Preventing "crowning/rounding" with hand plane on edge of board

[John W Henderson]

Hi,


I was planing some boards about 1" thick to get ready for gluing them and was incredibly frustrated at my attempts to use a hand plane. I'm quite a beginner at using one and this was my first "real" project with it. I've done what I can to learn about truing them up -- the sole is flat, I've honed the blade on a stone and even stropped it (can cut hairs).

It removes shavings beautifully... which made me think I was doing well, but I noticed two things:

- the middle of the board tends to be lower than either edge (thinking that my pressure must be low when getting it started, build to the middle, and then taper off at the end again)

- the edges aren't flat. They're high in the middle and lower on either side. Crowned or rounded convexly if that makes sense.

Are there tricks to keeping the blade nice and flat? I'm finding it difficult on something so narrow where there is little for the sole to rest on. I resorted to recutting with my table saw and dealing with the imperfections.


Best regards,
John

[Maurice Metzger]

John, I wouldn't worry too much about the middle of the board being slightly lower than the ends - some people do that intentionally, they plane a 'spring' in the middle to counteract the tendency of the ends to dry out first.

One thing you might try to keep the edges square - hold the front of the plane with your thumb hooked on top of the plane next to the front knob and your fingers curled underneath touching both the bottom of the plane and the side of the board - it's surprising how much your hand can sense squareness.

[Cody Colston]

Since this is "General Woodworking and Power Tools" I'd suggest using a jointer.

[David Weaver]

You might want to post this downstairs.

You would be well served to buy "the essential woodworker" by robert wearing. There are a lot of instructional videos that stretch out the material in it and present it in pieces.

You will probably have to practice some if you're going to joint single edges. If your boards are 1" thick, and your iron straight across, you can put the boards together in a vise and plane the edges of both at once. Whatever they are out of square will complement each other. Not something you can do with thick boards, but if you're using 4/4 stock and a reasonably large plane, that will make your life easier.

If your boards are hollow in their length, some of that is fine, if they are too hollow, make sure you take full shavings through the length of the boards. If your cut is not that deep and the plane long enough, you should not have a hollow that doesn't easily go together with hand pressure.

[John W Henderson]

Thanks all.

- Maurice: I'll try the "fingers" trick.

- Cody: Believe me, I wish I had a jointer or planer

- David: awesome point about stacking them next to each other. Did not think of that! Thanks for the purchase suggestion. That sounds great.

[John Coloccia]

The "fingers" trick works very well. One thing to realize about hand tools is they don't always work automatically like you might think. For example, it's not unusually when using planes to have to work a little bit on just on piece of the board instead of taking full length strokes. Develop solid mechanics, but don't get so hung up on them that you miss some obvious solutions. If one end is too high, or it's too high in the middle for example, plane a little bit more in the middle, and then take some full length strokes as final cleanup.

[lowell holmes]

http://www.blip.tv/file/4269412
http://www.blip.tv/file/4233719


View the videos at the attached links. I think you will find it helpful. Robert is a star and his fame is rising.

[Lee Schierer]

Hand planing takes practice. You also need to insure your plane is set up properly and the blade is sharpened so the cutting edge is straight not rounded. I use the scary sharp method with sandpaper mounted on a 3/8" thick glass plate. It has worked wonders for my planing skills. Grab a parafin (note beeswax won't work as well) candle and run a squiggle (technical term for wiggly line) down the sole of the plane before planing and the plane will slide much more smoothly and you won't leave any residue on the wood that is harmful. Try cutting very thin shavings (.003 or thinner) and check your work frequently with a good square. Your grip on the plane and stance are important for good results. You need to make long continuous cuts. For jointing edges you need a longer base (jointing) plane instead of a small hand plane.

You can get excellent advice on the hand tools forum from some real experts.

[John W Henderson]

@John: indeed... I tried not to do so and would revisit the middle to flatten it out but found it very difficult to eliminate. I also had a few boards where the grain seemed to switch directions right near an end, which made it difficult to treat all the length evenly.

@lowell: those were fantastic. Definitely filing away for future reference. #27 "Flat and Square" was particularly helpful.

@Lee: great points. Yes, my use of a block plane was probably not the best. Mostly that's what I've got, though Pretty new so my arsenal isn't really where I'd like it. Checking with a square frequently was probably my biggest fault. I was mainly checking thickness with a dial caliper on both sides (to check for "slope") but that wasn't helping me catch the crowning and I wasn't looking down the board that often to catch it. Checking frequently to catch mistakes soon enough to correct them seems like the way to go.

Thanks again.
John