Need help...
#11
I am building a trestle table and it is my first big hand tool only project. I am determined to get this thing done without the help of a power tool. I am in the process of thicknessing my boards. I was traversing with my jack plane with a radius but it wasn't taking enough material. I know that I could file the mouth and get thicker shavings but this jack plane is special to me and I don't want to do that. I found a wooden fore plane at a local antique store for $8. It was in pretty good shape, it had a broken handle so I slapped one on I did some minor flattening to the sole. I sharpened up the blade with a large radius and I can shave the hair off my arm with it so I know its sharp. When I go to traverse across the board, I can't get any chips, the blade digs into the side and stops. It slides across the wood but will not cut into the wood. I am using red oak boards. I am trying to remove about 1/4" material from the boards. I have done 3 boards with my jack plane and I only have one more to do so if I have to, I will go back to that, but it has taken me forever and I would love to see if I can get this fore plane working. I have read so much online about this being the best way to remove material quickly, there's got to be something that I'm doing wrong. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
Eli


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#12
Eli,

Try putting more curvature on the iron and extend it only about 1/16" from the mouth (adjust in or out until it performs as desired). What you want is just a small portion of the center of the iron to do the cutting so that it "scoops" out wood. The corners of the iron need to be above the sole. Plane the board perpendicular to the grain or angled slightly in the direction of the grain. Once it is close to the desired thickness, switch back to your smoothing plane.

[Image: chrisblack9.jpg]
Bob Page
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In da U.P. of Michigan
www.loonlaketoolworks.com
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#13
It should produce a shaving regardless of the camber.

I would run a jointer plane over the sole to be doubly sure its perfectly flat.
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#14
I agree.  If the blade is sharp and it is not retracting due to a loose wedge I would check the sole for flatness (with the blade inserted) with a straight edge (with a notch cut into it to clear the blade- I made one out of an old aluminum ruler) and with a pair of winding sticks.  In it's simplest form, a plane is a device to hold a blade.  Good luck, you will find the problem.
                      -Howard
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#15
Should look like this....
Cool
   
Bevel down....barely showing out the sole.   Just rehabbed one about the same as yours..
   
While going straight across ( Moxxon's "Traverse")  is good for rough to almost flat....try at a 45 degree angle to the grain, down the one side, end to end, then come back the other direction...cuts at 90 degrees to the first ones.   Then either back the iron off a bit more, and go with the grain, or, get a longer Try Plane.    Run the try plane also at the 45 degree direction of cut...when it makes shaving all the way across, then go with the grain down the length of the board.

One more bit of help:   Go to pbs.org....look for The Woodwright's Shop.....look for the episode with Chris Schwarz....Hand Plane essentials. 

Also, looks like your iron is set a hair too deep....back it off a bit, until it just cuts.
Show me a picture, I'll build a project from that
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#16
Check out the video of Roy Underhill and Chris Schwarz:

https://www.thirteen.org/programs/the-wo...rz-9qkzzm/

Chris explains the curvature of the blade and how to use the plane.
George

if it ain't broke, you're not tryin'
Quando omni flunkus, moritati.
Red Green

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#17
Thank y'all so much! I added more camber to the blade and I flattened the sole with some sand paper on granite. Now chips are flying everywhere! I think this $8 plane is going to be a life saver
Smile
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#18
(11-15-2018, 08:21 AM)Elijah A. Wrote: [snip] When I go to traverse across the board, I can't get any chips, the blade digs into the side and stops. It slides across the wood but will not cut into the wood.[snip]
Eli

Reading carefully, it sounds to me you're trying to take too much with one stroke. The blade may be set too deep and resetting to take a thinner shaving may fix everything. At least give that a try. And, as mentioned above, yes, the corners of the blade should be above the sole so they can't dig in or cut. I'd suggest you start with a very thin shaving and increase bit by bit until you get the efficiency you need. That should end up being a bit less than 1/16 inch thick shaving in the end.

As to sliding across the wood without taking a shaving, if the blade is set too deep, the plane skids on the heel and on the flat or even the back of the bevel of the blade. The cutting edge may not be cutting because it may not be attacking the surface of the wood with any clearance angle. Again, setting to take a thinner shaving should solve that problem too. A consensus of empirical studies by number of folks around here converges on a minimum clearance angle of about 12 degrees, established with one degree of scientific rigor or another.
Fair winds and following seas,
Jim Waldron
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#19
Eli,  glad you got it working well. I am not sure from you post, but it sounds like you are thickness planing individual boards to get them to 4 square. When I first started woodworking,  I had only hand planes, no power jointer or planer.  I realized very quickly that if you are working only hand planes, there is no real advantage to thickness planing individual boards. Instead, I would joint the sides then glue up into a panel, then flatten the show side.  If the other side was to be hidden, like the underside of a table top, I only trued up the portion of the table top that would rest on the legs, and the overhang, and the rest was left as is.  If the other side was visible, but not a surface that was needed to be a particular distance from the face edge,  I would smooth it ,but not worry whether it was thicker at one end to the other.   At some point, I started to worry about taking these "shortcuts"  - but then read an interesting article in FWW on some antique pieces, where the author noted that in many older pieces , the surfaces that were not visible were very rough, and it some cases, still had the saw marks.  Since then, I have seen many more articles that confirmed that was a common practice - they were making pieces by hand for a living, why go to the trouble to make something smooth if it can't be seen.

So my position is that 4 square makes a lot of sense which you are using machines.  When using only hand planes,  so long as the top of the trestle table is flat, no one will ever notice if on the left side of the table the top is 1 inch thick, and on the opposing side it is 1/16" of an inch thinner or thicker.  As to the table rails, unless someone crawls under the table, they will never notice whether the rail is 1 inch thick at one end and 2 inches thick at the other, so I would flatten one face of the rail, and makes the two sides parallel and flat, and ignore the back side.  Just my opinion.
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#20
Great ideas... Wish I would have thought of that
Smile
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