Hand plane true confession

[Halfathumb]

Three questions to start with.

1. What kind of wood is the benchtop?
2. Have you checked the flatness of the #7's sole?  #7's are notorious for warping during production.  A concave sole will never work well.
3. Are you confident in your blade sharpening ability?  A very sharp blade is 75% of the equation with hand planes.

Mark

Mark

The top is RO and the blade is sharp. I'll have to check the sole flatness.

Jim

[Halfathumb]

Thanks everyone. I've learned a lot with all of the posts here. I have to take smaller steps to identify the high spots, work on my planes, sharpen & go slower for good results.

Jim

[Hank Knight]

Not to beat a dead horse, but Wilbur Pan has a sign in his workshop that says:

Steps for correcting a cutting tool that is not performing properly:
1. Sharpen the cutting iron.
2. Test the performance
3. If the tool continues to preform poorly, repeat step #1

That said, I agree that the problem may be an out-of-flat sole. Check it with a straight edge. If it's convex or concave, it will not perform. Out-of-flat plane soles are difficult to correct. If you have access to a surface grinder, it's you best bet - quick and accurate. If not, you can scrape and/or lap the sole flat, but it takes time and some degree of skill. Otherwise, your best bet might be a different plane.

I disagree with the comments about high spots on your bench top causing the problem. Your long jointer plane is designed to remove high spots and give you a flat, straight surface. Removing high spots is what it's for. Assuming the highs and lows on your bench top are not dramatic, your #7 should ride over the valleys and clip the tops of the high spots. If your're not trying to hog off a lot of material with a single pass, the plane should take short shavings off the tops of the high spots that get progressive longer as you mow them down, eventually ending up with a continuous long shaving once all the high spots are gone. You might be able to shorten the process by attacking the high spots with a short-bodied plane or one with a heavily cambered iron first, but it's not necessary unless the highs and lows are pretty pronounced.

Finally, red oak is difficult wood to plane. The sharper your iron is, the better your luck will be with it.

My 2 cents.

[R Clark]

Mark

The top is RO and the blade is sharp. I'll have to check the sole flatness.

Jim

My hand plane tuning skills are like yours that you described; I'm trying to get better, too.

I know you said you've looked at lots of differing tutorials; let me add one more, if you can find it:  I have been browsing a stack of Fine Woodworking magazines going back to Issue 38.  Last night, I happened across a hand plane tuneup in Issue 172 (October 2004).  I thought it was well put together.  If you can find that issue it might help.

My current project is a large dresser/armoire that has a 22 X 44 top.  It's red oak and is a glue-up of three boards, of course, and I'm sure the grain is not oriented the same across those three boards.  The glued up panel is oriented for visual consistency, and not to ensure the grain can be easily tackled with hand planes.  I used both my Bailey #4 smoother and my Veritas Bevel-Up jack fitted with the 50 degree iron to attempt to remove small ridges across the glue lines (< 1/32d of an inch difference) and also to remove a fair amount of machining marks from my bench-top planer.  Both hand planes have sharp irons and I set the depth to take very light passes.  I worked also to get the mouth set as tight as I thought was necessary.  I was getting (some) nice shavings, and the 50-degree iron helped some, but tearout and gouges were still significant.  I ended up using a card scraper to fix a lot of the issue, but it was agonizingly slow.

Said all the above to tell what I learned (re-learned?) about red oak:  It tears out very easily, and even a very sharp plane can go skittering across the grain when that iron hits the grain going the opposite direction.

[rwe2156]

Check your plane on the edge of a straight board.  If you can get a continuous shaving, your plane is good.  Be sure to observe the grain direction.

Keep in mind a jointer plane is only going to hit the high spots.  The temptation is to advance the blade, which is the wrong thing to do.

If the edges of your bench are a bit higher than the middle, you're not going to get contact with the middle.

This is no different than flattening a board with planes.  Start by checking with a straight edge and winding sticks to see where the high spots are and if there is any twist.  A twist will definitely cause some wonky planing results.

That plane isn't really the one to start with.  If you have one, you are better off starting with a 5 or 6, go crosswise to the top, then 45's from both directions.  For the smoothing pass the length of the top, all bets are off re: tear out.  Oak of any kind isn't always the easiest wood to plane.

[adamcherubini]

I feel like I see a lot of guys trying to do surface work with straight plane irons. Straight irons can work if you are removing less than paper thick shavings. But for any serious removal, I feel like a straight iron is trying to remove too much wood. A cambered iron cuts a much narrower shaving. Maybe its the case that the cross sectional area of the wood you are removing is the same. But I think, for the same amount of wood removed, the effort is less with the cambered iron due to what is happening at the edges.

As for high spots, a long plane is the right tool to locate, mark, and remove high spots. Rub its sole with candle wax before and during planing. I'd be willing to bet sole flatness is not the issue here.

Last- I think removing a finish is probably one of the hardest things you can do with a hand plane. Finishes can be very hard. Even a sharp iron will skate over old paint or clear finishes. I tried planing old paint from a window recently. Not easy. You aren't going to get a nice shaving of old paint. You get crumbs if you are lucky. Wilbur is right. Sharpen some more. What is your finest stone?

I need to start a new thread, but I just bought a Spyderco 302F ceramic stone thinking it would be the perfect finishing stone for tools prepped with Diasharp plates. I have an EF Diasharp but its not EF enough. The 302F cut fast. I thought it could be even finer. My translucent Arkansas is like a piece of glass that cuts steel. There was a time when I sharpened only to about 600 grit. Those tools don't hold up and aren't good enough for jobs like this.

A S#5 with a decently cambered iron will work, but it won't be easy. I think I'd be inclined to get myself a belt sander and a respirator. Once the film finish is gone, then I'd hand plane.

[cputnam]

As for high spots, a long plane is the right tool to locate, mark, and remove high spots. Rub its sole with candle wax before and during planing. I'd be willing to bet sole flatness is not the issue here.

Adam & Hank,

If there is a modest high spot half way down an 8' bench, is not a 22" plane going to remove a lot of unnecessary wood before it lifts and stops cutting and then gets to the peak and starts cutting again? Going cross grain is another story. Most of what I have read (haven't done a bench top yet) sys to knock down the high spots with a cambered jack or a scrub. Since I have CRS disease, I be wrong and am more than willing to bow to expertise.

[Derek Cohen]

Adam & Hank,

If there is a modest high spot half way down an 8' bench, is not a 22" plane going to remove a lot of unnecessary wood before it lifts and stops cutting and then gets to the peak and starts cutting again?  Going cross grain is another story.  Most of what I have read (haven't done a bench top yet) sys to knock down the high spots with a cambered jack or a scrub.  Since I have CRS disease, I be wrong and am more than willing to bow to expertise.

Curt, when flattening large panels - or bench tops - search out and mark the high spots first. Remove them before anything else. This could be both with- and across the grain. It is unnecessary to plane the length of the bench to do this, just the specific area. Only once this is done do you plane the full length.



Regards from Perth

Derek

[Halfathumb]

I've discovered another reason I might be having trouble planning the top. When I built the workbench I of course stood the boards on their sides and I just looked closer the see that not all of the grain goes in one direction. Therefore, on some boards I'm trying to plain against the grain. So I guess I'll have to reply on sanding instead of plaining. Argh! 


Jim

[Hank Knight]

Adam & Hank,

If there is a modest high spot half way down an 8' bench, is not a 22" plane going to remove a lot of unnecessary wood before it lifts and stops cutting and then gets to the peak and starts cutting again? Going cross grain is another story. Most of what I have read (haven't done a bench top yet) sys to knock down the high spots with a cambered jack or a scrub. Since I have CRS disease, I be wrong and am more than willing to bow to expertise.

Curt, Halfthumb's project is flattening his bench top. I based my comment above on the (perhaps incorrect) assumption that the bench top was already reasonably flat, and Jim's task is more akin to restoring the surface than flattening a warped top. If that is the case, I don't see the point of plowing grooves in it with a cambered iron in an effort to remove relatively minor high spots before finishing with a jointer plane. On the other hand, if the surface is severely out of flat, then a cambered iron is the tool to tame it, followed by a long-bodied plane to finish the job. How much camber depends on how much material you need to hog off. A heavily cambered scrub plane wastes away a lot of material quickly. But it leaves deep groves in its wake that must be flattened, resulting in the removal of even more material. It is a crude tool used for very rough work. A more moderately cambered #6 or #5 removes material quickly too, but not as rapidly as a scrub plane and with less severe consequences. One of these would probably be the tool of choice for removing high spots on a bench top.