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I recently attended a Chris Swarz seminar where he used a #4 with a 55* frog on some old mahogany with great success. I emailed him about which degree frog it was and he said to first try the tight setting for the chip breaker because that has a significant effect on taming 'squirrelly' grain.
I also talked to Bill Khor at Craftsman Studio who said putting a 10* back bevel on the blade of a #4 would be about as effective as a high angle frog. The problem with higher angle is that it requires considerable effort to push.
I'm in the process of trying both suggestions.....tightening up the chip breaker setting works great.... and I bought a new blade to put a back bevel on to see how that works. I'll let you know asap about that experiment. But, I'm sure, there are others here who will answer the question for both of us.....profusely...
good luck,
Don
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No need for a back bevel or high angle frog. Just set the chipbreaker very close to the edge, and you will achieve the same effect. The chipbreaker needs to contact the blade for the entire length of the blade. Get it as close as possible to the edge.
Still Learning,
Allan Hill
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Back beveling works, the problem I found was honing the back bevel in future sharpening sessions. Almost impossible to feel the wire edge, and more difficult than a flat back to remove the edge.
I would try the chip breaker advice first. Make yourself a higher angle wooden plane, or go spend some bucks
I think the renewal of how to use the chip breaker is a good thing. For myself, I haven't been to keen on trying to hone my chip breaker to match the camber of my blade. So, I am using a high angle wooden smoother I made and have the new LV 4 1/2 with 55 deg frog on my wishlist
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I attended a Lie Nielsen hand tool event last year. A fellow brought in a piece of cherry that he was having trouble with. The LN representative planed it with a 55 degree plane and pronounced it good. The man then held it up to the light and showed the LN guy where the tear out was. Again it was planed and again the man showed the tear out. Another LN guy came over and was going to show how to do it. He sharpened the iron but no help. Then a different plane, but no help. At least 20 minutes working without success.
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The only squirrelly grain I've tried lately (since I've known which end to push) has been on some African Mahogany. I can't even get a scraper to give me a tear out free scrape. Could be me. But I was using my LN 102 to check for grain direction (hah!) before I realized that the darn stuff had alternating growth rings = each of which went the opposite direction about 1/4" apart. Even with that little sucker there is tear out upon close inspection. At that point, I gave up and bought a sander.
Call me a wimp if you will but it's not a whole lot different than using a powered jointer or planer to do the heavy lifting. Stuff is so brittle that I'm not sure it can be worked and now I have concerns about it's long term strength. I'm thinking that I'll call it an expensive mistake and go back to cherry. I'll use the sapele for shop furniture.
Thanks, Curt
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"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
-- Soren Kierkegaard
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Hi Andy,
When you have a plane with a chipbreaker, you don't need high cutting angles. You can set the chipbreaker super duper close to the edge and get good results, certainlyon something like curly cherry. Sapele might be another challenge, but I'm sure Warren could tame that too with a standard Bailey plane.
Here's a video I made two years ago, showing how to use the chipbreaker.
Tuning the chipbreaker BTW, you don't need to camber the chipbreaker. It doesn't matter when the chipbreaker touches the edge in the corners when the corners don't cut.
