Llama Posted April 5, 2016 Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 Appliances such as a Donkey ear, or Miter shoot are different than what I think of when I say "shooting". While one should always work to a knife line, I get the idea behind using those things to get the results. Layout is hyper critical, and even more so than when using machines. Each part should feature knife lines. Not just a test piece, and batch them out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gee-dub Posted April 5, 2016 Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 Earlier in the thread when someone mentioned the LAJ becoming of less use as your arsenal grows gave me pause. I have a dedicated shooting plane but, still grab the LAJ to shoot now and again. Despite my arsenal expanding (I don't have a grip of planes like others, just a few) the LAJ still gets plenty of use ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted April 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 I'm cool with a tool being used less as time goes on. In the 2-3 years it will take to buy all the different planes that I might otherwise need, I feel like I get my moneys worth out of a LAJ. And it's possible that I may never feel the need to expand to more planes. Who knows? I'm not really that big of a hand tool user, I just find places where it makes more sense to use one than not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric. Posted April 5, 2016 Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 37 minutes ago, gee-dub said: I don't have a grip of planes like others And that's why you still use your LAJ. If you fill all of the niches that the LAJ once occupied with specialists, you'll no longer reach for it because it does an inferior job than the others for most tasks. Not all, but most. Cleaning up long end grain bevels, it's fantastic. I challenge you to name one other task where the LAJ is king. It's a versatile tool, not a specialist, and as your plane collection grows, it becomes more obsolete. I'm not bad-mouthing the LAJ...I own one and like it. But let's be realistic about its usefulness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted April 5, 2016 Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 1 hour ago, Mike. said: To me shooting means planing end grain using a shooting board (I guess some people could shoot freehand, but most of us use a board) It could be a 90 degree cut or a miter or anything in between. Whether you are shooting to a line or fine tuning a cut off a super accurate miter saw shouldn't matter Yes, more hand tool oriented folks will shoot to a line. I also don't think it matters if you use a jack plane, card scraper, smooth plane or chisel. Yes a plane will be easier but the actual act and desired outcome is the same regardless. One reason I don't like getting involved in hand tool discussion is folks get overly caught up in semantics and "the right way" to do things. I think years of tradition along with tool makers creating over specialized tools leads people to believe there needs to be a specific tool for each technique. Yes, semantics are important for proper comminication but a smooth plane is just a smaller jack. Depending on how it is tuned it could be used for anything a jack plane is used for, including shooting end grain. I have never seen the term "chuting" but maybe it is more historically accurate. I partially agree with this. The part I do not agree with is the intent of shooting. And yes, it is semantics... I don't mean to get wrapped up in triviality, but it happens Shooting implies you have a mark to hit. Smoothing is simply the act of making the end grain smooth. You can use a shooting board for that purpose, but it is different. The difference is the end goal, and therefore the intent of the procedure. Even the word "shooting" implies you have a target to hit. There must be some correlation. 16 minutes ago, Eric. said: And that's why you still use your LAJ. If you fill all of the niches that the LAJ once occupied with specialists, you'll no longer reach for it because it does an inferior job than the others for most tasks. Not all, but most. Cleaning up long end grain bevels, it's fantastic. I challenge you to name one other task where the LAJ is king. It's a versatile tool, not a specialist, and as your plane collection grows, it becomes more obsolete. I'm not bad-mouthing the LAJ...I own one and like it. But let's be realistic about its usefulness. I take it for granted that we won't agree on this one. And that's ok I have the three main low angle LN planes. Smoother, jack and jointer. I prefer using them over any other bench planes. To say any of them becomes obsolete with the addition of other (more) planes because it becomes inferior isn't something I can agree with. If your preference is in using a #4,5,7,8 that's ok. I will never argue against preference, which it seems this conversation almost always ends with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Immortan D Posted April 5, 2016 Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 Cliff, go get the LAJP, you're gonna like it a lot. Just keep the mouth as closed as possible (I mean on the plane, to avoid tear-out when smoothing ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted April 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 Right on. I think I will. In a couple of weeks. Part of me wants to just have a nice cabinet like Eric. I don't have the planes to fill it though. If I buy the planes to fill it, then I can build a cabinet. See how that works? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Immortan D Posted April 5, 2016 Popular Post Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 19 minutes ago, Cliff said: Right on. I think I will. In a couple of weeks. Part of me wants to just have a nice cabinet like Eric. I don't have the planes to fill it though. If I buy the planes to fill it, then I can build a cabinet. See how that works? Then get a #7 before the LAJP. You need it to size your cabinet LOL. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric. Posted April 5, 2016 Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 Yep, Daniel's got that one right! LOL I waited for YEARS - until my hand tool collection was very close to complete and pretty much custom-built to my workflow - to build my cabinet. Years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted April 5, 2016 Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 4 hours ago, Cliff said: Right on. I think I will. In a couple of weeks. Part of me wants to just have a nice cabinet like Eric. I don't have the planes to fill it though. If I buy the planes to fill it, then I can build a cabinet. See how that works? If you buy them, it will come. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robby W Posted May 3, 2016 Report Share Posted May 3, 2016 On 4/5/2016 at 5:57 PM, Cliff said: I actually have a smoother. I just can't seem to get it to stop leaving tracks. I've cambered the crap out of the blade and it still does it so I am not sure whats up with that. Cliff - it sounds like you are taking too deep of a cut. When you are smoothing, you should only be taking a thousandth of an inch or so. This is a really thin shaving. The tendency is to set the plane for a deeper cut. The board has to already be flat or the smoother will just skip over it. As you work the board, you will start to get wider and longer shavings. I found it helpful to actually measure the shaving at first. The camber on the blade should only be 2-3 thousandths or you will leave visible troughs. Leaving track marks on a chambered smoothing blade is sign you are too deep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted May 3, 2016 Report Share Posted May 3, 2016 2 hours ago, Robby W said: Cliff - it sounds like you are taking too deep of a cut. When you are smoothing, you should only be taking a thousandth of an inch or so. This is a really thin shaving. The tendency is to set the plane for a deeper cut. The board has to already be flat or the smoother will just skip over it. As you work the board, you will start to get wider and longer shavings. I found it helpful to actually measure the shaving at first. The camber on the blade should only be 2-3 thousandths or you will leave visible troughs. Leaving track marks on a chambered smoothing blade is sign you are too deep. Check out Derek of Perth. His site has a LAJ camber discussion. The low angle requires a different approach. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted May 6, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2016 On 5/3/2016 at 8:04 AM, Robby W said: Cliff - it sounds like you are taking too deep of a cut. When you are smoothing, you should only be taking a thousandth of an inch or so. This is a really thin shaving. The tendency is to set the plane for a deeper cut. The board has to already be flat or the smoother will just skip over it. As you work the board, you will start to get wider and longer shavings. I found it helpful to actually measure the shaving at first. The camber on the blade should only be 2-3 thousandths or you will leave visible troughs. Leaving track marks on a chambered smoothing blade is sign you are too deep. This is not the case. I just resharpened the blade, cambered the corners, brought the blade out a tiny bit at a time until it started taking material off. Track marks. I just can't win with that thing. I'm really looking forward to a new one to see if it does any better. I might not. Might be I can't seem to camber correctly. Very possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted May 6, 2016 Report Share Posted May 6, 2016 http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/TheSecretToCamberinBUPlaneBlades.html had time to dig on my own. Chances are you just didn't truly camber enough. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted May 7, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2016 I'll check it out and see if I can resolve the issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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