Needing some advice on tear out

[Matt Ranum]

Need some words of wisdom from the brain trust here. I'm working on a curio cabinet that has some nice figured Oak in it and I wanted to try and limit my use of sandpaper and do as much the neanderthal way as I can. I took an old Bailey I had on the shelf that I hadn't done anything with since I bought it. I lapped the sole some and the sides, its not perfect but decent. Using the scary sharp method I flattened the back and polished to 1200 grit, primary bevel was done at 25* and then put a back bevel on it at 15* for about 1/64". I lapped the backside of the chip breaker and honed to 600 grit and the front of the chip breaker was honed to 600 grit as well. I put the chip breaker about 1/32" from the edge of the iron.

I attached some pictures of what I was trying the plane out on. The tiger Maple planed beautifully, shavings down to .0001, zero tear out, very impressed. The Oak piece you see is similar to what I am working with on the cabinet in question. I am still getting tear out on the Oak though. I have the frog moved as far forward as it will go, Depth of cut is very minimal and I skew the plane to about 45* while making the strokes.

What else can I do? Scraper?

[Don Dorn]

I'm sure there are many options, but mine would be to scrape (card scraper) the localized tearout, but feather it so you don't have a gouge in that area.

[David Weaver]

The chipbreaker needs to be set closer, that'll do it. Somewhere around 1/100th of an inch or just a little less and you'll get no tearout.

[Greg Wease]

First, 1200 grit is still a bit coarse, especially if it's really P1200. Second, you added a 15 deg back bevel to increase the cutting angle to 60 deg, then skewed the plane 45 deg which reduced the effective cutting angle down to 37.8 deg (per the chart on Ron Hock's site). A little counterproductive, don't you think?

[James Scheffler]

I did a project with quartersawn white oak. I wasn't able to get my Stanley No. 4 to plane it without tear out (like you, I found the same plane did fine with tiger maple. Go figure, no pun intended.). I ended up getting a No. 80 cabinet scraper, and that did the trick.

[Matt Ranum]

I'll try and set the chip breaker closer tomorrow and see what happens.

I skewed the plane to try and reduce the tearout I was getting while moving straight. It did help, counter productive? Doesn't appear to be. 1200 grit is as fine as I can get here in town.

May end up with a scraper.. we'll see.

[James Scheffler]

I'll try and set the chip breaker closer tomorrow and see what happens.

I skewed the plane to try and reduce the tearout I was getting while moving straight. It did help, counter productive? Doesn't appear to be. 1200 grit is as fine as I can get here in town.

May end up with a scraper.. we'll see.

Did you try an auto parts store? Around here they all seem to carry 1500 and 2000 grit.

[Matt Ranum]

No I didn't. I'll stop in and check the next time I get to town.

[Jim Koepke]

No I didn't. I'll stop in and check the next time I get to town.

Not all auto stores will carry the fine abrasive paper. You need to find those that carry auto painting/finishing supplies.

While you are in town, stop by a lapidary supply store (rock shop) and get some of their polishing supplies. They have green sticks used for polishing rocks that work on leather (or MDF or other substrates) as a strop for metal.

jtk

[Kees Heiden]

Setting the chipbreaker very close to the edge probably doesn't work with such a large backbevel. So I would remove the backbevel again. And indeed the blade needs to be sharper.

[Curt Putnam]

With your iron set for a 0.001 shaving, you can also wet the board with mineral spirits. Set the chipbreaker to 0.004 from the edge (as close to that as you can get. That's all I know that you can do mechanically.

Can you plane the opposite direction at the tearout points? I've got some figured (ribbon stripe) African mahogany and it simply impossible for me to plane, so I went the scraper route. That failed. My LN 102 seems to work so I'll suggest that you try things with a low angle plane. Failure at that point sent me to sandpaper. I'm not about to finish plane 16 blanket chest panels with an apron plane.

[David Paulsen]

I had a similar problem, and tried all the above on some nasty birch. If I almost didn't take a shaving, thin, I could get my #4 stanley to do it without the tear-out. But what really excelled at taking fine tear-out free shavings, was my regular block (not the low-angle block) plane set with a tight mouth. Never any problem for that one. Even as I used it a lot, and the iron got a bit dull, It would still perform flawlessly. If it was the bevel up thing that did the trick I don't know... But now I have my tiniest plane on the highest of pedestals. Hope you will give your block plane a try

[Joe E Harris]

Toothing blade and card scraper work great for tough grain.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Matt

Your plane is set up for a 60 degree cutting angle. At this angle there is no reason to fear most gnarly woods, and in fact the size of the mouth is irrelevant.

The problem is simple - your blade is dull. 1200 grit (diamond stone?) is far off what you need, which is a about 6000 grit (waterstone) at the minimum (and 8000 is better).

The question is why the tiger maple planed so well?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Matt Ranum]

Lots of food for thought here. Thanks everyone! I happen to remember that I do have some polishing compounds in the shop, from when I was making aluminum pens on the lathe. I'll have to see what I have for sure but I know I have some red rouge, white and tripoli, not sure on the green though.

Derek- The 60 degree angle is what I was aiming for. I happen to have a gift card for Woodcraft (given to me from SWMBO) and was going to pick up a water stone but now they all seem to be back ordered. It is on the agenda though.