Oh boy, more bevel up vs. down fodder!

[HomerLee]

Derek,

After reading most of the discussion at the Ubeaut forum and reading your article "Setting the Chipbreaker" I decided to try a bevel down plane on figured wood. I have been using Veritas BU planes for figured wood but wanted to see if there was any advantage with a BD plane. About this time Woodcraft had a sale so I bought a WoodRiver 5 1/2" jack plane. I carefully sharpened the iron @ a 30 degree micro bevel and a 10 degree back bevel. And I also put 45 degree bevel on the chip breaker. I set the chipbreaker as close as I could to the back bevel. Both the iron and breaker had been flattened prior to sharpening (they were so flat out of the box that this took about 5 seconds each). With this set up the iron encounters the wood at a 55 degree angle and then almost immediately runs into the breaker at a 90 degree angle. The result on curly maple is glass smooth. I soon will try on quilted maple.

Is this approximately what you had set up in your chipbreaker article? I can not say yet if the result is better than with the BU planes I have been using.

Thanks, Homer

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Homer

It is possible to use a plane with a 55 degree cutting angle (as your #5 1/2 is) along with a closely set chipbreaker (as described in my article, and in many discussions on this forum). The combination will work (I did this some years ago), but it is not necessary since either method should work alone. Their is not much extra when used together.

One of the issues that needs to be kept in mind is that what may be needed to work for one does not always apply to another. For example, the cutting angles I require in Western Australia suit the wood I use (which is very hard and interlocked). You may need them as well, but generally I note that in the USA you can use 5 - 10 degrees lower cutting angles than I use. I suspect that even setting the chipbreaker calls for tighter tolerances in my situation.

Pedder mentions planing in either direction with a 55 degree cutting angle. I could not do that with some of the hardwoods I use. They either require a minimum of 60 degrees (and with the grain only), or the chipbreaker. That was one of the reasons I stopped using an LN #3 with a 55 degree frog, and the LN #4 1/2 sat on the shelf as it had a 50 degree frog (55 degrees made this plane too hard to push). Their frogs have since been swapped out for 45 degrees, and they both work extremely well on interlocked grain when the chipbreaker is used.

Having finished my Chest build, and between projects, I was cleaning up all the tools and sharpening blades over the weekend. One was the LV BUS. I was reminded what a star this plane is. With a 50 degree bevel (for a 62 degree cutting angle), it performs faultlessly. 

One of the problems I have with honing blades like this is they go dull before they are set aside as it is so addictive to test them out on scrap, and then it is hard to stop!


Another plane I "tested" was a Spier infill with a tightish mouth (fortunately not too tight). The cutting angle is 47 degrees. Ordinarily this would not help much, but it performs way beyond this when the chipbreaker is used.

I was obtaining superb results from a UK-made Stanley #3 with a Clifton O1 blade. Similarly, a small Brese infill (made from a kit) with a 60 degree bed performed as well as any.

What I have tried to say before is that a great many different smoothers will do the job beautifully. They just need to be set up correctly. The article/video that began this thread, and was the feature of the link to the Ubeaut forum, attempted to demonstrate the inferiority of The BU design. My contribution was really to try and clarify that all systems work, but you need to know how to make them work. Secondly, we also need to invoke the rule of "Good Enough". That is, if it does what you want, and for as long as you need, then it is good enough. Ultimate better is interesting, and this may be a factor in choosing one or the other, but it is not a factor if you own and use a tool already. 

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Bibliophile 13]

I don't have any bevel-up planes (other than a couple block planes), so I don't have experience with BD bench planes, but I do wonder something: is it possible that some of the wear-bevel on BD planes is not just from pushing the plane forward but also from dragging the plane back over the wood after each stroke? I'm quite sure that the wear behind the mouth on some of my older planes is from that motion, and it would make sense to me that the back of the iron would get similarly worn with repeated use.

[AHill]

I don't have any bevel-up planes (other than a couple block planes), so I don't have experience with BD bench planes, but I do wonder something: is it possible that some of the wear-bevel on BD planes is not just from pushing the plane forward but also from dragging the plane back over the wood after each stroke?  I'm quite sure that the wear behind the mouth on some of my older planes is from that motion, and it would make sense to me that the back of the iron would get similarly worn with repeated use.

I can see how wear on the heel of the plane would come from dragging the plane backwards, but I would think the projection of the blade would prevent wear just behind the mouth if the plane were kept flat while dragging it backwards - regardless of whether it's BU or BD.  I'm guessing any wear behind the mouth is from the forward stroke, where there's downward pressure on the plane and the wood springs back after cutting.