There was so much information from this course on hand planing that it's been difficult for me to present it all here in a timely manner. That's been complicated by the fact that I've been hustling to get my wood processed for the Winchester Chippendale Secretary class I'm taking next week. That's done now and I have a short time to breathe so I can get back to the subject of hand planing.
Planing Rough Lumber
Continuing the discussion of reading boards and processing raw lumber, Chris Schwarz said that you want a flat benchtop so your boards won't flex downward in the middle while you're planing. When the heart side of the wood is down toward the bench, plane the bark side by traversing first with a jack plane until the wind is out of the board. Use a marking gauge to mark the finished thickness around the circumference of the board. Then use the jointer plane, starting on the diagonal with the mouth of the plane fairly tight. At first you will get inconsistent shavings because you are getting the tracks from the jack plane. Eventually, as the boards is flattened, you will get full shavings. Then you can either plane with the grain or switch to the smoothing plane. With the jointer plane, start and finish with the strong part of the curved blade off the edge, rather than on the edge, so you don't create a bow. For interior parts of your piece of furniture, you can often stop after the jointer plane has flattened them; there's no need for the smoothing plane.
Smoothing Plane
Chris smooth planes his furniture after it is glued up when possible. His advice is to not smooth plane until you have to do so. As with the other planes, he sets the blade depth by viewing down the sole of the plane and extends the blade until he sees a black line, then adjusts the blade so the curved part is in the center before retracting the blade to the correct depth.
When planing, he starts partly off the end of the board. He puts his entire upper body over the plane and uses his legs. Smoothing plane shavings should be light and fluffy. It may take several passes to clean up prior marks, though.
Finishing
Aniline dyes don't go well with planed surfaces and will blotch badly. Pigments lay on top of the surface and work well. For dyes, briefly rough the surface with 220 grit sandpaper.
Edges
Mark the true face and point to the edge to be trued. A curved blade lets you cut down the high points. Use your left hand as a fence. Drag your fingertips and nails to avoid splinters.
Shooting Board
A shooting board is used to square the ends of boards. Chris uses a straight edged blade for shooting. Use a very sharp blade and set it up for a fine cut like a smoothing plane. He miters the back corner with a chisel to avoid spelching (i.e., blowout). He draws a line on the end of the board and then shoots until he hits the line, which is behind the miter.
Contest
At this point in the course, having learned about all we could and having set up our planes, we were challenged to square up a poplar board using only our planes. The prize was a set of books and other items. I didn't win, but I did learn a lot about using my planes. I had the books already anyway.
Scraping
We had time to get in a little extra information and demos on scraping. We began with sharpening the card scraper. Chris' method is, he says, the culmination of tests of numerous methods designed for not having much equipment.
You need to flatten both faces and remove the burr that is there. File the edge at 90 degrees with a file; he mounts the card in the saw kerf in a block of wood. Only file on the push stroke. Then he sharpens the edge on stones, holding it at 90 degrees by pressing it against a block of wood. He starts at 1000 grit, then goes to 4000 and sometimes 8000 grit for edge retention. He then uses the ruler trick to sharpen the four faces. Following this, he rubs the edges with a burnisher to push the metal upward and make it easier to turn. Then he burnishes the end of each edge to turn a hook on each side. The angle doesn't matter that much. Use fairly firm downward pressure. Use as many strokes as you need. Use a good burnisher. He does not like the one made by Crown. The Veritas burnisher works well.
When using the card scraper, you can either push or pull. You should get small shavings when you do so, not dust.
Scraper Plane
You use a scraper plane to get a flat surface with any direction of the wood. Flatten the back of the plane with 1000 grit. Primary bevel is 45 degrees; secondary bevel is 50 degrees. A hook on the blade is optional but easy to do. Use a burnisher at the bevel, then raise it 5 degrees, then do it again. Put the hook on the back side of the blade. The Veritas burnisher put a quick hook on the Stanley no. 80 Chris was using for the demonstration. He used the ruler trick on the back of the blade before putting on the hook.
Wrap Up
And that was the class--two days full of valuable information and hands on practice. I learned more than I could absorb at the time, which is why I took such detailed notes. If you get the chance to do this class, take it. But if you can't get there, then these notes should help you get much of its value.
Happy woodworking!
Norm
Friday, June 4, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Learning to Plane - Part V
Chris Schwarz argues that you need a dedicated area for plane sharpening. After using your planes, dust them off and oil them with either Camilla or Jojoba oil. The oils won't affect your finish. In fact, Chris even applies the oil directly to difficult wood or knots to ease planing. To wax the soles of his planes, Chris uses parafin. It's essentially mineral spirits. He waxes after every piece of wood.
Assessing the Wood
Before you plane, look at the end grain. The bark side of the board is the side where the rings are convex, that is, toward the outside of the tree. The heart side is where they are concave, or smaller in diameter. Wood usually cups on the bark side and bows on the heart side. You tend to get a smooth surface when you plane with the grain. You can determine that by looking at the edge of the board. If the grain is rising in one direction, that is the direction you want to plane. It's like rubbing the fur on the back of a cat; you want to cut with the grain and not against it, which will lead to tearout. You can also judge from the end grain. On the heart side of the board, plane from the bottom of the cathedral pattern toward its top. On the bark side, plane from the point of the cathedral to its bottom. You would use the same methods to determine the direction for jointing and planing with power tools. For quartersawn wood, you have to look at the edges; you can't tell from the end grain what direction you should plane.
Assuming the board is cupped, put the bark side down and plane the heart side first. Once the heart side is flat, flip the board and you can plane without using shims. When using an end vise, don't put a lot of pressure on the board; the vise can bend it.
Traversing with a Fore Plane
Open the mouth of the plane and use a wide radius (say 8 inches) on the blade. Plane across the grain. You can remove lots of wood quickly in this way. Before traversing (which is what planing across the grain is called), knock off the rear edge of the board, usually with a block plane, to avoid spelching (tearout).
Set the plane on its edge across the board to confirm the existence of a hill. To remove a hill in the center of the board, plane with the grain to create a slight valley, then traverse the board. When Chris traverses, he pushes the plane across the board and then pulls it back in a very rapid motion.
Winding Sticks
I took my winding sticks from Philly Planes to the workshop and Chris used those to demonstrate their use. However, he uses extruded aluminum strips from Home Depot and spray paints one of them black. Twenty-four to thirty-six inches is a good length. You can sight at several places on a long board, but you generally don't need to do so. If you have wind (i.e., the board is twisted), it usually means that two opposite corners are high and you need to plane them.
There's more to tell. I'll cover it next time.
Norm
Assessing the Wood
Before you plane, look at the end grain. The bark side of the board is the side where the rings are convex, that is, toward the outside of the tree. The heart side is where they are concave, or smaller in diameter. Wood usually cups on the bark side and bows on the heart side. You tend to get a smooth surface when you plane with the grain. You can determine that by looking at the edge of the board. If the grain is rising in one direction, that is the direction you want to plane. It's like rubbing the fur on the back of a cat; you want to cut with the grain and not against it, which will lead to tearout. You can also judge from the end grain. On the heart side of the board, plane from the bottom of the cathedral pattern toward its top. On the bark side, plane from the point of the cathedral to its bottom. You would use the same methods to determine the direction for jointing and planing with power tools. For quartersawn wood, you have to look at the edges; you can't tell from the end grain what direction you should plane.
Assuming the board is cupped, put the bark side down and plane the heart side first. Once the heart side is flat, flip the board and you can plane without using shims. When using an end vise, don't put a lot of pressure on the board; the vise can bend it.
Traversing with a Fore Plane
Open the mouth of the plane and use a wide radius (say 8 inches) on the blade. Plane across the grain. You can remove lots of wood quickly in this way. Before traversing (which is what planing across the grain is called), knock off the rear edge of the board, usually with a block plane, to avoid spelching (tearout).
Set the plane on its edge across the board to confirm the existence of a hill. To remove a hill in the center of the board, plane with the grain to create a slight valley, then traverse the board. When Chris traverses, he pushes the plane across the board and then pulls it back in a very rapid motion.
Winding Sticks
I took my winding sticks from Philly Planes to the workshop and Chris used those to demonstrate their use. However, he uses extruded aluminum strips from Home Depot and spray paints one of them black. Twenty-four to thirty-six inches is a good length. You can sight at several places on a long board, but you generally don't need to do so. If you have wind (i.e., the board is twisted), it usually means that two opposite corners are high and you need to plane them.
There's more to tell. I'll cover it next time.
Norm
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Learning to Plane - Part IV
Setting Up Planes
There really isn't much setup to do on bevel-up planes, which is one of the reasons they are increasingly popular, especially with beginning woodworkers. Chris Schwarz didn't have much to offer on setting them up, except to adjust the mouth tightly for difficult woods.
Bevel-down planes, on the other hand, usually have chipbreakers. Chris offered that a dished chipbreaker can be honed using a honing guide. Most people, he said, set the chipbreaker too close to the edge of the blade. One-sixteenth of an inch is a good distance, except for difficult woods, when it should be set closer, such as one thirty-second of an inch. Lie-Nielsen makes a standard 45-degree frog but also 50 and 55 degree frogs for difficult woods for all its planes.
Planes are tuned either to remove material, straighten a board or prepare it for finishing. The jack or fore plane is generally used to remove material. These are the #5 and #6 planes. For stock removal, set the plane with a wide open mouth, say 1/16 inch. Use a curved blade with and 8-10 inch radius. Back the chipbreaker off; get it behind the curve of the blade. Use a low blade pitch, say 45 degrees. For a bevel up plane, set it even lower.
The jointer plane's main job is to straighten a board once excess material has been removed. Jointer planes are #7 and #8 and run from 18 to 24 inches in length. You tighten the mouth of a jointer plane; you want to get shavings about .004 or .005 inches thick, so set the mouth at about .003 inches. Give the jointer plane a strong curve, say .006-.008 inches from the top of the arc to a line drawn between the edges of the blade. Use an even stronger arc for a bevel-up plane and a 45 to 50 degree pitch. On a bevel-down plane, the chipbreaker should be backed off to, say, 1/16 inch.
Smoothing planes should be set with the mouth as tight as possible, .003-.004 inch. Use a feeler gauge to assess this. A narrow mouth reduces tearout. Use a very slight curve to the blade, .002-.003 inches. Keep the chipbreaker set so it won't clog; 3/32 inch is where Chris starts. The pitch of the blade can be from 45 to 65 degrees. The higher the pitch, the less tearing. Plane softwoods at a lower angle, hardwoods at a higher angle.
Chris argues that it's good practice to use the jack plane and jointer plane as much as possible for smoothing to avoid unnecessary work with the smoother.
Next I'll talk about putting the planes to work on an actual piece of wood.
Norm
There really isn't much setup to do on bevel-up planes, which is one of the reasons they are increasingly popular, especially with beginning woodworkers. Chris Schwarz didn't have much to offer on setting them up, except to adjust the mouth tightly for difficult woods.
Bevel-down planes, on the other hand, usually have chipbreakers. Chris offered that a dished chipbreaker can be honed using a honing guide. Most people, he said, set the chipbreaker too close to the edge of the blade. One-sixteenth of an inch is a good distance, except for difficult woods, when it should be set closer, such as one thirty-second of an inch. Lie-Nielsen makes a standard 45-degree frog but also 50 and 55 degree frogs for difficult woods for all its planes.
Planes are tuned either to remove material, straighten a board or prepare it for finishing. The jack or fore plane is generally used to remove material. These are the #5 and #6 planes. For stock removal, set the plane with a wide open mouth, say 1/16 inch. Use a curved blade with and 8-10 inch radius. Back the chipbreaker off; get it behind the curve of the blade. Use a low blade pitch, say 45 degrees. For a bevel up plane, set it even lower.
The jointer plane's main job is to straighten a board once excess material has been removed. Jointer planes are #7 and #8 and run from 18 to 24 inches in length. You tighten the mouth of a jointer plane; you want to get shavings about .004 or .005 inches thick, so set the mouth at about .003 inches. Give the jointer plane a strong curve, say .006-.008 inches from the top of the arc to a line drawn between the edges of the blade. Use an even stronger arc for a bevel-up plane and a 45 to 50 degree pitch. On a bevel-down plane, the chipbreaker should be backed off to, say, 1/16 inch.
Smoothing planes should be set with the mouth as tight as possible, .003-.004 inch. Use a feeler gauge to assess this. A narrow mouth reduces tearout. Use a very slight curve to the blade, .002-.003 inches. Keep the chipbreaker set so it won't clog; 3/32 inch is where Chris starts. The pitch of the blade can be from 45 to 65 degrees. The higher the pitch, the less tearing. Plane softwoods at a lower angle, hardwoods at a higher angle.
Chris argues that it's good practice to use the jack plane and jointer plane as much as possible for smoothing to avoid unnecessary work with the smoother.
Next I'll talk about putting the planes to work on an actual piece of wood.
Norm
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Learning to Plane - Part III
When Should You Regrind a Bevel?
You only need to regrind after you have honed your secondary bevel, say, six times, if it is taking a long time to get a good polish, the secondary bevel has grown large or if you've hit a nail or dropped the blade and nicked it. Chris Schwarz grinds on sandpaper, starting with 80 grit and moving to 120 grit. Grind until the secondary bevel is small, unless it has been damaged. In the latter case, grind it off entirely.
If you need to regrind on a grinder, grind the point flat, because the point is the most likely place for the blade to burn. Alternatively, you can quench the blade while grinding. If you burn a blade blue, hone it and use it anyway. It will need honing sooner than if it had not been burned, but otherwise it will be OK.
When using a grinder, Chris draws a square line with a magic marker--red shows up best. Then he grinds the bevel flat using an 80 grit wheel. He prefers the gray wheels over the white ones because the gray breaks down easier and stays cooler.
How do you tell if your blade is dull? When you can see a bright line across the end of the blade. If it's sharp, you can't see the end at all.
Cambering Blades
Some planes will have straight blades. Others, especially those designed to flatten boards, should have a curve to them. Jack planes, when set up as fore planes, should have a curve with an eight inch radius. You would create this camber on the grinder. Jointer or try planes can be straight or curved. Chris prefers them curved. They get a much smaller curve, about .006 inch from the center of the curve to the edge of the blade. This would work out to a radius of about 37.5 feet. Bench planes get a smaller curve yet, about .002 or .003 inch. In case the case of jointer and bench planes, you grind the blade flat, then hone it curved. The goal is to have enough curve to the blade to avoid tracks and still take a good shaving.
Chris's method is to use a honing guide that allows some rocking motion side to side. He holds the blade square against the 1000 grit stone, putting heavier pressure on one outside edge, then pulling the blade 10 times. Then he shifts the heavy pressure to the other side and pulls 10 times. After that, he moves the pressure to the midpoint between one side and the center and pulls the blade 5 times, repeating that motion on the other side. Finally, he puts the pressure in the center of the blade and gives it two pulls. This sequence is then repeated on the 4000 and 8000 grit stones. There is no need to repeat the ruler trick on the back of the blade. Stropping is about like using the 8000 grit stone. Stropping the blade is unnecessary after honing and may even lead to rounding over the bevel.
You also want to trim the corners of the blade. This only needs to be done the first time you set up the blade and is done by pushing a fine file against the corner of the blade, using a rounding motion. This helps prevent blade tracks on your work.
Thanks to Jeff Fleisher for these photos. Next time I'll cover setting up planes.
Norm
You only need to regrind after you have honed your secondary bevel, say, six times, if it is taking a long time to get a good polish, the secondary bevel has grown large or if you've hit a nail or dropped the blade and nicked it. Chris Schwarz grinds on sandpaper, starting with 80 grit and moving to 120 grit. Grind until the secondary bevel is small, unless it has been damaged. In the latter case, grind it off entirely.If you need to regrind on a grinder, grind the point flat, because the point is the most likely place for the blade to burn. Alternatively, you can quench the blade while grinding. If you burn a blade blue, hone it and use it anyway. It will need honing sooner than if it had not been burned, but otherwise it will be OK.
When using a grinder, Chris draws a square line with a magic marker--red shows up best. Then he grinds the bevel flat using an 80 grit wheel. He prefers the gray wheels over the white ones because the gray breaks down easier and stays cooler.
How do you tell if your blade is dull? When you can see a bright line across the end of the blade. If it's sharp, you can't see the end at all.
Cambering Blades
Some planes will have straight blades. Others, especially those designed to flatten boards, should have a curve to them. Jack planes, when set up as fore planes, should have a curve with an eight inch radius. You would create this camber on the grinder. Jointer or try planes can be straight or curved. Chris prefers them curved. They get a much smaller curve, about .006 inch from the center of the curve to the edge of the blade. This would work out to a radius of about 37.5 feet. Bench planes get a smaller curve yet, about .002 or .003 inch. In case the case of jointer and bench planes, you grind the blade flat, then hone it curved. The goal is to have enough curve to the blade to avoid tracks and still take a good shaving.
Chris's method is to use a honing guide that allows some rocking motion side to side. He holds the blade square against the 1000 grit stone, putting heavier pressure on one outside edge, then pulling the blade 10 times. Then he shifts the heavy pressure to the other side and pulls 10 times. After that, he moves the pressure to the midpoint between one side and the center and pulls the blade 5 times, repeating that motion on the other side. Finally, he puts the pressure in the center of the blade and gives it two pulls. This sequence is then repeated on the 4000 and 8000 grit stones. There is no need to repeat the ruler trick on the back of the blade. Stropping is about like using the 8000 grit stone. Stropping the blade is unnecessary after honing and may even lead to rounding over the bevel.You also want to trim the corners of the blade. This only needs to be done the first time you set up the blade and is done by pushing a fine file against the corner of the blade, using a rounding motion. This helps prevent blade tracks on your work.
Thanks to Jeff Fleisher for these photos. Next time I'll cover setting up planes.
Norm
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Learning to Plane - Part II
Last weekend, my friend Jeff Fleisher and I attended a two-day workshop on hand planes at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. The class was taught by two leaders in the field of hand planes, Thomas Lie-Nielsen, founder and owner of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, and Christopher Schwarz, editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine. The classroom held 20 Lie-Nielsen workbenches and provided comfortable room for about 40 of us to do our work.
The class was a combination of lectures by the two presenters, hands on work on sharpening, setting up and using our own planes and those brought by the presenters, watching a film about the Lie-Nielsen factory and the making of their planes and other tools and a planing contest. Lie-Nielsen had a full complement of their planes on hand for us to handle and try out and took orders from those who decided to purchase one (or more). Chris Schwarz also brought a lineup of his own personal planes that we were free to use. And Chris's Lost Art Press had T-shirts, hats, books and DVDs for sale.
I brought all my planes, including a new Lie-Nielsen low-angle jack plane I bought only a week before the class. During the class, Tom Lie-Nielsen signed tools of his manufacture with an engraving tool. I had all six of mine signed.
Sharpening
A major portion of class time was devoted to sharpening. Sharpening is, after all, the essential step in getting a plane to produce consistent, thin shavings of the type we all desire. Our presenters taught a method based on David Charlesworth's, but simplified. They did not argue that their system was the best, only that it worked. Chris said all systems work and that we should pick one system of sharpening and stick with it for a while, that our edges would improve over time. Don't be a "sharpening bigamist," he concluded.
An edge is when two planes come to a point. The smaller the point, the sharper the edge. Also, the more you polish the edge, the more durable it will be. On the other hand, there is a tradeoff; the thinner the edge, the more fragile it is and the more often you will need to sharpen it.
Grinding
The back or face is the flat side of the plane blade, the bevel is on the other side. Only the ends of both sides need to be sharp. Except on high quality planes or on blades needing reworking, you grind the bevel. The bevel can be flat or hollow ground. Regrinding will be needed after a blade has been honed five or six times or the secondary bevel gets too wide. It can be done on a grinder, but we used 80 and 120 grit sticky back sandpaper on a flat surface to shape our blades where needed. Only one of my blades needed grinding.
After grinding, the next step is polishing the ends on both sides of the blade. First you flatten the back of the blade. Chris does this on a 1000 grit stone and does not polish the back any higher. There's no need to. The goal is to assure the blade is flat. Once it is, you move on.
Back Bevels
Chris strongly supports the use of back bevels--secondary bevels on the back of the plane that increase the sharpness of the edge--on all blades except chisel planes. These can be used with both bevel-down (traditional) and bevel-up planes. He uses Charlesworth's "ruler trick" to create these. This involves taking a thin ruler (he uses Lie-Nielsen's ruler), placing it on the near edge of the waterstone, then, with the edge of the blade a half-inch off the far edge of the stone and flat against the ruler, pulling it onto the stone and rubbing it back and forth a few times (say 10) on each of the three grits (1000, 4000 and 8000).
Secondary Bevels
Precision in setting the angle of the secondary bevel is not critical, but consistency is. Chris uses a homemade jig to set the proper angle at which the bevels will be honed using a simple $12 honing tool. Typically, the secondary bevel is honed at 5 degrees higher than the primary bevel. David Charlesworth also advocates a tertiary bevel, but both Chris and Tom thought this to be unnecessarily complicated. Chris uses each of the three grits to hone the secondary bevel. He prefers Shapton stones because he travels a lot and they don't have to be soaked like the Norton stones do. Another class member told me the Shapton stones also wear better than the Norton stones. Chris uses a DMT diamond stone (coarse or extra coarse only; finer stones use a different method to adhere the diamonds that is undone by the waterstones) to dress his waterstones flat.
Honing Guides
He prefers the inexpensive type of honing guide that grips the blade by the sides. These may require some filing to assure the blade is held flat. But in his opinion they work better than the type (like the Veritas Mk. II) that hold the blade from the top because the latter can allow the blade to slip out of alignment. Lie-Nielsen provides instructions on building a jig like Chris's for setting the angle of the blade in the honing guide.
Straight Blades
You begin sharpening by honing a straight secondary bevel. You take about 10 strokes with the 1000 grit stone so you get a bevel that is consistent all the way across the blade. You want all the scratches from the primary bevel removed. Pull the blade across the stone with heavy pressure, then a few light pulls using the slurry created by the heavier pulls.
Next go to the 4000 grit stone and hone in a back and forth motion about 10 times. The steel wool-like pattern from the 1000 grit should disappear and a bright line should appear. Many woodworkers stop here. The edge will be fine, but it won't be as durable as if honed on an 8000 grit stone. When using the 8000 grit stone, a Nagura stone is not needed with Norton waterstones. Lighten your touch with this stone. Use a back and forth rubbing motion.
Next we learned how to create cambered bevels. I'll cover this in my next entry.
Norm
The class was a combination of lectures by the two presenters, hands on work on sharpening, setting up and using our own planes and those brought by the presenters, watching a film about the Lie-Nielsen factory and the making of their planes and other tools and a planing contest. Lie-Nielsen had a full complement of their planes on hand for us to handle and try out and took orders from those who decided to purchase one (or more). Chris Schwarz also brought a lineup of his own personal planes that we were free to use. And Chris's Lost Art Press had T-shirts, hats, books and DVDs for sale.
I brought all my planes, including a new Lie-Nielsen low-angle jack plane I bought only a week before the class. During the class, Tom Lie-Nielsen signed tools of his manufacture with an engraving tool. I had all six of mine signed.
Sharpening
A major portion of class time was devoted to sharpening. Sharpening is, after all, the essential step in getting a plane to produce consistent, thin shavings of the type we all desire. Our presenters taught a method based on David Charlesworth's, but simplified. They did not argue that their system was the best, only that it worked. Chris said all systems work and that we should pick one system of sharpening and stick with it for a while, that our edges would improve over time. Don't be a "sharpening bigamist," he concluded.
An edge is when two planes come to a point. The smaller the point, the sharper the edge. Also, the more you polish the edge, the more durable it will be. On the other hand, there is a tradeoff; the thinner the edge, the more fragile it is and the more often you will need to sharpen it.
Grinding
The back or face is the flat side of the plane blade, the bevel is on the other side. Only the ends of both sides need to be sharp. Except on high quality planes or on blades needing reworking, you grind the bevel. The bevel can be flat or hollow ground. Regrinding will be needed after a blade has been honed five or six times or the secondary bevel gets too wide. It can be done on a grinder, but we used 80 and 120 grit sticky back sandpaper on a flat surface to shape our blades where needed. Only one of my blades needed grinding.
After grinding, the next step is polishing the ends on both sides of the blade. First you flatten the back of the blade. Chris does this on a 1000 grit stone and does not polish the back any higher. There's no need to. The goal is to assure the blade is flat. Once it is, you move on.
Back Bevels
Chris strongly supports the use of back bevels--secondary bevels on the back of the plane that increase the sharpness of the edge--on all blades except chisel planes. These can be used with both bevel-down (traditional) and bevel-up planes. He uses Charlesworth's "ruler trick" to create these. This involves taking a thin ruler (he uses Lie-Nielsen's ruler), placing it on the near edge of the waterstone, then, with the edge of the blade a half-inch off the far edge of the stone and flat against the ruler, pulling it onto the stone and rubbing it back and forth a few times (say 10) on each of the three grits (1000, 4000 and 8000).
Secondary Bevels
Precision in setting the angle of the secondary bevel is not critical, but consistency is. Chris uses a homemade jig to set the proper angle at which the bevels will be honed using a simple $12 honing tool. Typically, the secondary bevel is honed at 5 degrees higher than the primary bevel. David Charlesworth also advocates a tertiary bevel, but both Chris and Tom thought this to be unnecessarily complicated. Chris uses each of the three grits to hone the secondary bevel. He prefers Shapton stones because he travels a lot and they don't have to be soaked like the Norton stones do. Another class member told me the Shapton stones also wear better than the Norton stones. Chris uses a DMT diamond stone (coarse or extra coarse only; finer stones use a different method to adhere the diamonds that is undone by the waterstones) to dress his waterstones flat.
Honing Guides
He prefers the inexpensive type of honing guide that grips the blade by the sides. These may require some filing to assure the blade is held flat. But in his opinion they work better than the type (like the Veritas Mk. II) that hold the blade from the top because the latter can allow the blade to slip out of alignment. Lie-Nielsen provides instructions on building a jig like Chris's for setting the angle of the blade in the honing guide.
Straight Blades
You begin sharpening by honing a straight secondary bevel. You take about 10 strokes with the 1000 grit stone so you get a bevel that is consistent all the way across the blade. You want all the scratches from the primary bevel removed. Pull the blade across the stone with heavy pressure, then a few light pulls using the slurry created by the heavier pulls.
Next go to the 4000 grit stone and hone in a back and forth motion about 10 times. The steel wool-like pattern from the 1000 grit should disappear and a bright line should appear. Many woodworkers stop here. The edge will be fine, but it won't be as durable as if honed on an 8000 grit stone. When using the 8000 grit stone, a Nagura stone is not needed with Norton waterstones. Lighten your touch with this stone. Use a back and forth rubbing motion.
Next we learned how to create cambered bevels. I'll cover this in my next entry.
Norm
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Learning to Plane - Part I
I've got the planes. I described these in an earlier posting. I've read the books. Especially good are Christopher Schwarz's Essential Handplanes and Thomas Lie-Nielsen's Sharpening. Now it's time to put what I've been learning into action.
I started with a wide board of curly red oak that I wanted to use to make some cutting boards. I set out using my Lie-Nielsen no. 7 1/2 low angle jointer to flatten the board, then my Veritas low angle smoothing plane. To remove a peak in the center of the board, I first planed a trough in the center with the jointer plane, then planed across the board on a diagonal to remove the high places until the board was level. Then I used the smoother to produce a surface that barely needed sanding. The result was good if I do say so myself, considering I started with a tough board to plane.
I learned a lot from the process. One lesson was that I need to know more about sharpening. A second lesson is that I need to know more about setting up my planes for optimal performance.
Fortunately, I'm having a chance to learn how to do both of these things. As I write this, I am midway through a class on handplanes taught by none other than Thomas Lie-Nielsen and Christopher Schwarz. The class is being held at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Indianapolis. Already, I've sharpened and set up two of my planes and have taken a perfect thin shaving with my Lie-Nielsen No. 4 smoothing plane. It was an exciting moment!
I'll have more to say about this class later, along with photos.
Norm
I started with a wide board of curly red oak that I wanted to use to make some cutting boards. I set out using my Lie-Nielsen no. 7 1/2 low angle jointer to flatten the board, then my Veritas low angle smoothing plane. To remove a peak in the center of the board, I first planed a trough in the center with the jointer plane, then planed across the board on a diagonal to remove the high places until the board was level. Then I used the smoother to produce a surface that barely needed sanding. The result was good if I do say so myself, considering I started with a tough board to plane.
I learned a lot from the process. One lesson was that I need to know more about sharpening. A second lesson is that I need to know more about setting up my planes for optimal performance.
Fortunately, I'm having a chance to learn how to do both of these things. As I write this, I am midway through a class on handplanes taught by none other than Thomas Lie-Nielsen and Christopher Schwarz. The class is being held at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Indianapolis. Already, I've sharpened and set up two of my planes and have taken a perfect thin shaving with my Lie-Nielsen No. 4 smoothing plane. It was an exciting moment!
I'll have more to say about this class later, along with photos.
Norm
My SawStop Returns
After nearly two months of down time, my SawStop contractor's saw is finally back in operation. The tech guys at SawStop were great. They sent me a new control box, which had been upgraded, updated the software in my brake cartridges and sent me a new connection cable. I first installed the new control box, a somewhat tedious but not altogether difficult process. That didn't fix it. Then I tried the updated brakes. That too didn't work.
So I set to work on changing the connection cable. That turned out to be hard work, reaching down through the table top to get at impossible to reach nuts and screws. One I stripped out and had to remove by drilling it out with my Dremel tool. Another the instructions said was a #2 Phillips head screw turned out to be a hex screw. But it faced downward and I couldn't tell that, so I kept on turning and turning to no effect.
I finally hired a man who does repairs for our Woodcraft store to come and fix it for me. In about three hours, he had it together and operating.
It's a wonderful saw. I'm glad to have it back again.
Norm
I finally hired a man who does repairs for our Woodcraft store to come and fix it for me. In about three hours, he had it together and operating.
It's a wonderful saw. I'm glad to have it back again.
Norm
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