grain direction

[oldman_pottering]

I'm trying to learn to take notice of and also understand grain direction

this piece shows the grain fairly well so my question is " does the grain go left to right or vice versa ?"

[Von]

"With the grain" is the direction where the grain is going towards the face of the board. It this case, the grain is swapping on you where it crests in about the center of your photo. Going left-to-right would be with the grain on the left side of the board, but against the grain on the right. 

[Coop]

@oldman_pottering, don’t feel alone. I struggle with this as well. My scientific method is to run my finger along the edge of the board and if I get a splinter in my finger, that’s against the grain. 

[oldman_pottering]

On 1/27/2024 at 2:52 PM, Von said:

"With the grain" is the direction where the grain is going towards the face of the board. It this case, the grain is swapping on you where it crests in about the center of your photo. Going left-to-right would be with the grain on the left side of the board, but against the grain on the right. 

Thanks Von, that clears things up a bit

How would someone go about using a hand plane or a router bit on this then ? 

On 1/27/2024 at 3:38 PM, Coop said:

@oldman_pottering, don’t feel alone. I struggle with this as well. My scientific method is to run my finger along the edge of the board and if I get a splinter in my finger, that’s against the grain. 

Splinters it is then ! 

[Barron]

You can avoid the splinters by using a piece of Pantyhose. It will slide smoothly with the grain, and snag against the grain. I do recommend asking your spouse before cutting up a pair, don’t ask me how I know. 
 

[gee-dub]

This one always helps me.

[oldman_pottering]

On 1/28/2024 at 4:07 PM, gee-dub said:

This one always helps me.

thanks gee-dub

[Tpt life]

That image is very confusing for someone new to this. Those planes should be tilted or on their side in that image, or the boards should have been shown in a vertical orientation. 

[Von]

On 1/27/2024 at 2:55 PM, oldman_pottering said:

How would someone go about using a hand plane or a router bit [against the grain] ? 

We're definitely getting to the edges of my expertise and I welcome someone correcting me or elaborating.

First, to paraphrase Shannon Rogers: sharp cures a lot of problems. I.e. make sure your tools are sharp.

With a hand plane, I have no experience doing this, but I understand this is where people turn to higher angled planes. As I understand the physics, one tries to get closer to being perpendicular to the grains and less prone to getting under and lifting them.

With a router (or a jointer, thickness planner, or any other variant of a powered spinning knife), I would do shallow passes.

[gee-dub]

On 1/28/2024 at 4:04 AM, Tpt life said:

That image is very confusing for someone new to this. Those planes should be tilted or on their side in that image, or the boards should have been shown in a vertical orientation. 

Yes.  I wish I had a better image of that.  Let me see if I can help.

For face planing if the growth rings are frowning at you and the arches are pointing at you, plane into the arches.

Same on those edges.

If the growth rings are smiling at you and the arches are pointing away, plane in the direction the arches are pointing.

This method has worked for me.  Others should comment as woods and methods can vary.

 

[Tpt life]

Sorry G-dub, but yours is also confusing for a beginner. It looks like you are appropriately planing a branch takeoff, in the second pic. Those layers can be planed into the points as you are working downhill. If one were to take that as a rule, and work uphill by doing so…see my point. This is such a complex issue, it may take mistakes and experience for some people to get any feel for how to figure “downhill” movement. That’s not even mentioning interlocking. 

[gee-dub]

@Tpt life - No sorry required.  This method is from a pretty old Wood Magazine article (therefor the lousy image).  More input from more folks in the real world is always better .  I do try to always plane downhill but there are times that things seem to work better in reverse.  Very possible that I am just misinterpreting the direction I'm going .  For interlocking and reversing areas I use a steep angle on a No.4 I keep set up for that purpose.  As you say, that can become a whole other discussion.  Thanks for the additional input on an often confusing topic.

[Tom King]

The image with the flat boards and flat planes is fine to use.  Notice which way the cathedrals/arches of grain go.  With the peaks of the cathedrals pointing back at you, the grain is coming out of the board towards you which encourages the plane iron to lift and separate along the grain.   With the peaks pointing away from you the grain is coming out of the board in the direction you are planing and there is no tendency for the iron to lift anything.

With straight grain, it doesn't matter which way you go, but that's rare unless you only use quartersawn lumber.  With any plane, including even old molding planes, you want to be planing with the grain coming up out of the board going with you, not wanting to be lifted by the plane iron.

I have a picture of me using a molding plane that is throwing very short shavings in the air because the grain is coming up sharply out of the board ahead of me.  The surface was left very smooth since I was planing with the grain even though it was coming up very sharply out of the edge of the board.  Not much better Winter working than in an old house using hand planes with a fire roaring in the fireplace when there is snow on the ground outside.  People pay me to do this.

[wtnhighlander]

@oldman_pottering, my planes do best when I open the mouth to accept thick-ish shavings, and plane ACROSS the board to near the desired thickness and flatness. Then use a sharp blade and tight mouth to take very fine shavings along the board's length, and the grain direction almost doesn't matter. When in doubt, back the blade out and advance until it just begins to cut. You can quickly determine if it is tearing the grain or not, without doing much damage.

[oldman_pottering]

On 1/29/2024 at 2:18 PM, wtnhighlander said:

@oldman_pottering, my planes do best when I open the mouth to accept thick-ish shavings, and plane ACROSS the board to near the desired thickness and flatness. Then use a sharp blade and tight mouth to take very fine shavings along the board's length, and the grain direction almost doesn't matter. When in doubt, back the blade out and advance until it just begins to cut. You can quickly determine if it is tearing the grain or not, without doing much damage.

thanks mate, I only have a block plane at the moment and still fussing around sometimes trying to set it

[Chestnut]

Some times it's not clear, my method which has been pretty fool proof is most boards have a show side and a hide side. Start with the hide side, if the plane iron catches and you get tear out that's the wrong way and flip the board around. Now you have the direction figured out for the show side.

When grain direction changes for hand planes change the direction you plane. In your example I plan from the outside toward the center of the board. At the overlap point a good sharp plane can go against the grain a little bit with little issue.

Also to note being from Australia, is interlocking woods. These are woods where the grain direction switches within the board. A good example is the ribbons on QS sapele. This pattern is formed from the interlocking grain. For sapele going against the grain is easy. Woods that tend to give a lot of issue are Elm and a lot of the eucalyptus species. IIRC a lot of the XXX Gum species in Australia are eucalyptus species and are interlocking to some degree or another.