Planing highly figured wood

[JimB1]

The latest batch of maple I got has a lot of flaming and cross grain to it. Using my #3 and #5 Stanley planes I am getting a decent amount of tearout and just overall having a hard time with it. Generally the #3 set to a very thin cut seems to work the best but still causes minor tearout and it's tough to get a nice, continuous line going so it ends up looking a little choppy and requires a decent amount of clean up after the planing.

I know low angle planes are supposed to be better at figured wood but I don't have any of those ( a smaller low angle smoother is on my list of tools I want ) and I suspect that back in the day they didn't either so there has to be some technique for using standard angle planes in highly figured wood.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[SteveM]

You need a higher plane angle (eg 55 degrees) or a back bevel.

I defer to Bob:

http://logancabinetshoppe.com/blog/2011/03/hand-work-efficiency-and-material-selection/

For gnarly, interlocked, reversing, figured grain, not much else but a very sharp iron pitched at a high angle in a plane with a very tight mouth set to take a very thin shaving will be capable of smoothing that board.

http://logancabinetshoppe.com/blog/2011/12/smooth-planes-smaller-is-better/

For only a single smoother, I’d go with 55 degrees. The higher angle is better in figured hardwoods and can still handle hard and soft woods with tame grain. Since it’s a smoother you will only be taking fine shavings, so the higher angle really won’t be much more effort.

[CessnaPilotBarry]

You're backwards...

HIGH angle planes (55+ degrees) are better at figured wood.

[skiback46]

Although with a low angle smoother(bevel up), all you need to do is adjust the sharpening angle on the blade to achieve the 55* where as with a traditional bench plane (bevel down)you would need a new frog.

In that way yes a low angle smoother would help the problem provided you sharpen the blade to a higher angle.

[SamV]

_{If you haven't tried putting some back bevel on the planes you already have I'd start with that say 10 to 15 degrees that will get you 55 or 60 cutting angle. I keep a spare blade just for that purpose so I don't have to sharpen out all of that edge. Otherwise do the best you can and get out your card scraper for the bad spots. Good Luck.}

[RenaissanceWW]

Before you go buying new planes or grinding different bevel and back bevel angles, sharpen the blade. While you are at it, make sure the chipbreaker mates perfectly with the blade and polish it so the chips exit cleanly over it. You could even grind a higher angle onto the chipbreaker (can of worms opening...backing away slowly) Set the chipbreaker so it is really close to the cutting edge. So close you can't measure the distance. Make sure the plane mouth is really tight, like a hair wider than the thickness of the shaving you will take. Now start planing. If the wood is really figured then sometimes you have to "spot plane" and reverse planing direction in specific spots.

These steps should significantly reduce the tear out you get on all but the most gnarly of boards. Follow up with a scraper on the really tough stuff and apply finish.

[wdwerker]

I planed all the curly maple for a big pedestal table project without a single tearout or hand plane! Drum sander is how you smooth highly figured wood . We will use a card scraper after we glue up the top.

[JimB1]

Thanks guys, I'm going to try sharpening up everything first and see how that goes. Scrapers seem to work decently on this flamed stuff.

For some reason I thought the low angle planes were better for gnarly wood then the standards, maybe I was thinking like Josh said that you can just change the bevel angle on the blade to get a higher profile. I've only used a low angle a few times at shows so don't really have a lot of experience with them... Maybe I need to investigate a scraper plane...

Don't have a drum sander but ROS seemed to work, not really in keeping with the neanderthal thing though I guess if the drum sander was powered by a wooly mammoth on a treadmill ala the Flintstones maybe...

-Jim

[wm_crash]

From a personal experience with figured bubinga:

A very very sharp blade is your #1 friend. Backbevels on bevel down planes will help you get a different angle of attack, but will make pushing the plane harder. Harder pushing requirements invite chatter, which is really bad. A tight mouth is a nice thing. However, I found that better support for the blade may be better. I lined up the frog with the sole opening so as to provide full support for the blade, and things improved (you may not have to make this compromise with thick blades, but mine are old Stanley stock). You may also want to work with a #3 or a #5 1/4, rather than wider planes. The narrow blades make pushing easier and hence cut down on potential chatter.

cheers,

wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

[Bob Rozaieski]

Card scrapers are your friends :-).