At 12:34 PM +0000 8/7/99, Minch wrote:
>Now distorting a piece of metal causes it to heat up a little.
>This repeated distortion as you
>stroke may contribute a bit of heat along with the friction, more so with
>a metal plane than wood - you can't distort the wood (if the plane is
>thick).  Does this mean that the wood plane is not - cannot- make three
>point contact with the wood??

        Call me dense (you won't be the first), but I don't follow the
connection between the heat distortion thing and the three point contact
thing.

>It might be interesting for one you lab rats to measure the surface
>temperature of a wooden and a metal plane after use.

        Interesting, but by what parameters?  Plane *real fast* for "X"
minutes?  Press *real hard*?  On what wood?  What kind of surface (already
*fairly* smooth)?  Lap and wax first?  And doesn't the heat dissipate just
about as fast as it builds up?  I've managed to get the sole of a plane
fairly warm to the touch, but never raised a blister by touching the sole
after planing.  How hot does it need to be to distort?
        I'm also curious, but I can't help but think that the answers to
these questions are not going to be... um..what's the word....*relevant* to
anything I do with a plane.
                Tom Holloway