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48 Doug Dawson <dawson@p...> 1996‑02‑02 Bedding angle controversy!!
   Patrick L. wrote,
 
> Jeff Gorman  writes:
 
> >However /when planing/, a reduction of the angle is not necessarily a
> >benefit if tackling gnarly grain, since a higher angle and hence more
> >of a scraping action is often beneficial, hence the greater angle
> >(47.5?) of Norris planes and the "York" pitch of 50 degrees.
 
>   The vast, and I mean VAST, majority of bench planes are pitched at
> 45 degrees. Even the mighty infills are rarely pitched differently.

   We're giving Kingshott such publicity that I'm sure he won't mind
   my quoting him from p.66 of his tome of infamy,

   "Most current mass-produced bench planes have a pitch of 45 degrees,
   which is known as common or standard pitch.  Smoothers made in years
   gone by to plane difficult hardwood had a pitch of 50 degrees, known
   as York pitch.  Thomas Norris compromised by making his bench planes
   with a pitch of 47.5 degrees.

   Cabinetmakers who worked difficult woods with easily torn curly
   grain made their own smoother; this tool would have a pitch as steep
   as 55 degrees, called middle pitch.  Moulding planes, with a single
   iron set with the bevel down, need to have a steep pitch to prevent
   the grain tearing out - some are as steep as 60 degrees."

   Now, I'll say that I don't have the total low-down on what Kingshott's
   qualifications are.  It seems, though, that this would not be his
   original convention.  And he claims to have some direct experience of,
   even owned perhaps, a number of Norris planes.  

   So what is it?  It's 45, or it's 47.5, or what.  Kingshott has torn
   these things apart to measure and blueprint them, etc., allegedly.
   I really don't know what to say here.

> There is no good reason to pitch the iron higher when the plane is
> equipped with a double iron and the plane is made from metal, which
> allows a finer mouth than wood can offer.

   In a related quote, the great woodworking Asimov Sam Allen, on
   p. 49 of his plane opus, writes,

   "Most bench planes have a bedding angle of 45 degrees. [...]
   A higher angle makes the plane harder to push, but leaves a
   smoother cut.  Common [45] pitch is a compromise that gives a
   satisfactory cut with a moderate amount of pressure.

   Hardwoods will be planed smoother if a plane with York pitch
   [50 degrees] is used.  Some wooden planes are available with
   York pitch.  Burl wood and other highly figured wood can be
   planed with less tearout if an even higher bedding angle is
   used."

   Being an Asimov, though, he's obviously picked this up 
   somewhere else.
   
>   Wooden bench planes can be found with various pitches to them, but
> even these are usually pitched at 45 degrees. 

   Dunbar, on pp. 41-42, write,

   "On most bench planes, this [pitch] is 45 degrees, and is known
   as the common pitch.  Such planes were meant for everyday use,
   and they work best on soft woods.

   However, some planes were made specifically for working hard
   woods and have a pitch of 50 degrees, called a York pitch.
   Cabinetmakers who regularly worked heavily figured woods such
   as walnut or mahongany might own a smoothing plane with its
   blade set at an even steeper angle of 55 degrees.  This is
   called the middle pitch.  There is a more extreme set of 60
   degrees known as the half pitch, also intended for heavily
   figured woods such as curly maple.

   Planes with the middle and half pitch work like scrapers and
   are difficult to use on soft wood such as pine."

   This is in the context of bench planes, FWIW.  Again, I don't
   know what Dunbar's qualifications are.  He's obviously getting
   this somewhere.
 
>   One thing has been lost in this 'pitched battle' - as the pitch is
> increased, the escapement for the shaving narrows. This can lead to
> the plane choking unless the escapement is made wider. 

   Agreed.

   You go on to present a case that, in order to accomodate that, the
   form, or shape of the plane, particularly as regards the shape of
   the infill, and various ergonomic issues, must be modified 
   accordingly. 
 
   [ stuff about the moulding planes tamped ]

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Patrick Leach
> Just say A 45 degree pitch was done for good reason.
> etc.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

   It was mentioned earlier that even the mighty Japanese, with 
   their reputation for fine smoothers, bedded at 45 or below.
   But if you look thru the catalogues such as Japan Woodworker,
   when such a plane is aimed at the woodworker dealing with
   hardwoods and exotics, a pitch of 47.5 is more common among
   them.

   In FWW #99, p. 70, Starr's article on planes makes an
   interesting reference:

   "The Victorian expert Charles Holtzapffel in v. II of "Turning
   and Mechanical Manipulation" [...] suggests various (iron)
   pitches for woods of increasing hardness.  He names them as
   follows:  45 (common), 50 (York), 55 (middle) and 60 (half)."

   I'm not making any of this up.  What's the source of it?  Is
   there a proto-authority for it? ;-)

   Anyone with Holtapffel's book ( nudge nudge ) wanna look this
   up and report in more detail on what he's going on about?

   I'd really like to get to the bottom of this.

   Doug Dawson
   dawson@p...


116 leach@b... (Patrick Leach) 1996‑02‑06 re: Bedding angle controversy!!
dawson@p... writes:

  

  Regarding the Kingshott quote -

>  "Most current mass-produced bench planes have a pitch of 45 degrees,
>  which is known as common or standard pitch.  Smoothers made in years
>  gone by to plane difficult hardwood had a pitch of 50 degrees, known
>  as York pitch.  Thomas Norris compromised by making his bench planes
>  with a pitch of 47.5 degrees.

  This revelation might have come as a surpise to the infill manufacturers.
Perhaps either Mr. Kingshott's protractor is off a smidgeon, or Mr. Spiers',
Mr. Norris', and others' are off.

  Then again, maybe it's mine that is off. But, a quick analysis of my
yuppy arsenal proves Mr. Kingshott wrong. I measured my Spiers smoother,
my Spiers panel, my Norris smoother, my Norris jointer, my no-name smoother,
my Preston smoother, and my Norris adjustable smoother and found them each
to be pitched at 45 degrees. [attention oldtools shoppers - the latter two
are for sale].

  It's also possible that Mr. Kingshott measured a single example of Norris'
work, with his particular one was pitched at 47.5 (Norris would custom make 
stuff to order), and then proclaimed this to be the standard.

  Perhaps some more measurements are needed. How about the others following 
this string, who own yb's. Care to measure yours (this means you Randy, Mike,
Ray, Andrew, Pete, Jeff, Vince, et al)?

  Regarding Sam Allens' quote -

>  Hardwoods will be planed smoother if a plane with York pitch
>  [50 degrees] is used.  Some wooden planes are available with
>  York pitch.  Burl wood and other highly figured wood can be
>  planed with less tearout if an even higher bedding angle is
>  used."

  This doesn't contradict with what I wrote earlier - you'll find the 
wooden planes pitched through a greater range than you will the metallic
ones. Furthermore, it's the single iron planes that are more likely to 
be pitched higher than the double iron planes. Prior to the introduction
of the cap iron, the pitch was raised in an effort to eliminate tearout.

  Once the cap iron made its way onto the scene to reduce tearout, it took 
some time (plane evolution, if you will) until planemakers and users alike 
felt comfortable enough to buck the tradition of varying the pitch. But, 
they eventually came to a general consensus that 45 degrees was best for a 
metallic plane for the fact that a cut surface is better than a scraped
surface (which the steeper pitch approximates).

  Wooden planes, on the otherhand, need every advantage that can be applied
to them in order to tackle the difficult woods. They suffer a lack of mass,
a mouth that cannot be made to the same tolerance as a metallic plane, a
mouth that doesn't stay constant, and almost invariably are equipped with
tapered irons. 

  A steeper pitch to the iron, even if it has a double iron, can benefit the
wooden plane because the mouth increases its width as the plane is used. The
portion of sole holding the fibers in place prior to their being cut is less
than that of a plane with a fine mouth. Thus, there is a limit to the benefit
derived via the cap iron when the plane has a gaping mouth. In this case, the
function of the cap iron is assisted by increasing the iron's pitch, where 
the two (cap iron and pitch) both work in unison to overcome the shavings' 
leverage as soon as possible lest tearout results.

  About Michael Dunbar's quote -

>   However, some planes were made specifically for working hard
>   woods and have a pitch of 50 degrees, called a York pitch.
>   Cabinetmakers who regularly worked heavily figured woods such
>   as walnut or mahongany might own a smoothing plane with its
>   blade set at an even steeper angle of 55 degrees.  This is
>   called the middle pitch.  There is a more extreme set of 60
>   degrees known as the half pitch, also intended for heavily
>   figured woods such as curly maple.

  I suspect that he's simply regurgitating or paraphrasing information
he gleaned elsewhere (I'll bet it's Salaman's Dictionary of Woodworking
Tools that's the source of his information). What he says is true, for 
wooden planes. Again, I stress that bench planes pitched greater than 
common pitch are the exception rather than the rule, in both wooden and
metallic versions.

  It's quite possible that he meant to refer the above quote to wooden
planes. I suppose we could ask Dunbar directly for an explanation. 
Furthermore, we could also ask him how many bench planes he's observed,
and then of that number how many are pitched steeper than common pitch.

  But, I'm sorta thinking he's talking for talking's sake here, since 
I've gotten perfect results on the bitchiest curly maple with my common
pitch smoothers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick Leach
Just say The proof is found in the original infills and not in a book.
etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


120 ledzep@e... (Carl Muhlhausen LZ 1B-115L x3052) 1996‑02‑06 re: Bedding angle controversy!!
 I found something interesting relating to this in
Tom Witte's reprint of the Norris catalog (obtained
from John Zimmers).
On pg 11:

"Patent Norris High Pitch Setting Device"

"With the aid of this ingenious device, the user
can sharpen a plane iron in such a manner as to
convert an ordinary plane into a higher pitched
plane giving *most satisfactory results* on hard
or curly grained material."

"To be attached to plane iron as shown while setting.
Printed instructions for use given with each device."

				"Price 1/6"

The illustration shows a bent metal gizmo screwed to
the back of a plane iron. It looks like it was meant
to take the place of the cap iron and allow you to
install the iron bevel up in the plane giving a
"cutting" angle >90 deg. I guess the device also 
helped close up the mouth with the bevel up.
Functionally like the scraper attachment that Lee
Valley is now selling.
I wonder if Norris sold many of these?

Carl

Just say: Doesn't say anything about how it will work on
          Wenge.


155 RayTSmith@a... 1996‑02‑07 Re: Bedding angle controversy!!
In a message dated 96-02-06 07:48:29 EST, 

Patrick Leach, hoarder of cove planes and debunker of perfectly good infill
rumors, 
 writes:

> Perhaps some more measurements are needed. How about the others following 
>this string, who own yb's. Care to measure yours (this means you Randy,
Mike,
>Ray, Andrew, Pete, Jeff, Vince, et al)?

  When I first got mine, I stood it in line with a Bailey #4 and sighted the
blades as if they were winding sticks. The A14 blade was slightly more
upright than the Bailey, so I figured the 50 degree story was true and never
thought much more about it.
  
  Now that I have measured them, my sliding bevel and cheap protractor put
the Bailey dead on at 45 degrees, and the Norris squarely between the 47 and
48 marks. I guess if somebody has to be different, it may as well be me....
 
 Ray T. Smith


209 groberts@s... (Gary Roberts) 1996‑02‑07 re: Bedding angle controversy!!
Ok, so I looked at my Spiers jack.  At first glance it appeared to be
bedded at 45 deg.  So I went to a Brown and Sharp proctrator and tried
again. 47 deg!  However, the blade, a tapered blade that appeared to have
been in place for a good long time, was ground to a fairly low angle bevel.
Makes me wonder if, due to the thickness of the blade, if you could get
away with a lower angle bevel than you would with a thin, modern blade.

Then again, Spiers probably did not use a Brown and Sharp protractor.  How
about this?  All English infill planes are descended from one common
ancestor. This ancestral plane was bedded at 47 deg, for an arcane reason
known to and understood only by a past great master.  Far be it for us
lowly modern neanderthals to attempt to understand the true meaning of 47
degrees.

Don't worry, I'll ask my spirit guide tonight for enlightment.

Gary Roberts 
Boston, MA
My opinions are my own.  At least I think they are.


228 Jeff@m... (Jeff Gorman) 1996‑02‑08 re: Bedding angle controversy!!
Patrick Leach wrote:

~ It's also possible that Mr. Kingshott measured a single example of
Norris' ~ work, with his particular one was pitched at 47.5 (Norris
would custom make ~ stuff to order), and then proclaimed this to be
the standard.

~ Perhaps some more measurements are needed. How about the others
following ~ this string, who own yb's. Care to measure yours (this means
you Randy, Mike, ~ Ray, Andrew, Pete, Jeff, Vince, et al)?

I've just measured my dead-loss-gaping-wide-mouth-Late-Norris smoother.
With the protractor from a Starrett Combination Set, I make mine to be
46-1/3 degrees! (Stock of protractor against the sole and the rule
sighted against the underside of the blade).

Now what do we make of that? I have measured as carefully as possible
with this equipment.

~ I've gotten perfect results on the bitchiest curly maple with my
common ~ pitch smoothers.

I have often wondered just how much difference 2-1/2 degrees can make.
When backfacing an iron to increase the cutting angle I reckon I got
nearer to 60 degrees or even more, which still planes wood, if a bit
grudgingly. This is fine for acrylic resin sheet and Formica since the
edge lasts longer and is less fierce on the resin sheet.

Basically, I agree about the standard pitch. All you need is a highly
tuned Stanley or Record, ;-), with the finest mouth possible. This takes
precedence over cap-iron setting, whatever some books and other writers
may say about "chip breaking".

--
Jeff Gorman - West Yorkshire jeff@m...

230 Jeff@m... (Jeff Gorman) 1996‑02‑08 re: Bedding angle controversy!!
Carl Mulhausen wrote:

~  "Patent Norris High Pitch Setting Device"

~  The illustration shows a bent metal gizmo screwed to
~  the back of a plane iron. It looks like it was meant
~  to take the place of the cap iron and allow you to
~  install the iron bevel up in the plane giving a
~  "cutting" angle >90 deg. I guess the device also 
~  helped close up the mouth with the bevel up.
~  Functionally like the scraper attachment that Lee
~  Valley is now selling.

Out of curiosity, To enable a Stanley blade honed at 30 degrees to be
fitted bevel-up, I have just sawn the last 5/16" from the head of a
spare Stanley cap-iron. No weak puns about de-cap-itation please. 8-).

The shaving aperture is now cavernous, of course, but a trial on a 7"
x 1-1/4" (or so) piece of some fairly hard flowering cherry, even with
a pretty fine set, caused it to violently skitter for the whole
length. I doubt that the shaving aperture size has much to do with
this.

It worked after a fashion on some pine, but required much extra
effort.

Conclusion of a very brief trial: under these circumstances, a 75
degree cutting angle with a 45 degree clearance angle is impracticable
and not worth perservering with, but someone must have made his gadget
work well enough to satisfy Norris and go to the trouble and expense
of getting a patent.

~  Just say: Doesn't say anything about how it will work on
~            Wenge.

Now you know why!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rather academic speculation follows. Ignore according to your
inclination. Tell me if I've got it all wrong, but it /is/ useful
to have somewhere to bounce ideas against! 
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Trusting some very rusty trigonometry and school physics, I think that
the turning effect from the reaction on the end a beam inclined at
differing angles to the horizontal, when biffed by a
horizontally-acting force against a vertical face, might be
proportional to the cosines of the angles. 

The beam is the plane blade. The angles are the cutting angles. The
cutting angles are the inclinations of the upper face of the cutter to
the sole. The horizontally-acting force is you, pushing the plane. The
vertical face is the end of the workpiece. Gerrit now?

Sorry about that, but what can one do without a decent diagram
facility? 

Cos 75 divided by cos 45 = 2.74, hence the greater likelihood of the
plane involuntarily lifting from the shock of the edge when it first
engages with the leading edge of the workpiece. This quantifies (I
hope) what one perceives intuitively.

It is appreciated that this applies to the special case of the iron at
the start of the cut, but intuition also suggests that it will be
somewhat applicable to cuts started within the body of the workpiece.

One conclusion? Lower cutting angle = less chance of skitter. A Lower
cutting angle is easier to obtain with a low-angle bevel-up plane.

A question remains, however. I have made rather casual backfacing work
on wood. The casualness might have meant that the cutting angle was
maybe about 60 degrees. Does the greater clearance angle have any 
ill-effect? Off-hand, I can't think why it should, but am open to rational
explanations. I suppose that the flexing effect (golly, I nearly said
"chatter") on the un-damped (since no effective cap-iron) 75deg.
cutting edge could be 2.74 times as great, hence a release of stored
energy would increase the lifting effect, or would it?
 
Engineers/physicists to the rescue please!

Enough of this self-indulgence. Work to be done!

Jeff.

-- 
Jeff Gorman - West Yorkshire
jeff@m...


243 leach@b... (Patrick Leach) 1996‑02‑08 Re: Bedding angle controversy!!
RayTSmith@a... writes:

>  Now that I have measured them, my sliding bevel and cheap protractor put
>the Bailey dead on at 45 degrees, and the Norris squarely between the 47 and
>48 marks. I guess if somebody has to be different, it may as well be me....

  I wonder if the toteless models, equipped with the adjusters, such as yours
are pitched slightly higher since they are shorter in length than the toted
models? If they were pitched at 45 degress with the length that they are,
there might be insufficient room to make a comfortable grip.

  I'm gonna email my pal, WeeWee, and ask him to measure his, which is the
same as yours (it's also a good excuse to rip his arse for sending me a
postcard of Michelangelo's David's crotch from his recent visit to Florence).
I'll let you know what comes of it. The angle, not the crotch, that is.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
HBK
Just say None of you bootlicks are worthy of my greatness, with my being
         the sahib of sawdust. Drop on your hands and knees, the lot of
         you, and start swabbing the floor with your tongues.
etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


245 Randy Roeder <RROEDER@c...> 1996‑02‑08 Re: Bedding angle controversy!!
I measured my late model Norris A-5 last night.  My technique was to take
an adjustable carpenter's square, one with a 45 degree angle built into
the handle, align the handle on the sole, and sight along the blade.

It looks to be a dead-on 45 degrees.  Has anyone  wondered, given the
fact that the iron rests on a wooden bed, if the company didn't care if the
angle of the cutter was off a degree or two?  Maybe the tolerances for
the bedding angle weren't all that precise.

Randy


252 RayTSmith@a... 1996‑02‑08 Re: Bedding angle controversy!!
Patrick Leach, Admirer of Fine Arts,
writes:

> I wonder if the toteless models, equipped with the adjusters, such as yours
>are pitched slightly higher since they are shorter in length than the toted
>models? If they were pitched at 45 degress with the length that they are,
>there might be insufficient room to make a comfortable grip.

  Thats a good theory, but it would not have made a huge difference. The 2.5
degree change is so slight that it isn't really noticeable unless you compare
it side by side with a common pitch plane.
  Lined up with a Bailey, the top of the Norris iron was about 1/4" or less
forward of where the top of the Bailey iron rests. Angling the adjuster back
1/4" would not matter much to me, but then I have smaller hands than the
average cave-dweller.  It *might* be a problem for someone with big mits. And
you just might be right.

>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>HBK
>Just say None of you bootlicks are worthy of my greatness, with my being
>         the sahib of sawdust. Drop on your hands and knees, the lot of
>         you, and start swabbing the floor with your tongues.
>etc.

  How much longer do I have to keep this up, your greatness? The walnut dust
wasn't half bad, but this pine dust tastes like crap.

Ray T. Smith


253 RayTSmith@a... 1996‑02‑08 Re: Bedding angle controversy!!
In a message dated 96-02-07 20:10:36 EST,
Gary Roberts writes:

> However, the blade, a tapered blade that appeared to have
>been in place for a good long time, was ground to a fairly low angle bevel.
>Makes me wonder if, due to the thickness of the blade, if you could get
>away with a lower angle bevel than you would with a thin, modern blade.

  The blade in mine (non-tapered) was ground to a low angle also. Looks to be
about 20 degrees or so, then they honed a steeper working angle. I think it
was done this way because a previous owner was lazy and didn't want to hone a
full width bevel on the thick blade. It gives up some blade support from the
bed, which should be a positive feature.

  I had a problem with it only once though, about halfway across a piece of
white oak, I ran into some grain reversal and the blade chattered enough to
leave a half dollar sized area with ripple marks at about 1/32" intervals in
it. A subsequent skewed pass cleaned it up nicely, but if the iron didn't
have that long bevel, I don't think it would have happened to begin with.

  Norris steel being precious, I just hone a 30 degree secondary bevel on it.
I'm not going to hone it back to a straight bevel since it would take about
an 1/8" or so off the blade. My Hock replacement is on order, and will be my
'working' blade when it arrives. 

Ray T. Smith  


257 RayTSmith@a... 1996‑02‑08 Re: Bedding angle controversy!!
In a message dated 96-02-08 09:20:40 EST, 
Randy writes:

>.  Has anyone  wondered, given the
>fact that the iron rests on a wooden bed, if the company didn't care if the
>angle of the cutter was off a degree or two?  Maybe the tolerances for
>the bedding angle weren't all that precise.
>

  Judging from the ones I've seen, I don't think they ignored tolerances
anywhere.

Ray T. Smith



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