Use a smoother for rough lumber?
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I bought a mixed pack of hardwood recently. Some of the pieces are rough-sawn, but they are very narrow, and not too thick. Can I get away with using my Stanley No 4 smoothing plane (the only plane I own) to prepare some walnut. I want to use it to make some wedges for the workbench project.
Thanks.
14 April 2014 at 11:04 pm #56155If length not to long it is not a problem.
Go for it.
To start use in diagonal strokes to take worst off. Then go along the grain.What makes a smoothing plane is how you set it up, not the plane itself. You can use your #4 for almost all operations by varying its setup.
So I would open the mouth, extend the blade a little further (and camber it a little more than is usual for a smoothing plane blade) and hog off some material.
As the board is trued up, you can tighten the mouth, withdraw the blade and revert to more of a smoothing plane setup.
15 April 2014 at 10:20 am #56171Have you seen the stock preparation videos under tools and techniques? We will also be releasing a video on friday which deals specifically with preparing rough stock, as well as one in the next few weeks on how to convert a no 4 smoother to a scrub plane for this kind of work.
I have planed quite a few boards from rough with just the no 4, so it works fine. The cambering of the blade RL mentioned means to actually reshape your plane iron (which will also be in the video). One way of doing this is to get another iron specifically for this purpose. But you can do everything with a standard no 4, you just can’t hog off the material quite as quickly. I am planning on picking up a cheap no 4 specifically for this purpose, so I can just pick it up when I need it.
Hope that helps.
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