evenfall
Cow Tipper
Registered: 04/19/05
Posts: 5370
Loc: Sacramento Area, CA
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Bob, You wouldn't want too thick a shaving with those settings. In fact to the parameters we have discussed, I am not sure you could get much thicker.
Meaning:
Once the plane is pulling a .001 shaving, and the frog is moved to within .004 of mouth's leading edge, and the chipbreaker is set to within .004 of the edge of the blade, that if you try to run the blade deeper, something is going to close the mouth, Maybe the blade, but more than likely the chipbreaker.
Meaning this very small place we have attained to pass a shaving through perfectly is only possible perfectly, otherwise (given manufacturing tolerances as well as other foible based trial and error inconsistencies) All too often, many people will have a difficult time keeping the plane from clogging.
Stanley chipbreakers left unfettled do not always seat well and sometimes offer different levels of spring tension to the blade. We all know that the frog can be a bugger and the thin blades can chatter... There is a lot of goofing off to get a plane to achieve this sometimes, and other times we get lucky.
We also all know that it can be to our benefit to not fool with the Stanley too much and simply buy and aftermarket blade, and or chipbreaker or both, and go from there. I have a stanley blade and chipbreaker which works well. I am sure their is a scientific reason, but I prefer to chock it up to luck. 
In my observation of trying to plane some curlier woods with a Stanley bevel down plane, the curlier the wood the funkier the shaving, and the plane bedding is really a type one chip maker. It that kind of wood, sharpness is everything, and really, the chipbreaker needs moved close in to help cause the chip to be broken more frequently, causing a curlier type II chip, and sometimes this is when I have seen the Stanley's clog. It isn't always going to happen, but usually does in a moment where you are trying to ask for maximum performance from a plane which may or may not give it to you.
In your last question, why would you want to use those setting with a coarse shaving? Well I think I already addressed that with the closed mouth, I don't think you could get much coarser, but you could open the mouth some. but like you said the coarse shaving is an invitation to tear out as it is because you are increasing the strength of the wood chip. Caring about tearout with a coarse chip would be kid of goofy, it sure would make the reasons we use jacks and jointers pretty unproductive, wouldn't it? 
Just to be clear, I am not saying the Bailey type plane won't do this. Some may have interpreted me as such. I am saying there are situation where it will struggle in the face of great difficulty, and clog, or simply be unable to plane further without creating a bigger disaster than the one it is attempting to repair. There are upper limits to what the design can do, and sometimes a woodworker has to deal with a recipe which will test them. 
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~Rob
http://www.evenfallstudios.com/woodworks
Woodworking Knowledge, Skill Development, Discussion
"It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw."
Calvin & Hobbes
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wmickley
Member
Registered: 03/05/08
Posts: 511
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I think this thread is worth preserving for the information and references it contains.
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CStanford
Member
Registered: 07/28/05
Posts: 823
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Until I read this thread I had no idea I couldn't set a chipbreaker.
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Wilbur Pan
Member
Registered: 01/26/07
Posts: 1711
Loc: East Brunswick, NJ
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rfeeser said:
And why would you care if you got tearout on a coarse shaving; that's an ineffective way to eliminate tearout?
Having done a fair amount of milling boards with hand planes over the past couple of weeks, I care. The initial passes I made to flatten boards were made with planes set up to take coarse shavings. If I get tearout, that's more work for me to do when I move to the jointing and smoothing steps.
Much is made of the ability to take super fine shavings with planes, which I do, admittedly, still get a charge from when everything comes together to make those fluffy shavings. But I've come to the idea that being able to take a coarse shaving without tearout is equally, if not more important.
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Hail St. Roy, Full of Grace, The Schwarz is with thee.
Blessed art thou among woodworkers, and blessed is the fruit of thy saw, dovetails.
Holy St. Roy, Master of Chisels, pray for us sharpeners now, and at the hour of planing.
Amen.
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MalletHead
Member
Registered: 12/05/08
Posts: 179
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Interesting discussion.
To me, the relevant questions are: Why was the chip breaker introduced? Why did it find favor and become the predominant way of making western style planes?
For the answers to those questions I think we need to look at some factors that haven't really been touched upon, thus far.
Consider the average 18th-early 20th century itinerant finish carpenter. He needed to be able to dimension wood, flatten it, shape it, smooth it, and joint it - on site. His job entailed going to wherever the work was, and taking the tools he needed to do his job with him, and then taking them home again at night. His toolbox had to be small enough and light enough that he could hand carry it, yet contain everything he needed.
At minimum, that would be a couple of saws, a few chisels, a hammer, a mallet, a few marking and measuring tools, and some planes. How many planes? How big of a box of how much weight could he comfortably carry an appreciable distance? How many differently shaped moldings was he going to need to make? Now, add in the fact that if he was lucky enough to find work at all, it would have been for pennies per day.
With luck, he might be able to include one smoother and a jack. It was a big part of his job to figure out how to get those two planes to adequately do all the final dimensioning, flattening, smoothing, and jointing required.
A chip breaker - depending on how it was adjusted - enabled him to closely simulate the results he would have gotten with a wide variety of dedicated tools. Pull it back, and you present a lower effective angle to the wood, enabling thicker shavings and more rapid material removal. Set it forward and you simulate a steeper bedding angle, allowing thinner shavings and a smoother finish.
Nothing anywhere near as ideal as a complete arsenal of dedicated planes, but, ( just barely ) good enough to do the job within the financial and weight constraints governing how he was required to work.
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I'm not really an expert - I just play one on the internet.
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catspa
Boonies Bum
Registered: 11/30/07
Posts: 2172
Loc: upper left corner
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MalletHead said:
Now, add in the fact that if he was lucky enough to find work at all, it would have been for pennies per day.
While this is technically true, it should be noted that a penny went farther then than it does now. Perhaps because it was actually made of copper.
Parker
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simple man in a complicated world
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lwilliams
Member
Registered: 04/15/06
Posts: 294
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What hasn't been said is that traditional cutting geometries vanished at exactly the same time double iron planes came on the market. I've never seen a commercially made double iron plane pitched at anything other than common pitch (45º in the US and 47 1/2º in Great Britain). Another cultural change that was happening at the same time was the evolution of the modern retail system. As cap irons became the norm, the local plane maker was vanishing and being replaced by retail stores who's inventory came from larger manufacturing enterprises.
If a hardware dealer wanted to stock smooth planes, for instance, he had to stock four of each size. He needed a common pitch, York pitch, middle pitch and half pitch of each size he stocked. The move to cap irons meant he only had to stock one of each. Dealers, wholesalers and manufacturers saved a lot of money on stocking, shipping, packaging and display space with the move to double iron planes. If there was any improvement, I think it was all about marketing and retailing.
Back in the early to mid 1970s, when I started woodworking, knowledgeable woodworkers would tell me not to buy the new British made Stanley planes because of quality issues. "Find old ones," was what every experienced woodworker I talked to said.
I don't think I experienced the first time in history this kind of thing happened. There are thousands and thousands of molding planes that date from before the switch to double irons in bench planes. The old single iron bench planes are incredibly scarce by comparison but, just like today, those single iron bench planes would have been more common than molding planes. I believe those old bench planes were desirable and sought out by woodworkers who were less than pleased with the double iron offerings.
A few companies continued to list single iron bench planes in their catalogs. I've heard it speculated that those planes were for cheapskates and people who just didn't know better. Yet one of the companies who offered these single iron planes also offered a premium line of planes made of apple. Yes, they also had apple single iron planes and those single iron apple planes cost more than double iron beech planes.
You know, one of the few planes missing from the Seaton chest is a single iron smooth plane. The double iron smooth plane is still with the chest. If double iron planes are better, why didn't the person who took the single iron plane take the good one? I think the truth is that person got the more desirable plane and I would really like to know what pitch it was.
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MalletHead
Member
Registered: 12/05/08
Posts: 179
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Any way you look at it, in woodworking as in any other industry, the emphasis has always been to minimize cost and maximize profit.
Until about the middle of the twentieth century, labor was relatively plentiful and cheap. Quality tools and machinery were relatively rare and expensive. It was the era of the multi-function tool.
A cap iron/chip breaker was a way to turn the hand plane into a multifunction tool. A skilled workman could do everything from roughing out stock to flattening, smoothing, and jointing with a single jack plane depending on how he set the blade and chip breaker. ( and with the later cast iron planes, the frog. )
It's really only since labor became the more expensive part of the equation that the emphasis has shifted to arsenals of dedicated tools, enabling a worker to get more done is less time through not needing to change and test setups as he goes. Have a range of tools, each setup and dedicated to a single task, and move from tool to tool as you progress through the task.
In today's environment, the double iron plane is an anachronism. It's fiddly, and results are not reliably repeatable once you change any setting. But, in an environment where one needs maximal output with minimal tooling, it was the best and cheapest way to go. It secured the iron, and enabled a variety of chip types to be realized. Maximum output for minimum tooling cost.
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I'm not really an expert - I just play one on the internet.
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BlueMaxx
Honored Veteran
Registered: 05/03/07
Posts: 6509
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This thread REALLY delivers..I have learned so much from reading the responses!
Mike!
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Adding no value whatsoever......
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wmickley
Member
Registered: 03/05/08
Posts: 511
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BlueMaxx said:
This thread REALLY delivers..I have learned so much from reading the responses!
Mike!
Worth preserving.
Warren
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