Plane making - wood body

[Bill Brush]

Ok, so I am an unapologetic tinkerer, and my brain is currently orbiting around my desire for more wood planes. A horrible problem I know. I am almost convinced I can make myself that moving fillister plane, but I should probably start with something easier.

Now my question is a little more basic. For making wood bodied planes, the traditional choice is beech. I have seen people mention cherry, or any fruit wood. Normally 8/4 is the mentioned thickness and quarter-sawn.

So here's my question. Is there a mechanical, design, or performance reason to not glue up the plane body from smaller stock? Typically a laminate is stronger, more stable, etc (ala plywood), but I've never seen a reference to it.

How does walnut perform for a wood body plane? I have a local source of it that's ridiculously cheap, so it's my go-to wood for projects. I think I can get some cherry and it's probably 4/4 flat-sawn, so I'd have to glue up a blank.

Thanks!

[David Weaver]

You can make an acceptable plane with a lot of things (maple, cherry, walnut, etc), but if you're going to go to the trouble of doing it, you owe it to yourself to use quartered american or european beech.

When you work it for a plane (presuming you'll be doing the work by hand) and find how it works despite its density and hardness, you'll just think "aha....I get it".

You can make a plane with laminated wood, too, but the same thing applies - if you're going to go to the trouble...

All of that said, starting off with a moving fillister, which should have a skewed iron, is a tall order. Make yourself a squared rabbet plane or something first.

The corner of a moving fillister plane takes some wear. If you make one out of soft wood like walnut or cherry, you'll want to box the corner. quartered beech can be had from a seller named "mr lumber" on ebay. He has supplied it to professional makers, but last time he delivered wood to me, he was retiring to sell little bits here and there on ebay, etc. ( he used to deliver a variety of woods to W. PA every couple of months).

[Mike Holbrook]

Steve Knight put a few kits together for me just before he closed up shop. He suggested purple heart. Many here will tell you it is a very hard wood to work, but the toughness helps long term if you have the patience for working it. Since Steve rough cut my purple heart on a CNC machine it wasn't a big issue for me. Blum Tool works is big on Mesquite for planes. One of the reasons these two woods are popular has to do with how little movement the wood has after it is made into a plane.

[Derek Cohen]

"Tradition" is probably not why Beech was chosen over the years. It is more likely to be a result of availability, first, and its qualities second. That it is a good choice is not in question, but whether it is the economical or best choice is.

Beech is not easily available in Australia. I have built one plane (a jack) from US Mesquite, and this had worked well for me but, understandably, I prefer to use local hardwoods. A priority is stability. Hardness comes with the territory. There are plenty of Jarrah offcuts in my scrap bin (it is harder than Mesquite), and this is a wood that has worked for me time-and-again. Interestingly, Ron Hock supplies it in his plane kit, so I guess he agrees and can get hold of it in the US. Another option?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Turner]

You have hit upon one of the main philosophy differences between two of the present and popular plane makers here in the USA. Tod Herrli, in his side escapement plane construction DVD, advocates that laminated plain sawn beech is an acceptable alternative. He laminates the plain sawn material and then rips pieces of quarter sawn blocks from the blank. Larry Williams of Old Street Tool says that the differential shrinkage between the laminations will constantly change the plane body and cause a lot of rework of the blade profile.

Matt Bickford, a protégé of the Old Street Tool training was not able to find acceptable quarter sawn beech when he started so he used (successfully) quarter sawn cherry. Matt still offers cherry along with beech as an option.

My experience with walnut leads me to believe it would not last in the long term. I have made a number of walnut body planes but always laminated a beech, cherry or persimmon bottom for better wear characteristics.

David Turner
Plymouth, MI.

[george wilson]

We sawed 5000 bd. ft. of beech for our toolmaking shop. It was the only way we could get it,and have the grain oriented correctly. We had to copy 18th. C. planes accurately. However,I think hard maple is a much better wood as far as wear is concerned. Beech was common and cheap. Beech does not evenly turn well,leaving a hairy surface. It is also one of the LEAST stable woods I have ever had to work with. It twists badly even after several years of air drying.

[Jack Curtis]

Those who know say that live oak is the only acceptable north american for making Japanese dai. I haven't had to try this yet, still have more Japanese oak than I've been able to use; but when I run out, live oak is it. I suppose it might be a good idea to put some up to dry real soon now.

Anyhow, it certainly would be hard and stable enough for western style planes; and it's freely available in the southern central plains, piles of these trees are cut down by city workers/contractors.

[David Weaver]

Beech would be better riven than sawn, because of what george says (if it's not sawn directly with the grain along its length simulating how it would come off of a log if it were riven, it can still move, even if it's dead quartered).

When it is sawn straight and dead quartered, it's reasonably stable, but even more so if you acclimate it to your shop and make your own planes. Of the dead quartered wood that I got, even though it was kiln dried, some of it still moved. Apple is a lot the same. They work so well with hand tools and so smoothly, though, that they're worth the effort.

If I had the need, I wouldn't be afraid to make a dai with riven or perfectly sawn beech, or any quartered beech if it was in a stable environment. I did make a maple dai, but it's a good bit more chippy than beech. Live oak is probably desirable to the japanese makers because it resembles white oak to some extent. Beech would be fine if it was sawn properly, but it's probably easier to get japanese white oak here than it is to get beech sawn the way you'd want it to be sawn (and the white oak that's sold as blanks is already dry).

[Bill Brush]

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

In some ways I'm more confused than ever, but I will probably power through despite that.

I have been spending some quality time at the wood database and I think I have the beginnings of a plan.

I am going to accept that walnut is probably not the best choice among my available options, as it is softer than beech although how cherry works I don't know since it's softer than walnut.

Beech doesn't grow around here, so my wood supplier won't have any, however, a couple of other options he probably will have. (He mills trees people are going to trash, so basically if it doesn't grow with 100 miles of me, he doesn't have it.) Those being Ash and Maple. Ash is very close to Beech in most metrics, but appears to have a coarser grain. Maple is harder, but has a grain closer to Beech. Both are more stable than Beech as far as shrinkage (according to the wood database).

I found one commercial planemaker who uses Ash and the reviews are fairly good. There's another using maple, also with good reviews, so I'm probably safe with either. I just need to go visit my supplier and find out what he's got available. I think I'll be leaning towards maple as he's more likely to have a good supply of that.

So would most varieties of oak be too porous for the job? I know he's got a lot of oak, but I don't know what variety.

[Steve Voigt]

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

In some ways I'm more confused than ever, but I will probably power through despite that.

I have been spending some quality time at the wood database and I think I have the beginnings of a plan.

I am going to accept that walnut is probably not the best choice among my available options, as it is softer than beech although how cherry works I don't know since it's softer than walnut.

Beech doesn't grow around here, so my wood supplier won't have any, however, a couple of other options he probably will have. (He mills trees people are going to trash, so basically if it doesn't grow with 100 miles of me, he doesn't have it.) Those being Ash and Maple. Ash is very close to Beech in most metrics, but appears to have a coarser grain. Maple is harder, but has a grain closer to Beech. Both are more stable than Beech as far as shrinkage (according to the wood database).

I found one commercial planemaker who uses Ash and the reviews are fairly good. There's another using maple, also with good reviews, so I'm probably safe with either. I just need to go visit my supplier and find out what he's got available. I think I'll be leaning towards maple as he's more likely to have a good supply of that.

So would most varieties of oak be too porous for the job? I know he's got a lot of oak, but I don't know what variety.

Starting with the Wood Database is the right way to go. As you have probably figured out, you are looking for something that is (1) diffuse porous, (2) fine grained, (3) hard, (4) stable. Other criteria, such as workability, price, aesthetics, and availability also come into play.
Of the species you listed, hard maple fulfills the above criteria best. Plus, George recommended it, and he's been around the block a couple times.
However, it should also be apparent that almost all woods are a compromise. For example, beech is not very stable, and plenty of woods are harder. I suspect that workability, aesthetics, and price had a lot to do with its acceptance as "the" plane wood. So, if you want to try ash or white oak, try them. White oak would make a nice fore/jack in my opinion, but the coarse, ring-porous grain may cause problems if you're trying to make a smoother with a fine mouth. But even there, you could inset a wear plate of something more fine-grained.
The thing is, a wood plane is rarely as permanent an object as a metal plane. It has a shelf life, and if you don't like it or it wears out, you can always pull the blade and make another body. There's nothing wrong with experimenting.
Regarding cherry and walnut, they can both work great with planes that have boxed or applied soles. I know some people use them unboxed, especially cherry, for moulding planes, but there's an expectation that the sole of the moulding plane won't see as much wear as a bench or fillister plane, because you're roughing out the prolfile with a rabbet plane, and only using the moulder for the last little bit of material.

[David Weaver]

Bill, of the woods you mentioned, I'd use maple. Chiseling and floating splintery open pored oak will leave you wanting some. Even at that, maple is more splintery than oak, and if you're cutting the mouth mortise, etc by hand, it's easier to be successful with beech. But maple works fine.

You can make a decent plane with any of them, but maple would be my preference of what you've listed if beech is out of the question (actually, I wouldn't even know where to get a 4x4 beech blank that would be guaranteed to be sawn along the length of the grain perfectly).

[Steve Voigt]

Yeah, so getting back to planes: does anybody have experience using padauk for a plane body?
My next tool project is a fore plane, and I have a nice chunk of padauk that's just the right size. In theory, it should work well: according to wood database, it's the exact same weight as beech, but harder (1970 Janka) and a lot more stable. The only drawback is the coarse grain structure, but mouth size is irrelevant in a fore.
My main concern is, I'm not sure it's as hard as advertised. And since it's a fore, I'll be using it on rough, gritty lumber, and I want it to hold up. My other choice is a chunk of jatoba, which is a LOT harder, but also a lot heavier.
I suppose I could take my own advice and use hard maple, but I don't have any, and it's surprisingly hard to get a decent piece of dry 12/4 locally.
Appreciate any thoughts.

[David Weaver]

padauk would be fine. I wouldn't go any harder if you're making it by hand because chopping the mortise for a fore plane, smoother, whatever is a serious amount of work and it's easy to overcut some part of the mortise below the surface and have to start on a new chunk.

I think splintery woods probably make fine planes. There are plenty of old craftsman made white oak planes, but the trouble is unsightly splintering when your rapsing a tote, cutting out the mouth, etc. It's not uncommon to have a splinter rip out a half inch long. Maple is a little less splintery and the denser fruitwood are hardly splintery at all, even working back into their grain with a rasp (if you do it by accident).

If by abrasive you mean dirty wood, a soft plane will probably hold up to that as well as a hard plane. You can usually find decent pieces of maple as table leg blanks up to 12/4 (that usually gets you something where the grain runs fairly straight down the plane), but they're not cheap. I think for a plane that I wanted to end at almost 3" wide, I'd want wider to start, though.

I've made planes out of maple, cherry and beech by hand, and I've made infill parts out of cocobolo and bois de rose by hand. Cocobolo is unnecessarily hard, but looks nice in an infill. Cherry is too soft in my opinion, but if we're honest, few of us will ever wear out a western plane unless we abuse it. Cherry just doesn't feel as nice in use as beech. Beech works more nicely than maple with hand tools.

[Steve Voigt]

Thanks for the input Dave, appreciate it.
OK, I'll bite: POTP?

[David Weaver]

It's an obscure reference to an old Far Side comic that I remember reading long ago - might be the first one I ever read, and if not the first, it was somewhere in the first far side flip calendar I ever had (at age 9). Dry humor seemed to be more popular back then.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachme...9&d=1379952527

POTP = "Part of the Problem"