Reply To: Planing troubles, accuracy, cheap plane, sharpening??? Not sure where to start
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Wow, so many replies in a day, thanks a lot! You have grounded me a bit again. I think, I got a bit obsessed with that little piece of wood, because it is part of the frame for a tool cabinet door. I will go on building the main body of the cabinet and try to get more reason into my accuracy. At work, I have to deal a lot with “relative perfectness”, so it should be possible at home as well. But I know, how difficult it is to teach the right level of “imperfection” to someone else, especially, when they are wearing glasses or are short-sighted.
It bothers me, that I probably got the cheapest new stanley-type plane from ebay. instead of waiting a few days to get a used “real one” at a similar price or little more – I paid 20 Euros including postage. The workmanship is poor, I had to work hard to get the sole shiny and flat where it needs to be and it is always near to falling apart once I hit a hard knot. It kind of serves as an excuse when I get something wrong, but I know, how wrong that is because I know its deficits and how to deal with them. But I might consider restoring a wooden plane that I got for a few Euros on a flea market. It only needs a bit of flattening on the sole, got a beautiful stamped blade and cap iron and was almost sharp underneath the surface-rust, when I got it. I also have a wooden joiner plane, which was a bit too large for the board in question though. But I consider using it in the vise for small pieces of wood, because it has an excellent blade and is less fragile than my metal plane.
Thanks for telling me realistic tolerances for woodworking. I was aware, that I was somewhat overshooting, but I didn’t know how much.
Over the past weeks, I did a few smaller projects where I simply tried to get better than earlier in my life. I always liked working with wood and probably sawed, hammered and glued something together once a year since I was allowed to use tools. But the precision and beauty was often beyond laughter, even if the results served the purposes. Thanks mainly to Paul Sellers, I know that I can do better and already did on these recent projects.
A preliminary last word about accuracy: While working on, I will have a closer look at the necessity of precision. I agree, that a table top doesn’t need to be scientificly flat (or even can be) but has to look flat and nice. Doors on the other hand need another accuracy but this doesn’t mean, that each strand of wood fiber has to be parallel or square… Etc. There is a big field to explore.
For now, I will focus on procedures rather than accuracy. Accuracy is probably the result of proper procedures anyway. And I was amazed to see, how well that worked with mortise holes.
I also consider booking a beginners course in woodworking in my town. Perhaps I will find some friends there to share knowledge and experience. I’d love to attend to Paul Sellers school, but I have to see, how far my enthusiasm gets me first…
Greetings and thanks to all!
Dieter