Planing troubles, accuracy, cheap plane, sharpening??? Not sure where to start
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- This topic has 12 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 7 months ago by Hugo Notti.
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19 September 2016 at 10:48 pm #140404
I have started using planes a few weeks ago. Compared to my first attempts, I get fantastic results, but looking at the boards with an accurate square and straight edge, I can see a lot of light (which is not at the end of a tunnel in this case). The videos from Paul helped a lot, but when it comes to accuracy, I am at a loss. It sometimes appears, that a surface flips from one state to another, for example from one out-of-square to the opposite, without ever arriving at “square”.
Tonight, I made a few tests, and the thinnest continuous shaving over a length of 18″ and 1/2″ width was about 0,1 mm or 4 thou. On 1-1/2″ width and an uneven surface, it was 0,2 mm to get a purchase and it took a couple of passes before I got a continuous shaving at all, but I never got down to 0,1 mm.
I also checked my dexterity with the plane and I was able to make the board convex and hollow along the length at will – wide side, and fairly square on a narrow side. It is a matter of discipline too, I was very concentrated during these tests.
Tomorrow, I will look at the stock I am working on and reconsider my accuracy. I suppose, that I have to accept a tolerance of 0,2 mm at least, and I think, that I can find smaller defects, especially when using accurate straight edges and squares, since it all translates to the full length and width of a surface. – Meaning, that I probably wanted to achieve more than I could.
Now I have two questions (or perhaps more):
How flat is flat, how square is square and how twisted is “not twisted”?
Is my plane good enough for simple projects (obviously not fine furniture)?
Should I spend some time checking my plane more thoroughly, and how?
I know, that I need more practise, so there is no question about that.Any other hints about this subject are welcome too, because I am not even sure, if I got to the point of my planing troubles – woodworking requires more language than I have, even in German, which is my native language….
Thanks a lot for any help, Dieter
- This topic was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Hugo Notti. Reason: added a few words to make things clearer
Hi,
I’m a new woodworker also, so take what I say with a pinch of salt, I’m sure others on here will have better advice (and I am also interested in their answers to your questions).
I have found that my planing is wildly variable, and I seem to have a natural talent for planing a belly into whatever wood I’m working on.
My observations of my own work so far:
1. Make sure your plane blade is square. Mine wasn’t, and I’m sure that contributed to me taking more off of one side of the wood than the other.
2. Have you checked that the sole of the plane is flat?
3. Make your plane as sharp as possible. I got the three diamond plates and made up the strop Paul uses. It seems to work, although I don’t think I ever get it properly sharp (Paul sharp). One day…
4. When squaring, get the reference face flat (ignore the others), and then use a marking gauge or pencil to mark around the other faces from that reference face. I found with a line marked on the wood I was able to check my progress more easily, and that helped me get to square more successfully.
5. When planing, try to take off just a few swipes and then recheck for square / straight. I find I take off way too much between checks. I was planing down an old table leg the other day, and before I realised it was the width of a packet of chewing gum on one end! I was so focused on getting a smooth surface I just kept going!
Hope this helps, from one new woodworker to another.
Regards
Darren.
20 September 2016 at 12:23 am #140414Hello Dieter,
I have only been woodworking with hand tools like this for about two years, so I am not an expert. But I think the problem with planing an edge square is pretty common. I find myself chasing an edge back and forth as well at times. So don’t feel bad. Remember that you can have your plane iron just inside the sole, and by pushing down slightly harder you can force the wood fibers up into the mouth of the plane. I’ve seen Paul do this to correct an out of square corner, by applying slightly more pressure on one side or the other of a corner to take, on a microscopic level, a wedge shaped shaving. Paul has a video on refurbishing an old plane that may be very helpful to you. You should be able to get as square, flat, and out of twist as the tools you are using to check with. So don’t settle for less. You’ll be much happier. Good luck ?
Kevin
20 September 2016 at 12:33 am #140415.1 or .2 mm is far less than 1/64th of an inch. We’re not machinists here, Dieter, so I think you’re being too hard on yourself. The one thing you have to remember with woodworking tolerances is this: the wood is going to move. There’s no point fighting it too much to no good end. Aim for accuracy but you don’t need the micrometer to do good woodworking. Remember that all those beautiful museum case pieces were built 200 years or more ago without so much as a ruler accurate to 1/16th.
Your right Derek,
I am building the Tom Fidgen Funeral Chair. I got the seat slats cut, seat frame fitted, finished the pieces then glued up and pinned the corners. It was perfectly square and flat. Today I was continuing work on the legs and seat back. I looked over at the seat and two days later it is higher on the left front by about 1/8 inch. We had a big rain yesterday and today the humidity was up about 85%. I though about planing it flat again, but decided that in a few days or next week it may well be flat again on its own.
Jimmy Brown
Canton, GA1. How flat is flat, how square is square and how twisted is βnot twistedβ?
It depends upon what you are doing. If you are edge joining stock together, Paul’s method is to have the two boards to come together, gap free, with essentially zero pressure, just light hand pressure. If you are making dovetails, it is less critical and just needs to be good enough to achieve your layout because you will plane everything flat. If you are smoothing a table surface, nothing matters except looking good. So, it depends upon what you are doing. As you improve your skill at setting the plane for a finer and finer cut, you will be able to improve your tolerances. It is very common to have the edge wobble out of square in different directions along its length. If you set for a very fine shaving and have the plane hanging of the high side of the edge, that will tend to take that side down. So you can shift your plane from side to side as needed as one tactic to take more off of the high spots, then take an end to end shaving right down the middle.
2. Is my plane good enough for simple projects (obviously not fine furniture)?
Definitely. Pick a project that doesn’t require perfection. Building it will be the best way to improve your skills. The tool tote with housed joints is one. The dovetailed boxes would also be good.
3. Should I spend some time checking my plane more thoroughly, and how?
I’d do projects in parallel with exploring the plane. Spend a little time fettling the plane, sharpen more often than needed, but build something at the same time. Building is what will tell you whether you’re just being fussy over things that don’t matter or show you that things are getting better (or worse). Look for one of Paul’s videos that shows how to test the iron setting by planing on the two sides of the blade. Look for his video on restoring a #4 plane. Maybe lap the sole of your plane a little to see if there is a hollow in front of the mouth (the back isn’t as important). If there is, see if you can make it better. But that all being said, most likely, what you are seeing is a sharpness issue. It sounds like you can get sharp enough to build stuff, so go ahead. As your sharpening gets better, you’ll be able to make more refined shavings and gain more and more control.
Hope this helps!
20 September 2016 at 11:10 am #140435Lieber Dieter,
[FΓΌr das gibst es Deutsche Industrienormen. I believe limits for straightness and flatness are found in DIN 875 and 876… More attainable when working with wood is probably the 0.4 – 0.5 mm (around 1/64″) that some authorities have published as novices’ cut-offs for straight and flat].
In addition to the erudite points already provided, I would like to put a few ‘blasphemies’ forward.
A long plane from any of the ubiquitous three – Clifton, Lie-Nielsen, and Veritas – provides more support over the entire length of the surface or edge of the wood; a flat sole that will not rise as the end of it enters the board, nor dive as the front exits it; weight to maintain contact with the workpiece surface; and a sharp straight blade to do the shaving.
A high-end 5Β½ is a lovely tool, and it is within DIN 876/1!
Freundlichen
Sven-Olof
20 September 2016 at 8:35 pm #140507Wow, 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
22 September 2016 at 7:53 pm #140753Yesterday, I spent some time sharpening my tools. I noticed, that the blade of the plane was slightly out of square and I worked a bit on that. The cutting edge is straight, so it cannot be the cause of my troubles, I can always set it flat to the surface.
Tonight, I have started on two boards for the top of the cabinet. The first one went pretty well, the outside and two smaller sides flat and square. The second one is a bit odd, doesn’t want to be planed, where I want it to. I probably have to have a closer look, to see why.
I try to follow the effects of the plane more closely, need to get used to that though. These boards are much wider, 5-3/4″ and pretty long, seems to be easier for me. Getting rid of the bulk of the belly cross-grain and then flatten the whole surface with the grain is quite straightforward and the heel of the plane seems to guide me.
I really have to do some padding on at least one jaw of the vise, because it doesn’t have enough grip for these long wide boards. And the board is quite bent through the pressure. So I often took out the board and checked it for flatness without that pressure.
I also visually checked the deviation to flatness on the first board. It is about or even less than half a millimeter – a tolerance of less than +/- 0.25 – close to the norms. I will see, how that will look in the finished product. After all, it will be a tool cabinet for my own workshop only. Of course I will try to improve a bit over time.
Greetings,
Dieter
30 September 2016 at 8:34 pm #141097I changed my approach a bit, while doing the sides, top and bottom of the cabinet. I am aiming for straight joinery rather than for perfect stock. In this case, I made sure that the ends of each board are flat, square and level to each other, and I removed all hollow areas, which would require the ends to be thinned on later removal. I didn’t remove all high spots, since I can do that later, where necessary. For the same reason, I didn’t sweat much over the squareness of the sides, which are machine cut and therefore not too way out anyway. In short, I tried to do, what must be done and try to ignore most of the other things, that could be done. The dovetails are laid out now, and I have finished the first corner. The corner is square in all directions, so I apparently did a good job on preparing the boards.
Case closed, I’d say, but I will report once the doors are done.
Dieter
On the flexing board, I have a too small vise on my bench so I have learned to use a clamp to add shelf to one end of the bench when working long boards. Now I can support one end on the shelf and the other in the vise while the vise keeps the piece upright.
A trick I learned for practicing planing is use a 18″ piece of 2×4 in the vice width wise. Take a pencil and lay 10 evenly spaced line the length of the board. You should be able to take the lines off in 3 strokes. Keep repeating the practice till you can do 10 sets of line son the first try each. Next is doing it will keeping the 2×4 square.
If you can find it, the book entitled “The Essential Woodworker” by Robert Wearing is an excellent reference book for hand tool woodworking. It covers hand planing techniques and practice tutorials. Hand planing is a practiced skill which with enough practice it’ll be easier to get things square. There are times when the wood will simply not cooperate no matter the effort π
12 October 2016 at 11:13 pm #141372Hi dave! I consider buying the works of Paul Sellers first π
Actually, I agree, it is a skill that needs to be developed. I noticed recently, that my plane actually talks to me. I only understand the very accentuated parts of what it says, but it is a start.
And there is a new video by Paul Sellers, on making drawers. He demonstrates, how he prepares a small board, and I learned a lot from that – still to be put into practise…
The biggest trouble I still have is to find out, if it is me, the wood or the plane, when something doesn’t go as I want it. I like to use wood from used pallets, which is often very knotty and unexpectedly splits without any warning. In that case, it might be either the wood or me. In the case I reported at the start of this topic, it was me, the wood was quite clean!
Dieter
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