GGs,

I finally got back to doing some woodworking but I made a *BIG* mistake: I let
Cindy choose the wood.  The maple is beautiful, but it's flatsawn.  OWCH!!
Fortunately I've got some thickness to play with because the first three planes
that I tried on it (#5, #4 1/2, #4) all tore it to pieces.  Squirrley doesn't
begin to describe this grain.

I think that the #40 will take off plenty of wood for the thicknessing (a #4
with a slightly rank cut would probably do it to :-), but how am I going to
control the tearout for the finishing?

-Ken

In a message dated 1/2/00 5:27:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, kistagg@h...
writes:

<< The maple is beautiful, but it's flatsawn.  OWCH!!
 Fortunately I've got some thickness to play with because the first three
planes
 that I tried on it (#5, #4 1/2, #4) all tore it to pieces.  Squirrley doesn't
 begin to describe this grain.

 I think that the #40 will take off plenty of wood for the thicknessing (a #4
 with a slightly rank cut would probably do it to :-), but how am I going to
 control the tearout for the finishing?
  >>
I made a woody plane with a 60° bed angle for use on difficult woods like
this.  It is really a very simple plane.  The plane is glued up out of 4
pieces of wood.  The heel and the toe came from the same rectangular block.
The heel has a 60° bed angle, and the toe has a 45° angle at the mouth.  I
glued these two pieces up in an assembly with two 3/8" thick boards that make
up the cheeks.  I drilled a hole through each cheek, and put a 3/8" bolt
throught the holes.  This bolt is the pin that holds the wedge.  The plane
has a Hock iron and a mahogany wedge.

Ater the glue up dried, I flattend the sole by  lapping it on some sandpaper
on glass.  I made a float to size the mouth by gluing some sandpaper to a
thin strip of wood.  The plane doesn't have a tote or a chipbreaker.  It's
about as simple as you can get, but it's the best plane I have for planing
without tearout.  When I first made the plane, I glued up a bookmatched hard
maple table top.  The boards had had a knot close to where I bookmatched
them, and the grain went in about 4 different direections at the center of
the table top.  My high angle smoother was able to plane this top in any
direction, but where it was going directly against the grain, it left the
surface a little rough (closer to fuzzy than to tearout).  A little scraping,
and the top was smooth.

I now have a lathe, so I no longer use bolts for pins in my planes.  Instead,
I turn the pins on the lathe and plane a flat area on them for the wedge to
seat against.

David

>Fortunately I've got some thickness to play with because the first three plane
s
>that I tried on it (#5, #4 1/2, #4) all tore it to pieces.  Squirrley doesn't
>begin to describe this grain.....

I'm not an expert doing this for a living.  But on the few times doing figured
cherry or maple I've gotten pretty good results with a #603 and #4 1/2.
I really don't think that the Bedrock matters over a regular Bailey much.
I've had and used a few of each.  A Hock iron would be nice, but I've not
had any problems with most old Stanley/Sargent irons.

The other factors are more important.  An extremely *sharp* iron is #1.
I know many think they have a *scary* sharp iron.  But read Steve R's
"green crayon" thread from the other day.  I got flamed for mentioning
it awhile back, but the difference is very measurable even to knowledgeable
sharpeners.  Hard-felt wheel works, and so does the old barber strop I
lay flat across my bench.  My 73 year old dad has been so impressed
with my edges for the past few years, that he finally "borrowed" one of
my "green crayons" when my folks came to visit over the holidays.

#2 is read the wood.  I've literally turned planes near side-ways and sliced
the problem areas.  Coming back to these areas with a smaller or low-angle
block plane also helps.  You should always be understanding of the grain of
any stock that your planing, and plane accordingly.  Certainly not into grain
that is rising up.  When I've done cherry swirling in different directions,
I've planed from many different directions, especially diagonal to the grain.
Sometimes I turn the plane around and pull it towards me to fix a spot.
Figured wood is definitely not just planing straight along the grain like
most stock.  And that little low-angle block plane does occasionally help.
FWW once did an article on planing figured woods, and that's what the
author used and recommended.

Next, setting for an *extremely* fine shaving is #3, including sharpening the
iron so that the corners rise up into the plane, and don't dig into the surface
.
And the frog must be solid and adjusted for a very tight mouth.  This is the
only real advantage of a Bedrock, but only during tuning.  Because after it's
set just right, you could leave the frog adjustment alone for years, provided
you have other planes to use for everything else.

#4 after that are a tight lever cap, a very close to the edge cap-iron with a
clean
and even fit along the flat side of the iron, and of course, a relatively flat
sole.

The other alternatives that I've mentioned before, but find that I almost never

turn to myself, except to occasionally play around, is the LN #62 low-angle
jack plane, or a #112 scraper.  But for what it's worth, a common and cheap
Stanley #80 with the right burr can cleanup small areas just as well.

I try to avoid sand paper, because after getting a beautiful shiny glass smooth
finish on 99% of the surface, trying to sand out a tiny tearout always leaves a
noticeable dull spot that just doesn't reflect the light or show the grain as
nice.

Of course if all this still doesn't work, you know you've already justified
buying
yourself an higher-angle infill smooth plane.  And that's not a bad
thought.<grin>
I'll probably get one myself too, eventually.

Walter
If you've made it to here, then thanks for reading.

I'm not an expert doing this for a living.  But on the few times doing figured
cherry or maple I've gotten pretty good results with a #603 and #4 1/2.
I really don't think that the Bedrock matters over a regular Bailey much.
I've had and used a few of each.  A Hock iron would be nice, but I've not
had any problems with most old Stanley/Sargent irons.

I agree. However, I have modified my pre WWI 4 1/2 Bailey to take a
5/32" Hock blade Ron made for me; it is of the same length and width
as the standard Stanley, but 3/32" thick like the Kronov blades he
makes. With this, the mouth can be closed up very close by moving the
frog, and the thick blade does not chatter. In effect, the resulting
smoother is just as good as a Norris, sacrilegious as this may sound.
All that is necessary to do, besides getting the special order blade
from Ron, is to silver-solder two small steel plates on the underside
of the capiron fore and aft of the adjusting slot, and that fit in
the slot in the blade so that the adjusting lever can reach the
capiron inspite of the thicker blade.  Finished. How to make you own
Lie Nielsen so to speak. It is definitely worth the effort. I
originally had this iron, and several more, made for my wooden
planes. He has also made a blade for my Cox miter plane.

Bill
William Jurgenson
http://www.zabernet.de/bill/index.html

Kenneth Stagg wrote:
>
> GGs,
>
> I finally got back to doing some woodworking but I made a *BIG* mistake: I le
t
> Cindy choose the wood.  The maple is beautiful, but it's flatsawn.  OWCH!!
> Fortunately I've got some thickness to play with because the first three
planes
> that I tried on it (#5, #4 1/2, #4) all tore it to pieces.  Squirrley doesn't
> begin to describe this grain.
>
> I think that the #40 will take off plenty of wood for the thicknessing (a #4
> with a slightly rank cut would probably do it to :-), but how am I going to
> control the tearout for the finishing?
>
> -Ken

Very timely for me. I'm using some hard maple for drawer sides and
bottoms and having a hellacious time with my handplanes. This is not
figured stuff, just rock hard with many unpredictable grain reversals.
My bevy of "ultimate" smoothing planes just isn't doing the job. I can
use any of these (infill, LN #4, and LN #164) on other woods including
curly soft maple with delight, but on this maple I'm getting bad tearout
with even the lightest cuts.

I just got a very spiffy York pitched smoothing plane from Steve Knight
and I haven't had much success on this maple with it either. I'm still
learning how to use this plane, so I may have better luck with more
practice.

If I were a completely dedicated handtool galoot, I'd probably use a
toothed blade in my #12 scraper and then follow it up with a regular
scraper. When I've used this combination in the past I didn't see much
difference between it and sanding, except that it was a whole lot more
work and not any more fun.

So being the weak-willed and morally corrupt heathen that I am, I will
probably designate this wood as a wood that just doesn't want to be
planed and sand it, burning a few electrons in the process. Since these
are non-show parts, I'll definitely quit when there still is some
tearout, else I end up with 1/4" drawer sides and a 1/8" bottom.

I've use lots of hard maple in the past without this problem, so I hope
this is an isolated incident. I definitely get off on the shiny,
glistening surface a handplane can leave on maple.

Carl

walter barry wrote:
> (snipped)
> If you've made it to here, then thanks for reading.

Well-written advice on planing, Walter. Thanks.

Howard

Carl W Muhlhausen wrote:

> So being the weak-willed and morally corrupt heathen that I am, I will
> probably designate this wood as a wood that just doesn't want to be
> planed and sand it, burning a few electrons in the process. Since these
> are non-show parts, I'll definitely quit when there still is some
> tearout, else I end up with 1/4" drawer sides and a 1/8" bottom.
>
> I've use lots of hard maple in the past without this problem, so I hope
> this is an isolated incident. I definitely get off on the shiny,
> glistening surface a handplane can leave on maple.
>
> Carl

Follow-up to my own posting....
I must have been feeling guilty or something, but last night I rehooked
the blade on my Stanley #112 (plane-like scraper, jeff) and went at the
maple. It did a pretty fair job. I  put a fairly aggressive hook on the
blade, and the tearout went mostly away with some vigorous scraping. I
quit before I got rid of all of it and I left some hefty marks from
aggressive scraping since this was a drawer bottom. I'm pretty confident
that a lighter touch and perhaps a hand scraper could have gotten me to
an acceptable surface, though not as pristine as a planed one.
I did haul out the ROS to smooth out the show (inside) of the drawer
bottoms, because otherwise the surface was a little too primitive even
for me.

Carl

Carl W Muhlhausen wrote:

> I must have been feeling guilty or something, but last night I rehooked
> the blade on my Stanley #112 (plane-like scraper, jeff) and went at the
> maple. It did a pretty fair job. I  put a fairly aggressive hook on the
> blade, and the tearout went mostly away with some vigorous scraping. I
> quit before I got rid of all of it and I left some hefty marks from
> aggressive scraping since this was a drawer bottom. I'm pretty confident
> that a lighter touch and perhaps a hand scraper could have gotten me to
> an acceptable surface, though not as pristine as a planed one.
>
> [mention of unmentionable deleted  ;-) ]

   I had a similar experience recently when trying to surface a piece
of chechen.  This was my first (and possibly last) encounter with
this resin-filled concrete^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwood.

   I bought the board because it has some absolutely stunning figure,
and I figured it couldn't be any tougher to work than cocobolo.  Right?

   Wrong.

   I tried everything in my collect^H^H^H^H^H^H^Harsenal on it, and
the only planes that were able to minimize the tearout were the L-N
low-angle smoother and large scraper plane.

   Even at that, there were some spots that simply refused to yield
even though I tried approaching them from every possible angle (even
planing in a circular motion at times).

   So I grabbed the simplest implement in my shop.  With judicious
use of a handscraper I was able to get rid of the last of the tearout.
The surface wasn't quite as polished looking as the planed surface, so
I used the scraper on the whole board to even out the shine.  (And I
*do* mean shine; this stuff looks like marble when smoothed.)

   (And you should see what it looks like after it's been hit with a
coat of linseed oil.  *schwing*)

      Chuck Vance
      Just say (tmPL) sometimes the simplest answer is the best.

Galoots,

In desperate times another possibility is the toothing plane.  Any comments?

Marvin Paisner
Kootenay Lake, BC    (making a genuine effort to stay on topic; tm Mom)

At 11:51 1/7/00 -0600, Conan The Librarian wrote:

>
>   I tried everything in my collect^H^H^H^H^H^H^Harsenal on it, and
>the only planes that were able to minimize the tearout were the L-N
>low-angle smoother and large scraper plane.
>   So I grabbed the simplest implement in my shop.  With judicious
>use of a handscraper I was able to get rid of the last of the tearout.

Marvin Paisner wrote re tearout-prone wood:

> Galoots,
>
> In desperate times another possibility is the toothing plane.  Any comments?

   Or a toothing iron to use in the #112.  In fact, it had been
recommended that I get one when I first bought my L-N #112.  I
passed at the time, thinking that there was nothing I couldn't
handle with my low-angle smoother, scraper and supertuned
bench planes.

   I ordered the toothing iron from L-N the day after my
encounter with that devil-wood.  :-}

      Chuck Vance
      Just say (tmPL) I may be slow but I'm not stupid.

>Galoots,
>
>In desperate times another possibility is the toothing plane.  Any comments?
>
>
>Marvin Paisner
>Kootenay Lake, BC    (making a genuine effort to stay on topic; tm Mom)
>

definitely.  But the standard in Europe at least since the 15th c.
was a low angle toothing plane usually of iron  with cutting teeth,
not the almost vertical scratching toothing plane used only for glue
surfaces. Luthiers still know all about this, but somehow, the
ebenists have entirely forgotten.

bill

William Jurgenson
http://www.zabernet.de/bill/index.html

William Jurgenson writes:

> definitely.  But the standard in Europe at least since the 15th c.
> was a low angle toothing plane usually of iron  with cutting teeth,
> not the almost vertical scratching toothing plane used only for glue
> surfaces.

*Only* for glue?  Not true.

I routinely use one of the high angle toothing planes for stock prep in
figured woods.  They do a fine job, allowing me to quickly remove
significant quantities of highly figured wood without tearout.

I also use them for the high-tolerance work of making shaker box bands.  The
toothing plane and #12 scraper method of making band veneers was a real
epiphany for me.

BTW, I also use it for roughing the substrate before hammer veneering, so it
*can* be used for glue... ;-)

ralph

Galoots,

Bill Jurgenson mentions a tool I know nothing about.  By chance, I happen
to have an extra low angle block plane or two lurking nearby and I wonder
if a toothing edge applied to a block plane iron would give an acceptable
scaled down version of a low angle toothing plane?

What do you think Bill,  and can you give a little more detail concerning
the cutting edge?

Marvin Paisner
Kootenay Lake,  BC    (make a genuine effort to stay on topic-tm Mom)

> the standard in Europe at least since the 15th c.
>was a low angle toothing plane usually of iron  with cutting teeth,
>not the almost vertical scratching toothing plane used only for glue
>surfaces. Luthiers still know all about this, but somehow, the
>ebenists have entirely forgotten.

>Galoots,
>
>Bill Jurgenson mentions a tool I know nothing about.  By chance, I happen
>to have an extra low angle block plane or two lurking nearby and I wonder
>if a toothing edge applied to a block plane iron would give an acceptable
>scaled down version of a low angle toothing plane?
>
>What do you think Bill,  and can you give a little more detail concerning
>the cutting edge?
>

You would need to mill the serrations into the surface.  Ron Hock has
made some blades of this type for the Stanleys, and the Luthier's
supply houses should have them too, as might Woodcraft and their
Canadian couterpart (forgot their name). Buying one would in any
event (save one has a milling machine) the cheapest an easiest
route. The teeth are not a fine as on a scratch blade, but even these
were made to different spacings. 19th.c. toothing blades can be found
with the wider spacing of the cutting plane, suggesting that these
were still in use at the time. Mos tmodern luthiers use the Stanley 9
1/2 with the GEWA blade made for it. Stewart MacDonald's or Luthier's
Mercantile should have them.

Bill

William Jurgenson
http://www.zabernet.de/bill/index.html