Light Talk - Weights of Different Planes

[Adam Cruea]

I would be interested if you have read a text from before 1850 that suggests this.

In 2009 I won a beech mallet that had been soaked in linseed oil for "at least 30 days" It stank so much that I could not keep it in the shop for a whole year. Even today I can smell it if near my nose, and on damp days I can smell it from across the room. Little beads of gelled oil have collected in spots on the end grain.

30 days seems a little much. I soaked my hickory mallet head for 7 days after I glued it up and put the mortise for the handle in it so that the oil would soak in both sides.

I can't quite understand why someone would put anything in linseed oil for that long. It's only going to penetrate to a certain point, and honestly, the oil will keep migrating in if I have read correctly until all wood reaches saturation (which is well before 30 days). If I remember correctly from a finishing book I read, through a small 1x1" piece of white oak that was 4 or 6 inches long sitting in like 1/2" of linseed oil, some finishing guy (Flexnor I think?) had oil coming out the top because it had soaked up through the grain in the middle in something like a day or a week.

[george wilson]

No issues with oil filled planes stinking,and I've done it many times over the years. Probably because the oil is mostly INSIDE the wood,not ON it.

Oil would penetrate clear through long planes in 3 or 4 days when filling the mouth up repeatedly.

You might could have just given the mallet a coat of shellac to mask off the smell. Old furniture sometimes has a musky smell inside of it. This can be stopped by shellacking the insides everywhere.

[Derek Cohen]

I have light planes that work well and I have heavy planes that do so similarly. So that does not answer the question.

In a recent comparison of the LN #51 and LV Shooter, my preference was the heavier LN to power through end grain, however the lighter LV made up for this with a lower cutting angle.



I like the light SBUS for its nimbleness, and yet I light the heavier LN #3 for its power in the same size. Nimble versus power. Lighter does offer more feedback, but heavy can reduce effort.



I have this Brese infill I built from a kit. 60 degree bed, so it is more effort to push. It is small, just 6 1/2" long. It feels very powerful as it concentrates the mass in a small area.



It does not work any better then than a half-pitch HNT Gordon smoother, which is considerably lighter and a similar size.



However, if you want an argument for mass, then the Marcou smoother at 7 3/4lbs is the best performer I have yet come across. It fear no wood!



I could keep offering heavy and light example, and all work well. The question is whether mass is a design element that contributes to performance, and how this is different to a design where mass is a lesser element? Is mass a compensatory factor? Or does it meet a special need? Does mass better suit a higher cutting angle?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Kees Heiden]

I think that weight helps when the resistance is too much to push the plane through the wood. In other words, without help the plane would decelerate until it stalls. A heavier plane will help to push a bit, so the plane stalls a little further. With enough luck that moment is beyond the board we are planing.

Let's look at a single planing stroke. A heavy and a light plane. Say, we can both accelerate to a given speed V in the short distance before the edge enters the wood. So the planes have build up a kinetic energy of 0.5 x mass x speed². The heavier plane will have more energy because it has more mass. So there is more speed stored in the movement of the plane. More energy means more oomph to push through harder wood or through knots, or whatever wants to stall our plane.

Of course the speed doesn't need to be the same for the two planes at the moment the edge meets the board. A lighter plane could be accelerated more, and because the kinetic energy is relative to the power of the speed, this works extra good. So who knows what that means in real practice? When you are planing hard wood with a rank cut, you counteract this resistance by more vigorous planing when you use a lighter plane.

All this energy must be provided by the user. Moving a heavier weight back and forth takes more energy. But how about the difference in using the plane. Slow and steady or quick and nimble? I really have no idea which one would exhaust me more.

[Kim Malmberg]

David, I will gladly relieve you of that MF no 9 if it makes you feel any better.

[David Weaver]

David, I will gladly relieve you of that MF no 9 if it makes you feel any better.

I'm looking to get more of those Type 1s on the sly if I can. That's the one that I posted about finding around Christmas for $12.
They are one of those things that I can't find cheap in decent shape if I look on purpose. I recall you saying they're very difficult to find over there.

That's a better picture of it than the one I put up before - the first picture made it look horrible, but my phone does that to every plane I snap a picture of with it.

Some day, I'll dump all but about 6 planes, probably toward the end of this year. I won't dump any MF T1s.

[Kees Heiden]

I would be interested if you have read a text from before 1850 that suggests this.

In 2009 I won a beech mallet that had been soaked in linseed oil for "at least 30 days" It stank so much that I could not keep it in the shop for a whole year. Even today I can smell it if near my nose, and on damp days I can smell it from across the room. Little beads of gelled oil have collected in spots on the end grain.

Well, that ain't no easy request! It certainly has been a common habit at some time, but I can't put a before and after date on it.
I didn't get further back then 1908. A quote from Hasluck: http://toolemerablog.typepad.com/too...s-hayward.html


PS, just been browsing google books a bit. This one is from 1885. I can't read the quote very well on the webpage, but it sais this in the google search page:
"The wooden parts of tools, such as the stocks of planes and handles of chisels, are often made to have a nice appearance by French polishing; but this adds nothing to their durability. A much better plan is to let them soak inlinseed oil for a ..."
Link: http://books.google.nl/books?id=3lki...DA&redir_esc=y

And another link to an article about treating wooden axle parts for farming equipement, soaking them in boiling linseed oil. 1836:
http://books.google.nl/books?id=fAoA...20soak&f=false

[bill howes]

I have one that is 25x 2 3/4 x3 inches that weighs 10 pounds. I think it came from one of the boatyards in Lunenburg ,Nova Scotia where lignum vitae was readily available.