Kezuroukai, Planing Competition Finals 2012

[Paul Joynes]

[Kees Heiden]

Must be fun. 9 microns is pretty thin. For metrical challenged woodworkers, that's about 0.3 of 1 tau of an inch. I've read several times that the record is 3 microns! That makes me wonder, how thick is an Alaskan yellow ceder wood cell? I've been googling but couldn't really find an answer.

[ian maybury]

Less than half a thousandth of an inch.

It's brings to mind and is certainly a pretty conclusive riposte to the service guy from the machinery manufacturer who (under pressure) set out to persuade you that you are off your rocker (and by implication being unfair to them) for getting stroppy when you find e.g. your new planer thicknesser can't be set up to within a couple of thou - because the tables are 0.012in out of flat or something. (which somehow according to their manual manages to be 'within the manufacturer's specification')

That as the stock story they trot out often goes: 'wood is a natural material that moves all over the place anyway. It's not realistic to seek to work it with those accuracies.'

For sure that's an amazingly fine cut, and it's not always needed to work to that sort of accuracy. It's pretty clear that many joints in fine woodworking routinely achieve this sort of accuracy though - if nothing else by creeping up on fits. That if your dimensioned stock is way out that it's going to cause some problems.

The wood moves subsequently, but of course the point of good design is that this movement is accommodated without gaps opening up...

ian

[Matthew N. Masail]

Ian makes a good point. but as far as the competition goes, and I might get bashed for saying this - It's one of the dumbest things I have
ever seen.

[Chris Griggs]

Cool. I've always wanted to see what goes on inside a traditional japanese toilet paper factory!

[ian maybury]

Loo paper! It wouldn't necessarily be my scene either Matthew (making a competitive sport out of planing - but then the attendance seem to be very much of a certain age), but it sure highlights what's possible...

ian

[Charlie Stanford]

Ian makes a good point. but as far as the competition goes, and I might get bashed for saying this - It's one of the dumbest things I have
ever seen.

Amen, brother.

[Jeff Heath]

Amen, brother.

No amens, but I'll triple that thought. I don't get the point, but if they're having fun, then so be it.

Jeff

[Joel Moskowitz]

I'm curious,
something I don't understand.

Wood is basically cells of wood all arranged. practically this means that if you slice off a shaving you get a cross section of cell walls and a lot of air.
Now supposing you take a really fine shaving and then put a thickness gauge on it to measure the shaving, won't the vertical walls of the cell, which are even in a fine shaving, thinner than they are tall, fall over? or at least buckle a lot?
So are those contest folks measuring the thickness of the shaving, or at some point of thinness what you actually are measuring is the thickness of a compressed cell wall or a cell wall on its side?
Certainly - if they are it would explain why the shavings while transparent aren't so much more transparent than a very thin, shaving in the sub thou of an inch world.

[Wilbur Pan]

I'm curious,
something I don't understand.

Wood is basically cells of wood all arranged. practically this means that if you slice off a shaving you get a cross section of cell walls and a lot of air.
Now supposing you take a really fine shaving and then put a thickness gauge on it to measure the shaving, won't the vertical walls of the cell, which are even in a fine shaving, thinner than they are tall, fall over? or at least buckle a lot?
So are those contest folks measuring the thickness of the shaving, or at some point of thinness what you actually are measuring is the thickness of a compressed cell wall or a cell wall on its side?
Certainly - if they are it would explain why the shavings while transparent aren't so much more transparent than a very thin, shaving in the sub thou of an inch world.

Although those 9 micron shavings undoubtedly have air spaces in them, the air spaces are all distributed evenly across the width of the shaving, not the thickness of the shaving. These shavings are so thin that compression of the shaving across its thickness means trying to compress individual bundles of cellulose/lignin/pectin, which is going to be really hard to do.

[Kees Heiden]

Although those 9 micron shavings undoubtedly have air spaces in them, the air spaces are all distributed evenly across the width of the shaving, not the thickness of the shaving. These shavings are so thin that compression of the shaving across its thickness means trying to compress individual bundles of cellulose/lignin/pectin, which is going to be really hard to do.

This comes back to my question early in this thread. How thick is a woodcell? A bit of searching makes me blieve 20 micro is a rather typical cell diameter, so they are planing les then a woocell. So you have to look at the woodcell walls, which meassure more in the 1 micro range. Sure, I am just googling a round a bit, but it does make me wonder, what the heck are these super thin shavings? Layers of wood cell walls I guess with not much air anymore.

[Wilbur Pan]

This comes back to my question early in this thread. How thick is a woodcell? A bit of searching makes me blieve 20 micro is a rather typical cell diameter, so they are planing les then a woocell. So you have to look at the woodcell walls, which meassure more in the 1 micro range. Sure, I am just googling a round a bit, but it does make me wonder, what the heck are these super thin shavings? Layers of wood cell walls I guess with not much air anymore.

Pretty much. Thin sheets of various polysaccharides.

The numbers that you have for the thickness of a plant cell and the cell wall are pretty good. The exact number depends on the species, especially for the diameter of the cell. Plant cells are almost never spherical, so it also depends on which way you are measuring the cell.

[Joel Moskowitz]

Although those 9 micron shavings undoubtedly have air spaces in them, the air spaces are all distributed evenly across the width of the shaving, not the thickness of the shaving. These shavings are so thin that compression of the shaving across its thickness means trying to compress individual bundles of cellulose/lignin/pectin, which is going to be really hard to do.

I think i get it. Sorry for the confusion. My problem was that I was thinking that a micron is smaller than it is.
9µ = 0.00035433in which is thin and impressive at that length but not something I can't envision.

[david charlesworth]

Joel,

I too spent some considerable time working out what 9 microns is in English money. 0.4 of a thousandth of an inch is pretty impressive, but I hope we are all familiar with a 1 thou" shaving?

Using English Sycamore and a tuned up Stanley 5 1/2, I reckon I can get 0.6 of a thou.

best wishes,
David

[Joel Moskowitz]

David,
That's my point. A sub thousand shaving from a Well tuned Stanley plane and a very sharp iron isn't that hard to do. If you hollowed the sole of your plane and pulled a few other tricks planing a sub thou shaving for eight or so feet would also be pretty doable. Of course that would make the plane useless for actual woodworking.
I think there is a fair amount of skill in getting a wooden plane to make a sub thou shaving full width six of eight feet long, especially so in a contest environment. but it's not magic or anything you or anyone else who is skilled could not do if you put your mind to it.