Plane end grain troubles
Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Woodworking Methods and Techniques / Plane end grain troubles
Tagged: Plane end graineds
- This topic has 14 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 10 months ago by bow.
-
AuthorPosts
-
3 May 2017 at 9:12 pm #311670
Started on my workbench. Top and aprons are laminated. Glueing up was quit a challenge.
Got 4 legs from the lumberyard 7x10cm rough cross cut saw. So i made a deep knife wall across at 84,1cm and saw it little bit out of square so I can plane to the knife wall.
On paul YouTube on workbench he does the same when he does saw the top top length. But he does it in like 3-4 minutes and takes decent shavings.
All I get is some kind of scraping and no shaving and takes up to 15 minutes for this 1 leg 7x10cm. See picture attached.
Any tips/things I do wrong?
– not sharp enough? (Plane sharpened and when setting up on scrap wood this feels silky smooth)
– after done 1 leg it feels dull
– is the piece of wood to small to take decent shavings? Now just get scrapes
– just more practice?Any tips appreciated as this takes 4 legs x 2 sides x 15 minutes = 2 hours.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files.Planing end grain, especially in softwoods, tests your sharpening. Take your iron out, even if you just sharpened it, and feel whether it has a bur on it. Sometimes, it can feel like you’ve gotten the bur off, but you really haven’t and when you hit end grain or do some harder work with the blade, the fake edge folds over. If you have that, spend more effort getting the bur off when sharpening. If not, make sure you are really getting sharp (scratches of each grit removed, polished on the strop, reasonable angle). You should get shavings (somewhat like sharpening a pencil) rather than dust. Ideally, the planed surface will be glassy and not have any torn fibers, but in softwoods give yourself permission to accept some torn fibers for awhile, but do shoot for getting a shaving rather than dust.
Ignore the two hours…think of this as the work giving you a chance to improve your sharpening. It will pay off a million times when you face tricky grain when smoothing.
By the way, yes, end grain on short pieces is tricky (to orient and stabilize the plane)
4 May 2017 at 3:35 pm #311696thanks for the tips.
regarding sharpening; i go from the diamond plates from coarse fine super fine and feel a burr on the flat face.
I put the flat the face on plate and make a pull stroke to get the burr as Paul showed in some videos. Like a very thin iron string. But i never gut the burr of using this method, only after the strop. Is this normal?
Will put 2 more hours in tonight. Problem is not having a bench but only a workmate. And i visited a carpenter/furniture maker today and he found i sharpened quit decent (could be better) and showed me some techniques:
– more shallow and don’t force
– make some kind of cutting movements instead of planing
– stand correct in front of itHope to finish the legs tonight and can start planing the laminated top/aprons!
Yes, I think that is normal. In fact, you can do the pull, go to the strop, and think you get the bur off, but really don’t. Put the sharpened blade on a piece of hardwood, like oak, across the face grain and hit it smartly with a chisel mallet, then feel the edge. You may find this reveals a bur.
One thing you can do is to do the pull, as you describe, and then feel to make sure that the bur has been pushed back from the flat face completely. You won’t feel it on the flat edge any more, but will feel it on the bevel. Return to sharpening the bevel on the superfine using very light pressure and just a few strokes. You’re just pushing the bur from the bevel back over to the back again. Repeating this can take the bur off or thin the bur so that the strop will take it off. I must confess that I often cannot get the “one quick pull” to fold the bur from the flat face back to the bevel. I must raise too thick a bur at times. I must actually take strokes on the back to get the bur over. You might be able to draw the back of the tool on your strop a few times to push the bur over if the one-quick-pull doesn’t do it. In any case, alternating back and forth lightly a number of times can help deal with getting the bur off to leave a sharp edge.
[quote quote=311697]Put the sharpened blade on a piece of hardwood, like oak, across the face grain and hit it smartly with a chisel mallet, then feel the edge. You may find this reveals a bur.[/quote]
To be clear…you are driving the blade like a chisel, as if chopping a mortise. Be careful. A solid (but not crazy) whack is adequate.
What @ed said. Sharpen, sharpen, sharpen, practise, technique.
Paul makes everything look easy, but it’s the result of years of practise and intuitively and consciously doing what works, avoids pitfalls and minimizes additional work. He’s basically the Chuck Norris of woodworking. His plane will be sharper than yours (no offence intended), he cuts perfectly square and very close to the line and perfectly orients and balances the plane.
In time, what takes Paul 3-4 minutes may take you 10 minutes and you will have achieved a good level of skill.It looks like you are holding the piece in some sort of workmate. Give yourself some credit and allowance for this. Planing is much easier with a solid workbench and vice. This is especially true for planing end grain due to the increased friction/vibration and smaller reference areas. A workmate is a lot better than nothing, but with the best will in the world it will not hold the workpiece very well – the clamping pressure will be small and uneven, the workpiece will be held quite low which makes the ergonomics bad and it will be very difficult to hold the workmate down and plane at the same time.
The good news is that when you finished your workbench you will really understand why it’s invaluable!
[quote quote=311699]It looks like you are holding the piece in some sort of workmate. Give yourself some credit and allowance for this.[/quote]
Excellent point! Indeed! It might help a lot to sit on the workmate, if you can. There is some chance the workmate may limit you and keep you from getting end grain shavings even if your blade is sharp….not sure, honestly.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Ed.
4 May 2017 at 6:37 pm #311705thanks for all these encouraging tips! going to practise now for the next 2-3 hours!
4 May 2017 at 7:05 pm #311710ed!!! Thanks a lot on the tip of the burr. Indeed it flipped. I got it of now. Paper test is going lots better and on scrap wood I even get more baby silky smooth:-)
4 May 2017 at 7:42 pm #311712Inspire of the sharper plane not making progress.
If I set the plane very shallow nothing happens. Set it deeper till it hits. But I I go back to my scrap wood I am doing quit thick shavings.
So why skips the plane on the end grain. To i need to apply more pressure from above?
4 May 2017 at 7:45 pm #311713And still have a burr i guess because on my scrap wood I quickly get that the shaving is divided in some lines. Assume that at that point there is still a burr…
But just keep trying:-)
4 May 2017 at 8:34 pm #311714Sharpness is key, as the others already said. On the other hand, the edge will get dull quickly on end-grain, so you will hardly ever work with a perfectly sharp edge, even if you sharpen very often. Still, it is the only option you have on a shooting board…
Perhaps, the important idea is not to chop but to slice. Paul Sellers often says to make circular movements. This pulls the blade along the grain rather than pushing it into the grain, similar to the cutting action of a scythe. And, especially on soft woods like pine, it is easier to cut perpendicular to the annual rings, which are much harder than the rest of the wood.
Finally, it is very important to feel for the resistance of the wood. Often, I don’t get a nice cut right away, but once I do, I can feel and hear it.
I am not sure, if I made this clear enough, but I hope, it helps a bit.
Dieter
4 May 2017 at 10:14 pm #311720Thanks Dieter good tips.
Seems most i’m lacking is technique as my furniture maker i visited could get it quit crispy with my plane sharpened by me.
He also mentioned to cut/slice but i’m not sure how to do it properly. Just circular is not working for me.I noticed I really need to start outside of the piece of wood and work into it. Not like a long piece of wood where you also can start in the middle (not end grain) am I correct on this?
Don’t think I will get these glassy but it’s for a workbench so also don’t be too hard on it.
Got 4 square legs now, 3 are 84cm and 1 is 83,9cm.
Furniture maker told me not to worry about 1mm when you make something like a workbench. It just need to be functional:-)Started planing the backside of my top. Tomorrow finish it and try some practice mortise and tenons before I dare to actually start on the leg frames.
On the workbench: I can just use “any” size on the rails, and adjust it by the size of the wellboard? Am I correct on this?
i found very useful three things:
1) i go and sharpen my blade before i attack end grain and set the blade at minimum cut
2) Sole lubrication gives a good help
3) end grain has grain orientation, also. It means that there’s a planing direction that offes less resistence (and a planing direction the offers more resistance) -
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.