Infill plane performance question

[Christian Castillo]

Hi, I couldn't help but notice when reading about infill planes, it seems that they are touted as the ultimate plane and I have read opinions by people that usually go around the lines of how they are capable of the finest shavings and a beautiful surface in particularly difficult woods. Well, my understanding at this point regarding hand planes is that the best surface on wood is achieved by having a sharp blade with proper bevel geometry for the wood, tight mouth, optimal bed angle for the wood and a flat sole. So, how is an infill plane any better than a a wooden plane or metal plane if infill/wooden/metal all have the aforementioned tuning equal?

Holtey himself is building fully metal planes like the 98 and 982 because he says that wood doesn't allow him to build to the tolerances he would like due to the movement of the material. I've read that the weight of the infill plane help it with difficult woods, but if this is the case, an equally heavy plane could be made from just metal, or wood if you make it huge. So is this the case of excitement of infill plane users? Are all planes, in equally capable hands, capable of identical performance? Thanks for your time, I appreciate all responses to this issue

[David Weaver]

I would think a metal plane to the same tolerances and of the same mass and balance should perform the same. Whether it would feel the same, I don't know.

An all wood plane is lacking in mass compared to an infill. An all metal plane might be, too, and in the event you're talking about a plane with a casting, the mouth won't be as crisp. The trouble with either is that finding a brand new wood plane with a super tight mouth is not common - there are only a couple of makers. Most of the used ones you find will look like they've been fettled incorrectly or have dried and no longer have a good wedge/iron/bed fit nor a tight mouth.

I think in general I can get my 50º LN 4 1/2 to do almost everything that I can get an infill I just built to do if I spend the time to get it set right. The difference is that it's easier to get the infill to do it because everything on it is fixed. A mouth of a few thousandths is just that on an infill - every time you put the iron in, it's the same. On an adjustable plane, getting the frog in position that tight and then having it not move while tightening down takes some fiddling, especially if you have a desire to use the chipreaker in a functional way (I don't when the mouth of the plane is tight). Once you set a good bench plane, it should stay where you put it, but if you move it, then you have to get back to it again.

In terms of whether or not you need an infill to do high quality work - I don't think you do. Don't need expensive chisels or exotic steels, either. But they all work nicely and they make you want to do work.

[mike holden]

Christian,
Infills got their reputation because they were the first high quality planes readily available.
Note that there are now, and have been, high quality planes in infill, metal, and wood styles. There are also boat anchors in infill, metal, and wood styles.
Sometimes you cannot tell the good from the lesser without pushing them across a wood plank.

Mike

[michael craigdallie]

i agree that most better quality planes when well tuned can produce really fine shavings. it might be that infill planes tended to made with slightly higher bed angles (47.5 or higher) and because they were more "hand made" than the production planes of their day they had much tighter mouth openings as each blade was fitted to each plane. i agree that just because it is an infill does not make it a great plane.

i have had the opportunity to use a small sauer and steiner smoother and it was the finest plane i have ever used. that and it looked and felt amazing.

cheers,
m

[David Keller NC]

Christian - I own and use planes made entirely of wood, fettled Stanleys, Lie-Nielsens, and infills (both antique Norris planes and modern Konrad Sauer infills).

In general, your observations are correct - all other things being equal, such as blade thickness, sharpness, angle of attack, flatness of sole, weight, and mouth aperture, an infill will not perform any better than an equivalent in all-metal and all-wood.

But, as David notes, the problem is getting there. The Konrad Sauer Norris A6 copy that I regularly use on wildly figured woods has a mouth opening of 3 thousandths of an inch. Adjusting one of my Lie-Nielsens to that tolerance is well nigh impossible, to say nothing of the less-precisely machined antique Stanleys. My user experience is that the Sauer A6 will very reliably plane figured cherry, walnut and most mahogany without tear-out. The bevel-up Lie-Nielsen smoother honed at an equivalent attack angle of 55 degrees, and my bevel-down L-Ns are not nearly as reliable in performance.

However, on straight-grained woods, there's no difference that I can detect.

[Jim Koepke]

My first thought is that this will become a long thread.

My second thought is that the differences are a few very subtle things that make a lot of difference.

Many people feel a shaving in the 0.001" or less is useless. My question is usually, "what uses have they found for thicker shavings?"

An infill with a fixed mouth is usually set up to take a very fine shaving and will choke on a thick shaving.

For metallic planes, I have one #4 set up to take very fine shavings and another set up for heavier shavings.

The weight of an infill may have some effect. Mr. Hotely and other makers of metallics have made them with a bit more heft.

There are a few aesthetics that could be in the realm of the intangible.

My experience tells me the feel of the tool in my hand does influence my use of the tool. Many of my totes have been opened up a little for my hands. Any repairs are done more carefully than I used to do them. I do not like the feel of misaligned wood in my hands. Some of the infills look like my hand would not fit. Others look like they could be very comfortable in the hands.

At one time, I didn't refinish my planes. After a few needed a new paint job, the way they felt when used has me convinced that someday the time may be used to do a refinish on most of them.

Then there is resonance. A blade resting on wood is going to resonate in a plane differently than one resting on cast iron or bronze. The wood is more likely to dampen the vibrations. This could have an effect on chatter which in turn would have an effect on the finished surface.

As much talk as there is about shavings we sometimes forget the purpose of the plane is not to make shavings, but to find the surface that is waiting for us inside the wood.

jim

[Christian Castillo]

So far, from the many responses, what I am understanding is that all planes can in fact perform equal when optimally tuned, where infill planes may have an advantage is that historically. Infill planes were made to higher tolerances and a higher level of craftsmanship, not to say that there weren't any high quality wooden plane makers then and today. They are, more generally, the recipients a lot more "love and care" when perhaps other alternatives we're, generally, not created to the same level, but are certainly capable of being taken there. If all planes have the same attributes, fine tuning, setting, and user skill equal, then they are all able of exceptional performance. If I have misunderstood something, feel free to point it out, or if other people wish to add more information and opinion to my question, I appreciate the time taken to respond.

As a side thought, given the positive view of weight of the plane in performance, has anyone ever tried creating a wooden smoother plane with lead shot in the body, similar to how some people construct wooden mallets for weight and shock absorption? Jim, you mention vibration and I know that speaker stands for high-end audio are filled with lead shot to absorb vibration and not distort the sound. This sounds like it could be an interesting experiment.

[Michael Faurot]

I've read that the weight of the infill plane help it with difficult woods, but if this is the case, an equally heavy plane could be made from just metal, or wood if you make it huge.

To get more mass in a wooden plane, you don't necessarily need to make it huge. I've added more mass by way of lead[1].

[1]: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=961918

[Christian Castillo]

Haha what a coincidence, just when I edited my previous post to take into account my idea for lead, you post that you did it, great minds think alike. Regarding the lead question, would the plane have the biggest benefit by having the largest mass of lead behind the bed of the plane? It would be at the location for vibration dampening and centralizing of mass. I feel I'm entering into the realm of physics now and my last physics class was in high school .

[Johnny Kleso]

Are all planes, in equally capable hands, capable of identical performance? Thanks for your time, I appreciate all responses to this issue

YES..........................
(with the exception of high angle finish)

A good Craftsman doesn't blame his tools..

Is his job eaiser with quality tools YES...

The big thing of infills is not the weight but the blade angle that is often 5 to 10 degrees higher than a Stanley of Woody....

[David Weaver]

Another thing to think about is why they are generally made to a higher standard.

If you ever make a dovetailed infill plane, there is so much work in prepping the metal (especially if you use an annealed high carbon steel instead of mild steel or brass) and fitting the infills that the fact that you can spend a few hours getting the mouth and bed just right is trivial.

If you think about how a bench plane is made, and that its structure (the movable frog, minimal machining and a lot of castings) appears to generally be dictated by ease of manufacture after the first few types. The idea of spending that kind of time screwing around with the mouth on one of those planes is out of the question.

Summary of that babble being that I don't think there's a really cheap way to build an infill, but I have rarely seen or looked at any old ones I didn't make. I would assume castings are a good time saver, but there's still plenty of work left to do and you're still cutting and filing the mouth by hand or with a mill. Cheapest full-sized infill smoother now, is, I think one from st. james bay, and I think TFWW had one for about a $grand from ray iles (I don't know how it's constructed)

It's not *too* often that I need the mouth tightness that I've built into my own two planes (and a third soon), but it doesn't hurt to have it if you're not trying to force large shavings through it, and it takes the guesswork out of planing near joints where wood changes direction.

There are compromises for everything, though. I would imagine a bench plane with a 20 degree backbevel would probably do everything my 55 degree infills do.

My next one is a panel plane kit - the mouth will be a little larger, but very small by bench plane standards. It's either 45 or 47 1/2 degrees I think (never had to check since it came with the infills needing only sized for width and length) It'll be interesting to see how it performs compared to a bench plane at the same angle.

As easy as gray cast files, it'd be maybe instructive to mark and file one of the worn mouths on an old bench plane and then set the thing up with a sheet of office paper to see how it does. But file it just enough to get it in good shape - no need to hog it out and make it wide.

I think everyone who is a hand tool nut (and who has a machinist vise) should make at least one infill. Even if it's just a straight square sided block plane type of 55 degrees with a 1 1/2 inch iron. Even the little planes feel different.

[Michael Faurot]

Haha what a coincidence, just when I edited my previous post to take into account my idea for lead, you post that you did it, great minds think alike.

Regarding the lead question, would the plane have the biggest benefit by having the largest mass of lead behind the bed of the plane?

Honestly—I have no idea. When I made my plane, I just tried to fill the wooden body with as much lead as I could, both in front of and behind the blade.

[Ron Brese]

One thing that you shouldn't overlook when assessing the difference between infill planes, woodies and metal bodied planes is the fact that when an infill is assembled properly the entire plane becomes a unified mass. When it becomes a unified mass with precisely mated parts and then the lever cap (which is typically pretty massive) is tuned to fit the back of the iron quite precisely then only one element is missing and that is a very sharp edge on the iron. Mate all these components together and what you get is a tool where the only thing moving within the body of the plane is the shaving. The small size of the mouth creates a situation where the fibers being sheared are held quite tightly (this requires accuracy and a very flat sole) and therefore this plane will be able to perform on woods where others fail and given the mass will do this work with much less effort required on the part of the user.

This in a nutshell is the difference.

Now if you look at the stainless plane that I am presently producing you will see that it is not an infill, but has many of the advantages and features of an infill. The most notable being that the plate that beds the iron is integrated into the plane body by being securely and permanently attached to the plane sides and not sitting on the sole of the plane which would make it a frog in lieu of a bedding plate. This serves to unify the body very much like an infill. This plane also possesses mass and parts made quite precisely so that everything in the plane mates together very precisely and given the mass of the stainless body and the tightness of the mouth aperture will perform similar work in a similar way as the infill plane. It will feel a bit different in use but this is due to the fact that the iron is not bedded on wood as it would be in an infill configuration.

Ron Brese

[David Keller NC]

So far, from the many responses, what I am understanding is that all planes can in fact perform equal when optimally tuned, where infill planes may have an advantage is that historically. Infill planes were made to higher tolerances and a higher level of craftsmanship, not to say that there weren't any high quality wooden plane makers then and today. They are, more generally, the recipients a lot more "love and care" when perhaps other alternatives we're, generally, not created to the same level, but are certainly capable of being taken there. If all planes have the same attributes, fine tuning, setting, and user skill equal, then they are all able of exceptional performance. If I have misunderstood something, feel free to point it out, or if other people wish to add more information and opinion to my question, I appreciate the time taken to respond.

I think you're right about this with one qualification - at least in my experience, it's just not possible to fettle a Stanley or even a L-N to the level of a high quality infill. At least from the perspective of blade/mouth adjustment. Certainly one can flatten the sole to the same extent, but in my opinion, the inherent shortcoming of a movable frog in a Bailey b-d design, and the inherent amount of backlash (slop) required in the mounting/adjusting screws necessary to allow it to adjust rather than bind precludes getting the mouth down to a couple of thousandths. At least without a huge amount of fiddling.

And Ron is quite right about the integral nature of a correctly-made infill. Similar to a well-made wooden plane, absolutely nothign is moving except the shaving through the mouth. As much as I like and use my L-N planes, the same cannot be said for them - I can feel and hear vibration being transmitted through the plane.

But that vibration seems to make no difference whatsoever when planing with teh grain in straight-grained woods. It does seem to make a difference in my hands on highly figured woods, or when planing against the grain.

[David Keller NC]

Many people feel a shaving in the 0.001" or less is useless. My question is usually, "what uses have they found for thicker shavings?"

jim

Ha! Now THAT was funny!