WoodNet Forums: IT LIVES!!!!! and Jointermania

So after work today I finished off the smoothing of the legs. Tonight we had a very nice dinner on our back patio, and just as we finished, I saw my back door neighbor who knows all things woodworking, and he came over to help me get my workbench on its feet. I decided to get a jump on flattening out the top. When I did my original glue up I kept what would eventually be the top faces of the 4x4's aligned, so this side of the 4x4's were pretty well aligned. They were out maybe 3/32" at most.

I used the same technique as I did way back when I flattened out the underside of the bench: I marked out two foot sections, and made liberal use of a straightedge to help identify the high spots and a crayon to help me locate what parts of that section I had and hadn't planed yet. Then I went to town using a jack plane with the pronounced camber, going across the grain. My wife decided to take an action shot of me doing this. You can see that I have the first two foot section done, and I'm getting ready to attack the next two foot section.

Again, this went more quickly than I would have thought. I had the major unevenness between the boards flattened out in about 1-1/2 hours. Then I set about to jointing the benchtop surface.

I've been looking forward to this part of building my workbench, because I had some toys I was saving up to play with during this part. Here are three of them:

These jointers all have a story. The Stanley #7 was the second plane I ever bought, and the first plane where I tried a Hock blade and chipbreaker.

The wooden plane was one that I got for pretty cheap when a family called our woodworking club to get our help to figure out to do with their grandfather's woodworking equipment after he had passed away. In thanks for our help, I got that wooden jointer plane for a song. The blade says "W. Butcher Warranted Cast Steel", and appears to be laminated.

The Lie-Nielsen #7 I got when I had read an interview with Thomas Lie-Nielsen about their plans to offer O-1 steel blades for some of their planes. I emailed the company to tell them that their lack of O-1 steel plane blades was one of the reasons I had never bought a Lie-Nielsen plane, since I didn't really like using A-2 blades based on my trying out a Lie-Nielsen plane from my neighbor. To my surprise, Thomas Lie-Nielsen himself sent me a reply, and in an impressive feat of salesmanship, thanked me for my input, and then asked me, "Are there any particular planes you would like to order with O-1 blades? I'd be happy to get started with a tool you are interested in." After being asked that, I really had no choice but to buy a LN #7, right?

This is one of the first Lie-Nielsen planes with an O-1 blade.

But wait, there's more!

This is a HUGE 34" long (!) wooden jointer plane I got from Kevin Adams. That's the LN #7 it's sitting next to, for scale. The blade says "William Ash & Co. Warranted Cast Steel", and it also looks like it's laminated.

I gave all of these jointers a try. I was really surprised as to how light the 34" jointer was. Both of the wooden jointer plane blades sharpened up nicely, but my trying to use the two wooden jointers was a big flail. This wasn't a surprise, as I really have no experience with western wooden planes at all. Most of the problems I had were with the shavings choking the throat of the wooden planes.

Between the LN #7 and the Stanley #7 with the Hock blade, I think I liked the Stanley better. The LN #7 is a bit heavier than the Stanley #7, to the point where it was just a bit more difficult to push than I would like, especially for a surface this large.

In any case, I almost finished with the jointing tonight. Here's where I'm at.

There's a bit more tearout than I would like in spots from using the jack plane across the grain, but it's really shaping up to be a nice looking bench.

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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.
$300 is a lot of Money!
giant Cypress: Japanese tool blog

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