattens or joins timber to invisible glue lines without hardly putting any effort in at all.

As well as the fireplace, you might want to consider using the shavings to put in a compost bin in the garden - all the shavings that I make go in ours, and along with scrap hot hide glue it makes fantastic nourishment for the plants.

[ihocky2]

Actually wood shavings don't do much for the garden. They discussed a little in the book I have on dust collection how to dispose of wood shavings and said that it is good in compost for creating good loose soil, but it has almost no nourishment. And that you can actually damage your garden by putting wood chips in that have not "cured" for at least eight months. Until the wood chips completly break down, they rob the soil of nitrogen, which most plants love. I would have thought the wood chips would be great for the garden, but my guess is that a lot of the nutrients are lost in the drying process. So all the broken down chips do is create simple top soil, that needs some other by-products added to increase to fertilizer components.

[Bainzy]

Damn - wish I'd have known that earlier! There's always need for them in the fire though, so I guess they won't go to waste. I've just posted a tutorial for using a hand plane to thickness body blanks by the way if anyone's interested.

[ihocky2]

As long as you compost the chips first for about eight months (until they break down back into dirt) they won't really hurt anything. They'll add nice moist and loose soil, they just don't add extra nutrients. But if you are composting it with grass and fruit remains and and such, you get the nutrients from that stuff. So the woods chips just act as a filler. As long as the wood chips don't go straight into the garden, they are still okay to use.

[Bainzy]

That should be okay then, as we don't use the compost from the bins until it's become soil after about a year - there's a sliding door at the bottom of the compost bin that lets the finished goods out which is pretty handy.

[Woodenspoke]

I had bought one of the books on hand planes and learned a lot of info from there that I would have taken quite a while to figure out on my own. Check out amazon and see what they have. I've realised that a $25 book that is being sold for $6 used still contains the same info as a brand new one.

It's nice to here someone actually reads books these days as well as using hand planes. Bravo

Just remember going from poplar to maple is a big jump and requires very sharp blade and flat plane bottom to get good results. Good luck with the adventure sounds like you are going in the right direction as is your composting advice.

[ihocky2]

Well I am confident in my sharpenings. I have been using the scray sharp technique and while I do not have a perfect mirror finish with the 2000 grit, it has a nice reflection, and the thing shaves my arm as good as my Gillette Fusion. I've been pretty good about keeping the blades sharpened so far, so I just have to stay with that practice. The nice thing is we have 3 surface grinders here at work and had all of the plane bottoms flattened on an off-shift while work was slow.

While I find it quicker and easier to find info on the net, I'll pick up books when I find that they have enough usefull info or info that I am going to reference often. Then it is just quicker to grab the book off the shelf.

[Bainzy]

You're only one grit away from getting a just about perfect mirror finish - with high quality blades (that I know can hold the edge), after using 2000 grit sandpaper I go up to 2500 grit for a really sharp edge and that gets the blade looking mirror-like quickly. At first I didn't think it'd be worth it going up to 2500 but after trying to get light tight joints for hot hide glue, it really does make it effortless with a LN #5 1/2 jack, producing see-through shavings, although it's a waste on a plane you'd use for coarser work as your blade edge won't be as tough.

[Guest RavenT]

A good sharp tool work nicely, without damaging the wood. Most chisel, Plane blades, cabinet scrapers are shipped unsharpened that is way most people using them straight out of the package without honing and adding a micro bevel to them before will do more damage to the wood So to learn to keep a sharp tool is a good practice, when working with harder woods you’ll find your self at your sharpening station often. http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=...amp;cat=1,43072

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=...,43071&ap=1 by the way with the water stones you will get a mirror Finishes. I always test by shaving a little hair my arm. When your instruments are that sharp the work smother and less efforts.

[komodo]

I love my planes and spokeshaves, but I also love my tools with tails. They all get used about 50/50. My FIL used to be a barber and gave me this old leather strop. I'll use it last after sharpening and it really gives a blade that extra ultra-sharpness for thin shavings.

[ihocky2]

I see until yesterday this thread was over a year old. And I have to say in the last year I have really gained a new love for hand tools. There is no way I can match the speed of a drill press and router to make cavities. Nor the speed of my thickness planer or jointer for the initial removal of saw marks and excess material. But if I have the time I will grab a plane everytime. And when I am going for that light tight joint, I grab the #5 or #6 everytime. And I have gotten to the point that I can take a board off the table saw and get a tight joint faster by hand than with the bench top jointer.

[dugg]

Composting is about carbon nitrogen balance. Wood chips are high in carbon and low in nitrogen, so by themselves they compost slowly. Add some nitrogen in the form of grass clippings, kitchen waste, or some urea and your wood chips will compost in a few weeks.

Myka, you said it so well! People often jump to the conclusion that machines are more accurate than hand tools. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just try to flatten and radius a fingerboard with a CNC or radiusing machine as well as I can with my 22" jackplane. I seriously doubt if any machine could match the flatness. Or the smoothness of a scraper. Machines can do AS good at best.