Smoothing planes

[bleedinblue]

I went against most advice here a few months ago and bought a Woodriver #4.  It was easy to tune to get transparent shavings and I was initially impressed.  I just can't get passable results when smoothing anything wider than the blade though.  This afternoon I tried smoothing drawer faces that were about 20" long and 9" wide.  Thin shavings, but after going over the small panel it was left with plane tracks and tear out.   I also don't like the feel of the plane, it's just not comfortable.  

How much of this could be technique and how much is the plane?  Im considering getting the Lie Nielsen, but wouldn't it be essentially the same shape, size and feel of the WR?  If that's the case, maybe the Veritas would be better to try?

[Eric.]

You need to camber your blade.  You can do it with a camber roller jig or just apply heavier pressure at the corners of the blade when sharpening with a regular jig (this is what I do).  The camber only needs to be tiny when you're smoothing since you're taking such thin shavings...just knock off those corners and you're good...you probably won't even be able to see it with the naked eye until you put a straight edge against it with light in the background.

The tearout is probably a separate issue with a lot of other variables to troubleshoot...if you're sure you're sharp and you're taking gossamer shavings, you may just need to pay closer attention to grain direction.

[bleedinblue]

When doing the initial tuning I tried to camber a bit, but was afraid to go too far.  I never even checked it with a straight edge and kinda forgot about it.  Thanks E.

[Eric.]

It's technically not really a camber, since you're not putting a real radius on the edge.  "Knocking the corners off" is a more accurate way to put it.  True cambering is used in situations like on a scrub plane when you're taking cuts so heavy it actually scallops the surface.

You're right not to want to go too far, because then you're essentially reducing the width of the blade that actually cuts since the goal is for the corners to not touch the wood.  It might take a little back and forth between the stones and some test runs to get it dialed in...once you no longer have tracks, you're done, go no further.  After a few sharpenings the corners will start approaching square again and you'll have to touch them up as needed.  You'll get a feel for it quickly with use.

[Barron]

Also, even with everything just right you may get tear out in some woods or in some spots on normally tame wood. Sounds like you set it up well, but double check that the chip breaker is really close to the edge and the mouth is tight.

[bleedinblue]

Yeah, I think I can manage the tear out.  I'm sure that was me planing the wrong direction and what not.  It was the parts that weren't torn out that still wasn't smooth that really bothered me.

[Ronn W]

I bought the same plane a couple of months ago and finally got around to actually flattening a 10' x 18" piece of white oak.  Started with my low angle jack plane (only other bench plane that I have). and then my #4 sharpened to 8000 grit.  I set the throat for a fine cut and kept the frog less than 1/16" from the cutting edge.  I have cambered the corners with the veritas MkII camber roller. I ended up with a very smooth and flat board.  Nice plane.

I still have to work on picking the right depth of cut.  As my shavings got longer and more contiuous I kept reducing the depth of cut.  What that the right approach??

[Eric.]

10 hours ago, Ronn W said:

I set the throat for a fine cut and kept the frog chip breaker less than 1/16" from the cutting edge.

FTFY.  The frog is the angled hunk of metal that the blade and chip breaker rest upon.  Probably just a typo but just in case...

[Barron]

For my work I try to set the chipbreaker as far back as the thickness of shaving I want ( maybe a couple or three thousandths) and the mouth opening about the same.  I actually use a feeler gauge to set the chipbreaker, overkill but it keeps me consistent.

[Jfitz]

Looking forward to how your cambering efforts pan out.

My thoughts actually are on what you wrote about it not being comfortable.  Not sure if that's because of your hand size, or how you think it should be on the handle and how close your fingers are to the frog assembly.  I suppose you could always make a new handle.  Or just get your hands on a LN or LV one to try out....

 

[Tom King]

I use a different camber on all my bench planes.   When first putting the camber on an iron, that's not going to be a short radius camber done on the grinder, I judge by the swarf on the stone I start on.  For a smoothing plane iron, where the camber will be 5 thou or less depending on the plane and its intended use, the camber is started on my middle stone. I consider my 6,000 stone to be my middle stone.

The amount taken off is judged by the amount of swarf on the stone.  It will be left darker on the edges and across the rest of the iron.  I use Sigma water stones under running water (for several reasons).  The running water washes away a lot of the swarf, but there is still plenty left on the stone to tell how much it's taking off.

I'm mostly matching old plane tracks with my work, and I've never seen any old plane tracks where only the corners were rounded off.  Even before I started working on old stuff, this is the way I always did my cambers.  The rounded corners never made sense to me the first time I saw it being done.

For cambers, I use an old Record honing jig.  I'll try to post a picture........I thought these forums automatically downsized pictures-what happened to that?

I'll come back, edit, and post pictures later-don't have time to resize right now.

I will attach one that shows some 4 thousandths thick no. 4 smoothing plane tracks.  I know how thick the shavings were because someone asked me while I was working with that plane, and I stopped and measured.   You normally can't see these, but this particular picture was taken with a direct sidelight by full sunlight. Tearout was okay on the end grain of the raised panels because it matched the same thing on the interior doors in this mid 19th Century house. The tracks are uneven on the faces of the panel because they were flattened first with a no. 6 on the diagonal, and then lengthwise with a no. 4.  The intersections of the two plane tracks left the uneven tracks, but that's just fine doing this old work.  Professional experts have looked at these shutters, and thought that they were old.  I happened to go by that house today, and closed the 16 shutters.  It took about 4 minutes total.

I sharpened by hand only for probably 20 years before I went back to using guides.  Without getting into that, here is the guide I use for cambered irons.  It's an old Record.  The small diameter ball works better than anything else I've used in allowing me to feel what's going on at the edge.  It will do any camber-even a scrub plane iron.  You can tighten it tight enough with fingers, but not loosen it with wet hands without high risk of damaging skin, so I keep a small pair of pliers next to the sharpening sink for just that use.  It looks like it would be hard to get the tool set square in it, and it probably is, but doesn't matter a bit for cambering something.  Those are my newer oil stones in the picture to replace ones I bought in 1974 that were tossed out in the yard when a tornado hit a shop I had, and broke two of them in 1988.

I made these jigs for setting the exact angle every time with any guide.  We only use the MkII when my helpers sharpen on oil stones.  I don't use microbevels when I sharpen on water stones.  You can buy a jig for setting the angle for 45 bucks that requires fumbling with to change, or make these in a few minutes for nothing, and no fumbling required.  The angle you want is relative to the back, and will vary with a setting jig that just measures the distance from the edge to the guide with the thickness of the tool.  These give the exact angle regardless of thickness of tool, or type of guide.  I intend to make some out of Corian when I get around to it, but these are still working fine.

[Cliff]

I'm with the OP. Making a smoothing plane work seems like magic. I get track marks no matter how much I camber. That tells me I'm probably doing it very wrong. I'm not sure how that is possible but I got plenty of examples to prove it. I didn't know there was a jig though so maybe I'll pick that up.

[Tom King]

That Record jig has not been commercially available for a long time.  It can be done with any number of other guides.  I just like that one best because it doesn't add any other feedback that you have to allow for.  The chisel that's in it for that picture would never get used in that jig.  It would go in the Eclipse.  It was just the closest thing handy when I took that picture to show that my angle setting jig will work with anything.

It's normal to get tracks.  You just don't want the edges of the tracks to have sharp angled steps.  If so, the edges are digging in too deep.  The camber gets the edges up out of the way.  Amount of camber depends on how thick you want the shavings to be, or rather, how much you want to take off the board.  The thickest smoothing plane shavings I take are those 4 thousandths from the no. 4 in the picture.  I have a 4-1/2 set up to take a half a thousandth, and the others in between those.

The cambered roller stays on my MKII all the time.  The roller shouldn't cause you to get a camber, but rather allow you to make one. You can hone a straight cutting edge with a curved roller on a guide.  Pressure should be on the cutting edge while not allowing the roller to lift off the stone, but most of the pressure is on the tool.

[Eric.]

Veritas makes a camber roller that you can swap out for your flat roller on the MKII.

But again, if you're talking about cambering a smoothing plane...and you're using it for smoothing...you shouldn't need the roller.  You only have to knock a couple thou off the corners because the shavings are so thin, and you should be able to do this with only finger pressure at the stones.  If you confirm that you have the corners knocked off with a straight edge against a light, but you're still getting tracks, something else is the problem.  Your blade might be skewed on the frog or you might be taking too deep of a cut for the camber you established...or your camber isn't established enough.  Trial and error.

[Llama]

36 minutes ago, Eric. said:

Veritas makes a camber roller that you can swap out for your flat roller on the MKII.

 

Thanks  I still haven't taken it out of the box.

[Coop]

31 minutes ago, Llama said:

Thanks  I still haven't taken it out of the box.

I imagine, as a new home owner, there are many things still in the box/baggies

[Immortan D]

If nothing else works, one can always remove the blade from a #4 and attach sandpaper to the sole. The more expensive the plane the smoother the outcome.

[bleedinblue]

Alright, thanks guys.

First off I'll step back from freehand sharpening ala Rob Cosman and start using a jig.

I jumped too quickly on an ebay auction for a package of a 250/1000 combo Norton (which I already have), a 4000/8000 combo and a Veritas honing guide.  I clicked buy it now before I realized the honing guide isn't the MKII, it's this one.  Whatever...if it sucks I'll flip it.  My current stones are the 250/1000 and 4000, so at the least I'll be adding 8000.  Regardless, trying more to add a proper camber will be a priority.

As far as the comfort, I'll probably pick up a Veritas smoother the next time they have a free shipping sale.  If it's considerably more comfortable I'll keep it, if not, it's an extremely easy sell.  I'd like to stick with the Lie Nielsen line but I can't imagine the LN #4 being any different than the WR #4 when it comes to ergonomics.

 

[Eric.]

13 minutes ago, bleedinblue said:

As far as the comfort, I'll probably pick up a Veritas smoother the next time they have a free shipping sale.  If it's considerably more comfortable I'll keep it, if not, it's an extremely easy sell.  I'd like to stick with the Lie Nielsen line but I can't imagine the LN #4 being any different than the WR #4 when it comes to ergonomics.

If big hands are the problem, a #4.5 has much more space between tote and frog.  Of course the #4.5 brings with it a host of other factors that can make it uncomfortable...i.e. its weight and difficulty to muscle through tough grain due to its wider blade.  I have one with a middle pitch frog on it, and while it's capable of producing some of the finest shavings imaginable while minimizing tearout...it will flat wear you out.  I reserve it for the trickiest grain and use the #4 primarily.  The LN #4 does have a fairly cramped hand space...I'd say I have about average sized hands and I could use a bit more room.  I've adjusted my grip and gotten plenty used to it over the years.  My #4 is my favorite plane.

The Veritas is probably a better option because of the more open tote design.  I just can't get over the aesthetics of those Veritas planes.  But functionally they are just as good as Lie Nielsen.

[bleedinblue]

2 minutes ago, Eric. said:

If big hands are the problem, a #4.5 has much more space between tote and frog.  Of course the #4.5 brings with it a host of other factors that can make it uncomfortable...i.e. its weight and difficulty to muscle through tough grain due to its wider blade.  I have one with a middle pitch frog on it, and while it's capable of producing some of the finest shavings imaginable while minimizing tearout...it will flat wear you out.  I reserve it for the trickiest grain and use the #4 primarily.  The LN #4 does have a fairly cramped hand space...I'd say I have about average sized hands and I could use a bit more room.  I've adjusted my grip and gotten plenty used to it over the years.  My #4 is my favorite plane.

The Veritas is probably a better option because of the more open tote design.  I just can't get over the aesthetics of those Veritas planes.  But functionally they are just as good as Lie Nielsen.

I have average hands at best, ask my wife, but it does feel cramped.  Maybe I just need to change my grip, or maybe I just need to use it more since the only other quality plane I've used is the larger low angle jack.  Truthfully though, if I was getting a glass surface I might not even notice the discomfort.

[Tom King]

Those Norton stones are fine.  I used them for probably close to 10 years before I started trying high end stones.   I wouldn't want to stop at 4,000, but the 8,000 is a pretty good finishing stone. I like to get edges a lot sharper than that, but the 8k will certainly give an edge that you can use.  The 4 and 8k stones can be flattened with sandpaper, but the coarser stones will demolish any sandpaper pretty quickly.  The Norton stones are on the harder end of soft stones that one might want to sharpen on by hand only.  With the faster cutting stones that are even softer-like the Sigma stones that I use, it's too easy to take a gouge out of them without using a guide.  The harder glass and ceramic stones will stand up to hand only sharpening better, but don't cut as fast.

I almost never pay attention to the way a plane feels in my hands, and I use them all day long sometimes.  You don't need a death grip anyway.  Sharper makes everything easier with using a plane.

[Eric.]

I have average hands at best, ask my wife, but it does feel cramped.  Maybe I just need to change my grip, or maybe I just need to use it more since the only other quality plane I've used is the larger low angle jack.  Truthfully though, if I was getting a glass surface I might not even notice the discomfort.

 

My grip on the #4 is much the same as you grip a pistol. Middle, ring, pinky fingers on the tote and my index rests on the side of the blade wherever it feels comfortable at the time.

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

 

[BonPacific]

In terms of grip comfort, I've had to re-handle all my planes other than the Veritas LAJ. Something about that classic swoop-y grip just doesn't fit my hand. Not sure if I've got sasquatch paws or what the issue is (I try not to compare sizes with other men ). Making a new tote is actually a fun little evening project, shaping it to fit your hand.

[Guest Randy]

I have one Wood River plane, a block plane, and found it to be a good plane; not great, but good and very useful when the blade is sharp.

I've found that most  plane problems can be resolved with improved sharpening technique. The best thing I can recommend from experience is to keep practice sharpening until you get the results you want.

I still don't camber my blades because I'm afraid I'll go too far. I generally don't have many problems with plane tracks, but also don't do a lot of smoothing with my hand plane.

As for tearout, either the wood was being planed in the wrong direction or, as with some types of figured maple and cherry, it may just be the wood.

[bleedinblue]

I caved.  A local guy is liquidating his shop and had this on Craigslist for a good deal.  It's seen lots of use, but it should work well.  I was surprised to see the LN is considerably smaller than the WR...I thought they were both exact copies of the Stanley.

The first shavings were not encouraging, but when I checked the blade I found it nicely polished, but not very sharp.  It looks like he hollow ground it, do people do that with planes?  I thought that was a chisel thing.