Choosing and Using Handplanes

For a number of years now I've taught classes on handplanes at two northern Virginia Woodcraft stores.  My classes--Handplane Basics and Restoring Old Handplanes--are both fun to teach and educational, not only for my students but also for me.  I've learned a lot about handplanes since I started.  My beginning was a class at the Marc Adams School with Chris Schwarz and Tom Lie-Nielsen.  Following that, I studied a number of books on handplanes and became a user in my own shop.  But as much as anything, I've learned a lot from the questions posed by my students and my sometimes fumbling attempts to answer those I'd not anticipated.

As a result of this experience I've come to believe I have a good feel for what beginning handplane users want and need to know.  And while there are many good resources available, none of them seem quite right to meet the needs of my students.  So, I've decided to write a book of my own.

For now, the working title is Choosing and Using Handplanes.  The book will explain the types of planes and their uses in the woodshop, techniques for planing, setting and adjusting planes, sharpening and honing blades, buying and restoring old handplanes, and jigs and fixtures to use with handplanes, including holding devices and shooting boards.  It will also have a list of resources.  It  will make extensive use of photos, drawings and explanatory sidebars.

My plan is to publish it as an eBook through Amazon's Kindle.  I'm hoping to have it finished sometime this summer.  Already I have a first draft written, figures drafted and photos planned.  Most of the sidebars are completed.  What remains is to fill in the gaps and edit the text.   I will also need to build the jigs and fixtures I want to illustrate.  There's plenty of work to do yet, but I'm very excited about the project and find myself making progress on it every day.  Look here for information about my progress.

Norm

Winchester Secretary -- And So It Begins

I reported last year that I would be building a Winchester secretary in the Chippendale style, taking a class with Jeff Headley and Steve Hamilton.  Jeff and Steve are renowned furnituremakers.  They produced the two matching chairs with carved handles that the President and foreign heads of state occupy during one-on-one discussions, as well as reproduction pieces for Colonial Williamsburg and others.  It's a seven-day class in two segments.  In the first segment, which began yesterday, we will be building the outer, dovetailed case.  In July, we'll conclude with two days when we will start work on the interior.  In between times and afterward, we'll work on the desk in our own shops.

In reality, I began working on the secretary late last year.  I first created parts and cut lists using Cut List Plus.  Then I located sources for the cherry and poplar I'm using and began accumulating the lumber.  The hardest part was finding a good supply of curly cherry and getting it in the 5/4 size (1-1/4") needed to assure it would be 7/8" thick after planing.  In the end, I settled for 4/4 (1") stock in many instances and hoped for the best.  Then came weeks of cutting the wood to rough dimensions and gluing up the many panels.  With all that behind me, I am now starting the actual construction of the desk.

The design for the secretary is based on a Winchester area desk that is held in the Williamsburg collection.  It is described and illustrated in an article by Anne S. McPherson, "Adaptation and Reinterpretation: The Transfer of Furniture Styles from Philadelphia to Winchester to Tennessee," pp. 299-334 in Luke Beckerdite, ed., American Furniture 1997 (Hanover and London: Chipstone Foundation, 1997).  The original included a case on top that might have held books or china.  I will be building my desk without that top.

We spent most of the first morning running our panels through a 36" belt sander to get them even and to the correct thickness, then cutting them to size.  The machine work was done by our instructors, who cut all the panels using a crosscut sled and jigs so they would all be equal in size.  This was much faster and saved our time for the real work, cutting the dovetails that will hold the case together.

The afternoon was spent cutting half-blind dovetails in the case bottom and sides.  This was my first time to cut dovetails and my first time for half-blind dovetails, even in practice.  It went well.  Fortunately, the dovetails will all be hidden inside the case so any mistakes will not be visible from the outside.  So it provided me a good opportunity for practice.

Of course, with all my careful preparations to process and load the lumber and tools in my car, I walked off without my chisels and dovetail saw.  I had visited my friend Jeff Fleisher to get some dovetailing advice and took them with me, then left them in my wife Betsy's car. Fortunately, I was able to borrow tools from the instructors and all went well.  Still, I wanted to give my Blue Spruce chisels a good workout and was disappointed not to have them.  They are already loaded in the car so I'll have them today.

When we resume this morning, I'll mark and cut the remaining set of dovetails on the bottom of the case and then we'll turn our attention to the top of the case.  I find I'm enjoying chopping dovetails and, under the watchful eye of the instructors, I'm learning a lot.  It'll be fun seeing how far we get today.

Oh, and I've concluded that my plywood-topped workbench is not going to cut it for dovetailing so a new bench is in order for later this summer.  One thing I know for sure--it'll have a hard maple top.  Other than that, I've ordered Christopher Schwarz's book Workbenches, said to be the best source on designing and building one.  In addition, I've found an on-line source at Fine Woodworking for a good looking bench that uses the same vise I have sitting on my workshop floor.

More later.

Norm

Learning to Plane - Part VI

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

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

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