Tracks with #4 Plane
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My #4 plane is leaving tracks in the wood as I work. I have rounded the edges of the blade, checked and double-checked that the blade is parallel, adjusted depth, and I’m still getting lots of tracks. My block plane is fine, and I can clean up the tracks from the smoothing plane with my block plane, but it takes a terrible amount of time on a large board.
I thought, perhaps, this was happening because the board was not level, but if I follow this logic (or lack thereof, apparently) and keep planing, I have a mountain of shavings before I know it.
I would love to be able to achieve a nice smooth surface with my smoothing plane, and I’m fully willing to accept that this is happening because I’m doing something wrong. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
Hi @jay,
An important point is not “bulldoging” the plane. Take it gently and retract the blade more shallowly to take fine shavings. Also check your level ajustment to take the same amount of wood from side to side. This is, perhaps, the most dificult ajustment. At some point you will get the “revelation”. I hope this helps you.
–Óscar
With love, best regards from Catalonia.
Jay, the advice in the link Ken provided is excellent. In my case I had the exact same situation and I simply concentrated on cambering my irons a bit more and spending and equal amount of time on the camber with the strop. This has worked well. Practically, a line here and there is easily taken care of with scraping and sanding.
I also periodically review Paul’s video on sharpening plane irons. I always seem to pick up some nuance that escaped me before. Good Luck with your planning..I love shavings!Retired airPLANE driver. Learning a new lifestyle in woodworking is fantastic!
Jay, have a read of this
Ken and others… thanks for the very quick response. I read over the article and, while I had read previously (somewhere) that either rounding the blade edges (which is what I have been doing) and cambering were both equally effective, noticed that Chris Schwarz mentioned cambering often. So , I just took my blade out and put a quick camber on it, then took the plane back to the board I was working on. The results have been immediate and impressive, so looks like I will be changing my sharpening routine just a bit.
Thanks again everyone. Any little frustration that you all can talk me through is so very helpful to me at this stage. 🙂
Good job Jay, pleased you have it sorted buddy. 😉
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