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Thread: A chip breaker reminder

  1. #1
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    A chip breaker reminder

    I have seen on the blog of a well known woodworking personality that he seems to have discovered that the chip breaker is indeed a functional item,and made it an article on his blog. Formerly,he had not seen its usefulness,apparently.

    He does mention in the body of the writing: "After recent discussions of the Japanese film"(words to that effect,at least),he has learned the usefulness of the chip breaker. No names are mentioned,and that statement is rather brief.

    I would like to remind everyone that it was David Weaver here who brought the Japanese film to our attention on SMC. I just want to make sure that credit is given where it is due. David does not have a blog,and that is a handicap to those of us who do not,or choose to not have one. I don't feel that I am currently active enough to have a blog.

    I learned a lot myself from David's presentation of this material. Formerly,I had used mostly single iron antique planes,which were the norm in the 18th.C.(except for late in the period). I'd used other dodges to get around tearing,such as planing curly maple directly across the grain with a very sharp iron, sharpening to a higher angle at the cutting edge,or other methods. So,I found David's info,and the film very useful.

    I am glad to see that apparently David's thread and subsequent discussions have been educational to all,even some of the "gurus" among us
    Last edited by george wilson; 12-13-2012 at 10:31 AM.

  2. #2
    And credit should go directly to Bill Tindall for all of the technical information, and Warren Mickley for telling us for years that if you can't use a common pitch plane to smooth a board with through strokes (no skewing, wetting, etc..) then you haven't mastered the double iron.

    We all fought it for a long time, I did, too. But warren is right. Warren doesn't always get a lot of respect from us, maybe because he's subtle, but he should.

    Kees was doing the same thing at the same time, before any bloggers brought anything up. Kees, Chris and I were talking about it and then Bill and I were talking about how to get marching orders to people to use it since we were vexed by Warren's explanation that "it's subtle", a craftsman like warren won't have to think about what he's doing. For the rest of us, the advice is easy.

    I'd suspect that there's going to be all kinds of disinformation and misinformation about how to use the cap iron, the flow of beginners never stops. But credit guys like Warren, and credit to information miners like Bill Tindall. 10 years from now, we'll probably end up going through the same iteration again.

    Use your stock vintage cap irons at their stock angle, hone the others at 45 degrees or 50 degrees, 80 degrees isn't needed. Warren has said the same, I believe - that he didn't recall having to do much with cap irons. Warren's comments are the gold standard for double iron use and its effectiveness, and should be valued above anything anyone else says.

    Forum discussion is where the specifics of all of this originated, and it's where everyone picked up on it at first. The value of the open forum discussions should be credited for its re-discovery and practical use for amateurs on a wide basis. If rebroadcast is made describing the process as fiddly or difficult, it's just wrong. It's easier to learn to set the cap iron properly than it is to learn to sharpen properly.

    George, you made an influential comment, too. When I said that setting a cap iron was difficult if you're talking about some thousandths of an inch, you said "it's really not that hard".

    I do wish warren would participate more in discussions here, he has a lot of advice just like georges - the result of professional experience and diligent research over decades. I've argued with warren a lot only to end up on the wrong side of correct in the end. At least that made it so I knew enough not to argue with george!

  3. #3
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    No need to say for sure, but I assume you're talking about the Schwarz. I noticed that change in his opinion on this matter too. He was formally fairly anti CB, until Dave started posting about CBs in just about every post and then wrote an excellent online article on the subject.

    Did anyone else happen to notice that in his response to FWW "Every Handplane Needs a Tuneup" video, Schwarz made a point of saying that when he sets up a new plane the CB should be no more than .005" from the edge? That's Mr. Weavers influence, which I thought was cool. It was great reminder of how many folks really read these forums.

    I'm glad that this is something that Schwarz in behind now. I like his blog, and think he provides a lot of good advice for amateurs/hobbiests (like myself), and I think this is a technique a lot more newbs will be exposed to now. That said, I would like to see him post a link to Dave's article. Dave certainly didn't invent the technique, but he most certainly brought it back to life for a generation of woodworkers who largely really on the internet and other multimedia to learn the craft.
    Last edited by Chris Griggs; 12-13-2012 at 10:54 AM.

  4. #4
    The whole exchange smoked out Mark Hennebury, too, who knows a lot more about chipbreakers than a lot of us do. Mark may have also had the videos in hand - he could've been who Bill was talking to, and he certainly had the technical information about the cap iron because the super surfacers (which are a specialty good of his) put the cap iron in use on a power tool basis, and extremely effectively. I'd assume there are gobs of guys like him who don't frequent these forums who have dead on advice that all of us could benefit from.

    But for sure, without Bill's digging, I'd just have claims, Kees too.

    (I think .005" is a little close as a starting point, but it's better than saying they don't work at all!!)

    Maybe one day, we'll have a planing challenge at one of the woodworking shows. I sort of disappointed my own efforts of making planes when I found that my $11 millers falls smoother could hang with and in some cases better the 55 degree infill that I had made with a 3-4 thousandth mouth, especially once the irons aren't freshly sharp.

    I have followed warren's advice, and have been able to plane probably a dozen large panels with nothing but through strokes, regardless of grain orientation, and the spiers panel plane copy that I had became instantly more satisfying to use when I could eliminate tearout caused by low quality wood (i.e., when you get cherry from a mill and some parts of it at a glue seam seem to run different directions, and up from the glue seam the wood seems to run in the same direction).

  5. #5
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    "It's not really that hard" What a magnificent bit that was which I contributed!!!!

    I know there are OTHER BLOGGERS who take older information and try to make it their own. Seems if you don't have a blog,or a good way to self promote yourself,a guy could get taken advantage of!!

  6. #6
    Add steve elliot to bill tindall. I almost forgot that steve and bill were digging as a curious pair.

    I don't make any money off of anything, so nobody can really take advantage of me, but I sure wish most folks would take advantage of the real experts on the forums (which definitely isn't me, but you, warren and mark could definitely count as such) to get advice. The forums are what we make of them, and it does no service to any of us for people to rebut someone like warren without knowing how valuable is comments are. I had to learn it the hard way. If the experts offer experienced advice, and everyone ignores it, how long can we expect them to be around? We've seen *many* come and go because people would effectively rather hear classical music played by liberace than Vladimir Horowitz.

    The article we wrote was a collaborative effort, and nobody really wanted to do it. I didn't want to do it (my only expertise is in spending money on sharpening stones), but at the origination of this whole topic in early 2012 (march/april) we felt like if we sat around too long, the fruits of our experimentation would be wasted if the ultimate conclusion is "it's too hard to use the cap iron properly" or if people were running around putting 80 degree bevels on a cap iron and setting it close, only to smash a the shaft of a chip back into a softwood board, leaving clear evidence that the grain was crushed.
    Last edited by David Weaver; 12-13-2012 at 11:13 AM.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post

    I think .005" is a little close as a starting point, but it's better than saying they don't work at all!!
    I may have misquoted exactly what the distance was, I don't remember exactly what he said. He may have just said something like "a few thou from the edge" or "5-10 thou" - I don't recall exactly. It was just fun to see him make a point of mentioning it.

    Once you get used to setting he CB and looking for that tiny line of reflection is gets amazingly easy to set it too close. I still frequently set it too close and need to go back and back it up a bit. My favorite use of the CB has been on jointers. With my smoother where I'm taking thin shaving I don't really need to set the CB close for most the woods I work (though I do anyway). Being able to do it right on a jointer though can save a good bit of work when you are taking moderate shavings against the grain or in woods with some figure. I now get most or all of my tearout gone with my jointer, so there is very little work to do with the smoother. For referance, I don't work crazy difficult woods, but what I have said has very recently worked for me on birdseye maple and heavily figured swirls of walnut.

    EDIT: Just found the spot in the video... He says "I'm going to try and get it as absolutely close as I can. For a smoother that's 5 or 6 thousands away...."


    I have no idea how close mine is usually. I'd say more than 1 sheet of paper... maybe about 2 sheets or so. So I guess that's about 8 thou - rough guess, I could be way off. Probably more for my jointers since I'm taking thicker shavings.
    Last edited by Chris Griggs; 12-13-2012 at 12:12 PM.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by george wilson View Post
    I don't feel that I am currently active enough to have a blog.
    George - I'm afraid you're being overly modest -- at the risk of sounding like a sycophant, I think it's safe to say that your offhanded observations are worth more than the accumulated writings of a hundred no-name bloggers. The way I see it, you could update it once a month with whatever topic struck your fancy. And then too, there's that whole preservation-for-posterity thing.
    Last edited by Joe Bailey; 12-13-2012 at 12:19 PM.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    I do wish warren would participate more in discussions here, he has a lot of advice just like georges - the result of professional experience and diligent research over decades. I've argued with warren a lot only to end up on the wrong side of correct in the end. At least that made it so I knew enough not to argue with george!

    Yes, that's a good point. Who do you listen to in these forums? In the past I also though Warren was just an old curmudgeon. He can be very terse in his writings, which makes it difficult to understand the message.

    There are other people on forums who I first thought were idiots (well sometimes everybody is an idot of course), but when you dig a little deeper you find a wealth of experience. Often the message is about keeping it simple and not buying every shiny new woodworking tool available. Make your current tools work for you, practice, use them in real life. That's how you advance.

    Lately I have mostly done odd jobs around the house, so not really much planing of wood. But I've practiced a lot of sawing on all kinds of these jobs, which isn't bad either.


    PS: I don't think CS ever claimed to have invented any of these old woodworking techniques. He is usually pretty honest about his source.
    Last edited by Kees Heiden; 12-13-2012 at 1:46 PM.

  10. #10
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    Regardless of your religious or woodworking-dogma affiliations, I think the Buddha said it best:

    "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense"

    If you don't have enough experience to evaluate something, and instead rely on the words of others to make your decisions for you, you are in serious trouble. Everyone needs enough experience to have a "BS meter" for everything in life. So much of what we are subjected to on forums is pure BS, but too many readers don't have the experience to know it when they smell... err... read it. There's an old phrase, something, something from Shinola that applies to a lot of questions.
    Your endgrain is like your bellybutton. Yes, I know you have it. No, I don't want to see it.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Kees Heiden View Post

    PS: I don't think CS ever claimed to have invented any of these old woodworking techniques. He is usually pretty honest about his source.
    I don't think he did, either, they seem to be getting attributed to him by other people. AT the time we were playing our games, Chris was telling everyone to set the chipbreaker back out of the way, Rob Cosman described (in video) the chipbreaker as nothing more than something to hold the blade and "don't let anyone tell you any different". David Charlesworth (I am a big fan of David, by the way) had provided instruction to add a steep back bevel to a plane, and several professional makers had said there was no way to finish wood other than to plane it, scrape it and Sand it. I have no favor for the last two, and Warren described sanding as something necessary if you don't know how to plane wood, turn on a lathe, etc.

    I'd like people to recognize that this came about as a result of collective forum discussion and not by experimentation elsewhere, that's all.

    My personal want to figure out what warren claimed is that I still dimension everything by hand. When you do that, you can work quickly IF you can plane to a line with fairly coarse shavings that don't create tearout. There should be no reason I can't take a large panel of cherry (maybe something 15x40) that's been glued up and work both sides, first side to flat and the second one to a thickness line. It has proven hugely useful for that, and ultimately universally useful for everything but the coarsest of work (where you should be planing with or across the grain, anyway).

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zach Dillinger View Post

    So much of what we are subjected to on forums is pure BS, but too many readers don't have the experience to know it when they smell... err... read it. There's an old phrase, something, something from Shinola that applies to a lot of questions.
    I think a lot of what happens on forums is the blind leading the blind. After a while you stop starting every post with "I'm no expert but..." and if you're posting a lot I think a lot of people just assume you know what your talking about. As I became a frequent poster here, I started to see things I would say would influence someone else, and while one novice can certainly learn something from another novice and while I think I have some worthwhile experience to share, I definitely have times where I realize that my fairly limited experience could very well come off as tried and true advice.

    Again, I think one novice can certainly give another novice great advice - sometimes someone who most recently struggled to learn something is a better teacher than someone who mastered it years ago. That said, having realized that I've been posting here a while not and post fairly often, I've been trying to make a point to caveat my level knowledge again, in case there are folks out there who come here for the first time and think that 1,500 posts someone equates to having completed 1,500 projects. Obviously it doesn't, but I think that's something that's easy to overlook when you are new the the forum circuit.

  13. #13
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    I didn't say CS claimed the info as his own,but I'd liked to have had it known that David brought this up months ago,before everyone forgets. It was a memorable thread,and useful info was learned. Speaking of credit, in a Pop Woodworking article,it was said that the blacksmith shop made the plane irons for the planes in Wmsbg. shops,but "other artisans" made the wooden bodies. It was explained to me that there wasn't space to say "the toolmakers. Well,there are 13 letters and one space in each name,and most of the work in making solid(mortised out) planes is in the wooden parts.

    I'd like to have credit given,too. After all,those many dozens of planes didn't hop onto the 16' bench. If you spent months making a few of these batches of planes,wouldn't you want credit too if mentioned in a magazine?



    Sorry for the sideways picture. I don't feel like going way back and rotating it.
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    Last edited by george wilson; 12-13-2012 at 2:46 PM.

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    Yeah, he certainly did not claim to invent it. I hope it didn't seem like I was implying that either. Like George, I just hope everyone reads Dave's article over on that other forum (is it on Woodcentral?). Who knows, maybe CS hasn't even seen that article. He might have just noticed that people were talking about this on the forums and decided to start messing with it again himself. Either way, if he does see the article I think it would be very cool of him to post a link on his blog.

  15. #15
    It's woodcentral. I doubt too many people have seen it. I think it's a TOS violation to link it directly, and besides, it's a bit dry for someone who isn't intending to use it to apply the cap iron. Anyone can find it on google by searching "setting a cap iron".

    I learned that any article is a collaborative effort by writing that, and though I wrote the article, I wanted to make sure that we start out crediting Bill and Steve for actually digging up scientific proof for something we argued about for so long. Ellis will want to kill me for saying this, but I regret that I didn't take the pictures, I couldn't get good ones and I was too lazy to try. (ellis wouldn't kill anyone, he's a nice guy). We had discussions to extreme minutiae, all the way down to whether or not showing still a little bit of tearout in the second picture was OK. I shoot for none, but even if someone else shoots for a big reduction, I guess that's OK.

    To describe the benefits, though, ellis had only played a little bit with a cap iron and got that much improvement right away. I don't know how much he normally hand planes. He is excellent with editing something like that and pointing out how it should read so that it can be understood.
    Last edited by David Weaver; 12-13-2012 at 2:46 PM.

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