Skewed edge…hand planing mistake
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Some days ago i discovered i skew my edges while hand planing a board. In fact left side comes off higher than right side, that in fact is much more lower. i’m right handed. What am i doing wrong? I just checked blade setting and it’s cenetred on plane’s mouth, iron itself is sharp and i dont’ “muscle” the pklane when i’m pushing it. The same mistake i commit when i hand plane a face: i have to pay attention and removing more shavings on the left side than in the right side…I cannot understand what i have to do here
1) Flatten the sole
2) use the lateral adjuster when you set the plane to make sure the blade is square to the surface.I would hope that would resolve your problem in full. If your cutting iron is terribly out of square you may need to spend some time on it but if it is just minor, I’d think you could compensate with the lateral adjuster.
3 February 2017 at 7:07 pm #308991Part of the problem probably is the natural tendency to put more pressure on one side or the other. In your case, you’re right handed and may put a bit more pressure on the plane to the right, skewing the edge. Perfectly natural and it’s just a matter of correcting your technique and being conscious of it.
The other part may be your plane setup. I forget which video Paul shows setting up the plane by taking progressively lighter cuts on a piece of scrap board in the vise until the shavings are coming out even on both sides of the iron. Take a shaving just with the left half of the iron, compare that to the shaving taken on the right half of the iron. Compensate using the lateral adjuster. Rinse repeat a few times until you’re taking a whisper thin shaving and you know your iron is taking even cuts across the blade. Then you know the iron is square. It seems like a simple thing, but it really makes a huge difference in improving how square the iron presents to the wood in my experience. My edges improved dramatically after I started doing that after sharpening up. Give it a try.
3 February 2017 at 7:13 pm #308992Have a very long explanation to why I – being badly left handed – invariably tend to do the opposite, but, in short, it was overcome by: moving my body closer to the near edge and trying more to lean forward than extending my arms when stroking. Adding very frequent checks for not being out of square and thin shavings, this “falling forwards” has helped a lot.
Don’t have the same problem when surface planning. Wonder why?
/soj
3 February 2017 at 8:23 pm #308994It might help to move the toe of the plane a bit to the left and the heel to the right. Like this, a horizontal plane “only” depends on even pressure by both hands.
Another method is to use the fingers of one hand as a guide. Grab around the sole of the plane and let the fingertip(s) slide on the vertical surface of the wood. Of course, that side should be clean enough so you can’t hurt yourself.
Both methods helped me a lot to get straighter. I also started to plane slower and checked the result of each and every stroke. It seems to be slow, but until you have good control over your plane, it is actually faster.
And do lubricate the sole of your plane (oil or wax). High friction is not only hard to your muscles, it also makes it much harder to control the plane over the length of a stroke.
Of course, your plane or the plane iron could have defects that you aren’t aware of.
Your last comment points into the direction of a tilted blade or edge. In a recent video, Paul Sellers shows exactly, how to set up a plane for work. Even with good vision, eyes can be fooled easily. But Pauls method relies on the thickness of shavings, and this can be measured. (I assume, that by “more shavings” you mean “thicker shavings”)
Dieter
I already use paul’s method about setting up the blade or..almost.
Iron is super sharp in fact ai can shave my harm’s hair using it. Sole is Always lubricated with 3in1 oil on a rag ( Paul sellers teaches it in every video and this little step makes a big difference). Actually i repeat this mistake with every single plane i own: a no.4 Stanley, a no.5 kunz plus, a no.5 Stanley, a no.7 wood river and a wooden primum ECe plane jointer. Just checked flatness of the soles, they are dead flat.
So in conclusion this “skew” has to do with my body postion, my hands, my way of pushing…the human factor!
Ps. “skewing” occours when i Surface the face of the board..3 February 2017 at 11:06 pm #308998As noted above using your fingers to guide the toe of the plane helped me when trying to plane edges square; but as well as doing this I also worked on making sure I wasn’t holding the plane tote too tightly.
Just using my right hand to push the plane forward (I’m right handed) without gripping it tightly stopped me from canting the plane to one side. With a right handed tight grip the tendancy is to put more more pressure on the right of the plane which will take a heavier shaving on that side.
Cheers,
Bill
4 February 2017 at 12:59 am #308999Watch Paul Sellers and other seasoned woodworkers planing, that’s the only idea I have left.
Well, and this one: Try not to apply any pressure downwards, only push forward. The blade automatically pulls down the plane when digging into the fibres.Dieter
PS: By the way, I got you wrong, you were talking about more shavings on the left side, to compensate for the thicker shavings on the right side of the plane, and that makes perfect sense.
Hi,
I found that the position of my body / feet contributed a lot to out-of-square planing.
I have improved my ability by:
i. Not leaning over the piece: try to keep your weight mostly on your back foot, or evenly balanced between them; don’t put your weight to the front otherwise you will naturally put pressure on the plane. By contrast, when I lean my weight over the plane I tend to overplane the far end, causing more wood to be taken away there.
ii. Hold the knob very loosely, fingertips only. Someone else suggested you should only be putting pressure on the plane in the direction of travel, never downwards, and this is good advice.
iii. As someone else suggested, rechecking the set of the plane is key.
Hope that helps.
Darren.
Many many thanks Guys!!!
I have to say that my problem is solved, or almost solved. I followed your advice
1) no downward pression at all whli planing
2) Iron must be razor sharp
3) iron must be well centerd on mouth ( re-studied Paul’s video on that)Last but not least
Foot stance!! I couldn’t believe this is the main cause but actually..it is. While maintainig my hip very cloase to the board i’m plaining, i stand frontal with right leg more parallel to the workpiece. Old handbooks say “right foot at 90°angle…” but for me it’s simply not true.. This way may head is also parallel to the board and my dominant eye is almost over the workpiece.
Hope you get the meaning , hope someone else find useful our words
I have cambered only my Stanley no.5 iron at suggested 8″ radius. This way i’m able to remove big chunks of wood but i believe too much wood with each stroke. Today i believe the optimum radius for a jack plane is about 10″or 12″. My other hand planes have got the corners removed gradually as Paul Sellers teaches on his video.
Once the plane has been initialized and set properly each time then any problems are probably technique or body mechanics related.
A lot seems to have been written about the body mechanics of sawing straight, but I found less good info on how to plane correctly. The basics are all there (avoid snipe etc), but the descriptions always seem a bit vague and described differently by different people. This may be because there are different types of planes and different objectives and types of planing (scrub/jack/jointer/smoother etc, flattening/jointing/smoothing/flushing / cleaning up joints etc etc). The mechanics may also vary slightly depending on your body size/shape and workpiece/bench size/shape etc. Ultimately it’s something that is best learned through experience. Also I think there may be variations on effective style that are equally valid in some cases.
I used to have a similar problem with technique / body mechanics causing the same as you describe.
Ideally we would all have someone with us who could physically demonstrate and correct any technique issues, but in the absence of that, this is how I have mostly got past this:
Taking some time to slow down the planing and check my positioning and results more regularly than would be “ideal”. If necessary, sometimes I would check after every shaving or two to see the results. It feels like you are slowing yourself down, but very quickly you will self correct to a successful body mechanic and the results will suddenly just “click” as your muscle memory latches on to the successful pattern for you. Over a short time you need to check the results less and less and effective speed increases due to less wasted effort doing and correcting mistakes.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Mike I.
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