Anyone struggling to raise panels?
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- This topic has 12 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 10 months ago by Harvey Kimsey.
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27 May 2018 at 3:02 pm #548215
I have tried to raise a few panels with a #4. They always come out sloppy. Any advice, like good techniques? Or is it just practice, practice…
Thanks – Seth
it’s not easy, and the smaller they are the more difficult, you ideally need the plane set up to take very fine shavings with a tight mouth, and it’s all about control, panels are very good for getting better at using handplanes, it takes a lot of sensitivity to know when you’ve gone slightly over the line or it’s not quite square, take your time and keep stopping to check your work, remember it’s not a rush, go as slow as you want.
27 May 2018 at 6:24 pm #548218A fine set and watch the corners. They should stop on the points of the square. every stroke will move the line at the corner. So if you take a heavy shaving the line can move too far too fast. Always keep the lines you make for depth and width. Without them it becomes guesswork. Imho
30 June 2018 at 1:22 pm #548989I have had good luck starting with a sharp Stanley #4 scrub plane, then switching to a sharp #5. Go slow and with a little practice it becomes easy.
I still struggle with this. I realized I’ve approached this with a machinist attitude unintentionally. That means I was trying to produce a perfect, flat bevel in exactly the right place. What I’ve tried, instead, on recent panels is, “looks good, is good.” So, I first chamfer the outer edge to get maybe half way to my final edge thickness (to fit the rail/stile groove). Then, I level out the plane a bit to extend the chamfer towards to the top of the panel, but absolutely stay away from the final line that defines the raised field (which is drawn on in pencil. I’ll iterate back and forth a few times so that I end up with my edge at thickness, and am still maybe 1/2″ away from the final line at the top. Next, I start moving towards the field line. This is purely cosmetic. If there are any bow or inaccuracy in the panel, there is no way to run a plane end to end and get a straight line. So, I rotate the plane to a skew and think of this more like carving. The skewed plane has a shorter effective sole length, so I can take little shavings here and there to approach the field line. My goal is to one final pass so that I get a smooth approximation to the field line. I still stink at that.
Here’s the thing….don’t go all the way to that field line yet! Your eye sees, in order, 1) The straightness of the field lines, 2) The intersections of the bevels being straight and 3) The intersections of the bevels radiating exactly to the corners. Maybe 2 and 3 should be reversed. The intersections will point at the corners only if the adjacent bevels of the panel are equal. So, I stay away from my corners when I make the first pass at all 4 bevels. I get close, but I don’t try to get 100% there. That way, I can make a final set of passes around the panel taking a swipe here and a swipe there at the corners to get good corner lines and get good field lines.
I can’t promise this will help you, but that’s what I try to do. It’s more of a carver approach than a “let’s plain perfect bevels” approach.
I must say, what I’m probably going to try next time is to raise the center with a rabbet plane. In other words, knife two end grain lines and then raise the center of the field by, say, 1/8 to 3/16″. Now, go ahead and do the bevels. The central raised field will hide inaccuracies in the bevels because you’ll see the lines defined by the rabbet plane. The mouth of the bench plane won’t let you get exactly to the center, of course, but I don’t see why this won’t work. I haven’t tried it yet, though.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Ed.
@dbockel2 Not if I’m being metaphorical. : – )
Yeah, you’re right. Slipped a cog. I’ve been trying to understand iOS recently and I think it’s done some brain damage. Oddly, bezel might be right for tools, though, rather than bevel, but I think I’ll call them bevels, too.
30 June 2018 at 10:19 pm #549001Ed, if you try your idea with the rebate plane, let us know how it works. Seems to me at some point you’ll either be planing the edge of the rebate, or you’ll leave a lip that the plane sole will ride on and and it’s going to stop cutting until the lip is removed. But it sounds like something interesting to try.
1 July 2018 at 12:02 am #549006I practiced a little bit on some scraps and that really helped in that I had some rhythm before starting on the real thing.
What I can’t do very well is having the piece vertical in the vise like Paul does it (at least for the small pieces). I have to lay them flat.
1 July 2018 at 1:37 am #549008With hand tools, you can just “sneak up” on the perfect bevel, as Ed so well described. Can’t do that with a power tool. Make sure your planes are absolutely sharp. Plane a little, look at it, plane a little more, repeat!
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