Making Legs for my workbench square and straight. Planing up hill.
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Hi all,
Thanks in advance for any advice. I’ve watched the videos on stock preparation and I’ve searched through the forums and not found any posts addressing my wacky problem. I have a 36 inch long leg that is about 5 inches square, but need to be planed to be flat and square. Southern Yellow Pine 2×12 ripped to width and glued up. My saw cuts weren’t very good, but I ripped all the 2x12s by hand. Took about a month of nights and weekends. I’m determined to only use hand tools to build my bench. So here goes my problem. I mark all over the face with pencil and then plane off all the high spots with a jack plane at an angle across until all the pencil is gone then I run a plane along the length to get all my jack plane marks off. Face is now smooth and flat. I check for 90 degrees to adjacent face often with my try square. It seems that I can plane the first face so it is 90 degrees to the adjacent face. When using my try square there is no gap on either the top or edge side. What I seem to be doing, though, is taking more off one end than the other. One end of the leg will be as much as a 1/4 inch higher than the other. Then I have to try drawing lines on the adjacent face so that each end is even and then start planing all over again. I’m tring not to make toothpicks by plaining all the wood away 😉 I know it has to be my technique and I was wondering if anyone had advice on how to correct.
5 January 2015 at 6:36 am #123073Sounds like unequal pressure on the opposing ends of the plane. Like you are putting more pressure on the knob or tote. Try and “scoop a hollow” in the middle of the board by putting your pressure on the knob as you start and gradually transfer pressure to the tote as you finish the stroke. The plane won’t allow you to create that hollow, but it is a trick that helped me. Don’t bulldog the plane, but this technique will keep you from diving off the end of the board and flexing the plane to take a deeper cut as you come off the end.
7 January 2015 at 8:26 pm #123220I’ve had that problem, too. Working to a line helps. If you can create a straight line on the first flattened face close to the edge that meets the second face to be planed , then you can plane the second face to that line. In addition to checking for square, also check for curvature on the second face using a straight edge. Then make sure to plane like DMR400 said above, trying to create a hollow along the length of the second face.
Let us know how it works out.
The trick I found works best for me is to shift the pressure to the heel of the plane as soon as possible. You just need some pressure on the front knob to get it started. You can even push the plane forward just by holding the heel itself with one hand. As long as the blade is sharp it will pull itself to task as Paul says.
Another tip is to backup the blade once you get close to your line.
While I’m at it : you’ve probably heard of the shamfering trick to plane a board to thickness… you plane a shamfer as close as possible to your lines just like a raised panel,on all 4 sides. If you then put hash lines on the shamfered edges it’s very easy to see if you’re close to where you wanna be.
Good luck. Keep trying you’ll get it…
Diego -
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