Hand plane & Walnut question

[Jonathan Gennaro]

Jonathan,

Welcome to the Creek. Your profile doesn't indicate your location. If you are in the Pacific Northwest, I am one of those "other Creekers who would let you try some of my planes."

I like having a 1000, 4000 and 8000 grit water stones. Often I will just touch up an edge on the 4000 and 8000 stone.



The area around knots is particularly tricky. The grain seems to twist every which way and the wood is more swirly in the area around knots.

If at all possible going to a Lie-Nielsen tool event would beneficial in helping you to learn a bit more about hand planes.

jtk

Thanks,

I've updated my location. I never thought people would be so kinda to let me try their tools haha. I will look for a Lie-Nielson event. I've been looking for some in my area now that I've been so into woodworking. I have a local woodworking store about 30 minutes away and think I'm going to try to go pick up a 8000 stone after work tomorrow.

[Jonathan Gennaro]

I will echo the others who mentioned the cap iron. It makes a huge difference in tearout, and basically enables you to plane almost without regard to the grain direction. For me it is night and day difference planing knots and such with a closely set chipbreaker.

As for sharpening, I would get a cheap honing guide ($10 or $15) and some wet/dry sandpaper (220, 400, 600, 1000/1200, and 2000) and use them on a flat surface (a cheap glass cutting board works well). That way you can start getting sharp blades and learning what sharp feels like, and get on with your current project. Then when you have a little more experience and don't have the pressures of a project weighing on you, look up nicer sharpening setups and make a well-researched decision. There is an overwhelming amount of information/opinion about sharpening...it takes a while to sift through, and the equipment isn't that cheap. The sandpaper will get the job done without too much initial expense.

I do have a honing guide that I bought the other day for my chisels. I have yet to try it with the planer blade. I will give it a shot tonight.
Also, the cap iron is a huge awakening. I can't wait to go home tonight after work and try closing it alittle. I never really understood it. I found this site
http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/...cles_935.shtml
and this makes alot of sense to me..

[Jonathan Gennaro]

Anything that is a polishing stone would work fine for you. The Glasstone 16k is a way to spend the most to get the least, especially from woodcraft. Pretty much anything out there that's in the 8k range or finer will be just fine for you, and something 8k may make more sense.

http://www.chefknivestogo.com/kitayama8000.html

(no affiliation with the seller - but for reference, Woodcraft/JWW try to sell the same stone for $104).

1) that plane probably has a cap iron, it's a good time to learn to use it (set it very close to eliminate tearout)
2) you can buy a low angle plane, it'll probably initially be easier. Functionally, it will provide no benefit in smoothing once you learn to use a more common bevel down smoother. The only place it'd really provide much is if you're making end grain butchers blocks or cutting boards
3) cap iron and sharpness are the two things that will solve tearout problems. Scraping will, too, but there's no need to resort to it
4) you could probably plane it using a smoother and holding it on the skew - make sure the cap iron is set properly and it's sharp
5) Any decent #4 has the capability to smooth plane anything you're likely to ever use

Google "setting a cap iron" and find an article on wood central to get an idea on setting the cap iron.

Is this a good stone to buy? The one you linked?
http://www.chefknivestogo.com/kitayama8000.html

Or even this?
http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/200...8000-Grit.aspx


My local hardwood store sells a 8000 stone for 145 which is kinda lot compared to the one you linked. The only other store im close to is woodcraft, and rockler. Any other good stones to look at? I also would need a flattening stone as well correct?

[Jim Koepke]

I like to support local business. I do not support them by paying almost twice the cost of something mail ordered. Some local businesses will match prices, but this seems like a long reach at that price.

Shopping around may save a lot of money.

jtk

[David Weaver]

Is this a good stone to buy? The one you linked?
http://www.chefknivestogo.com/kitayama8000.html

Or even this?
http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/200...8000-Grit.aspx


My local hardwood store sells a 8000 stone for 145 which is kinda lot compared to the one you linked. The only other store im close to is woodcraft, and rockler. Any other good stones to look at? I also would need a flattening stone as well correct?

The norton stone would be fine, as would the kitayama stone (I like the kitayama brand stone better, it's a little finer, but both are good stones). Either could be flattened with wet and dry sandpaper, or flattened dry with standard al-ox sandpaper, so you wouldn't need to buy a diamond hone.

If your local hardwood store is selling a shapton, norton, king, naniwa, or any other sharpening stone of common make for $145, then you want to give your money to someone else.

There have been times that the kitayama was available for as little as $62, and at that it's a great stone.

[James Owen]

Welcome to the Creek, Jonathon!

1. Stones: water stones will work fine. Since you already have a 1,000 grit stone, I'd suggest a 4,000 grit and an 8,000 grit. A-2 will sharpen fine on them; but it will frequently take a bit longer than sharpening an O-1 iron. Diamonds also work nicely, but a bit pricier.
You should be able to pick up a quality 4,000 grit and 8,000 grit stone for around $40 to $70 each, or a pair of 1000/4000 grit and 1200/8000 grit combination stones for around $150 for both stones; with the combination stones, you have all the grits you really need, unless you have to remove a really BIG chip or a LOT of metal to rehab an iron or chisel.
Woodcraft, Rockler, Lee Valley, Lie Nielsen, Traditional Woodworker, and Tools For Working Wood are all reputable dealers with good to absolutely great customer service, although their prices can vary substantially.
Perhaps the most important part: pick a method and stick with it until you get good at it.
Sharpening is an area of woodworking where you can spend a gazillion dollars on cool gadgets, and still not get any sharper than with a basic set up. Unless you have some very special sharpening requirements, you can buy a sharpening set-up that will allow you to sharpen all of your tools for around $150 to $200 dollars. If you like gadgets and want to buy them, your choice, of course, but they're not necessary to get a good edge on your tools.
Sharpening is also an area where people can get rather testy about certain aspects of it. If someone tells you that you can get "sharp" only by doing "X" (and "X" just so happens to be what they do), I'd suggest believing them in about 3 weeks....
Like most other things in woodworking, and especially hand tool woodworking, there are many paths to the same end; some are more efficient, some are easier, some depend on having a specific set of tools and/or skills, but in the end, you still get there - same thing with sharpening. The most important things about sharpening, in my view, are that you can get the degree of sharpness you need for the project at hand and that you can reliably duplicate it; everything else is pretty much extraneous....
2. The LN low angle jack plane would be a good choice. It's good for planing end grain (especially on a shooting board with the hot dog attachment), and you can switch out the irons for working on gnarly grain that might give a standard angle plane some difficulty.
Assuming that you are in the process of building your tool set, will be using only hand tools, and depending on whether you start with rough-sawn wood or surfaced wood you'll eventually want (rough sawn) a scrub plane, a jack plane, a jointer plane, and a smoother plane; or (surfaced wood) a jack plane, a jointer plane, and a smoother plane. A low angle adjustable mouth block plane is a handy addition to either set, and if you start doing a lot of mortise and tenon joinery, you'll want to consider a shoulder plane or a router plane for trimming tenon cheeks, etc.; the router plane is the more versatile of the two.
3. In my experience, the most important contributor to a cleanly planed surface is a truly SHARP iron. Next comes a closely set (1/64" to 1/32" or so) chip breaker, and then a tight mouth opening. The iron should be set up so that it extends through the sole just enough to take a shaving of .001" or .002", with the mouth opening just wide enough that the shavings don't jam in the mouth and throat of the plane.
4. In a word, YES!
5. A Bailey-style metal #4-sized plane has been the standard finishing plane for at least 140 years; before that - for hundreds of, if not a couple of thousand, years (and still to this day) - a more or less #4-sized wooden plane performed the same functions. With a properly set up plane and a bit of skill, you can plane a surface that is ready to finish without any further ado. After a bit of practice, you'll find that you can prepare a surface with a hand plane, ready for finishing, in considerably less than half the time that it takes to sand it to the same degree of readiness. I personally like a planed surface better, and really like the absence of all of the noise, switching grits, and all of the floating saw dust and necessary protective gear. I also like the fact that a hand plane is a tool that can be handed down to the next several generations of woodworkers, when the time comes, instead of ending up in the landfill, like many tailed apprentices....

You might also want to take a look at a couple of books, either on hand tools in general or on hand planes specifically.
The Anarchist's Tool Chest is a good primer on what you really need in your tool set, and is very entertaining, as well.
Handplane Essentials is a good overview on hand planes.
If you want to save money on quality tools and go with some vintage tools, Mike Dunbar's Restoring, Tuning, and Using Classic Woodworking Tools is an excellent step-by-step guide.
These are just a couple of the many excellent books out there on hand tool working and hand tools.

I hope that this is of some use to you.

[Jonathan Gennaro]

Welcome to the Creek, Jonathon!

1. Stones: water stones will work fine. Since you already have a 1,000 grit stone, I'd suggest a 4,000 grit and an 8,000 grit. A-2 will sharpen fine on them; but it will frequently take a bit longer than sharpening an O-1 iron. Diamonds also work nicely, but a bit pricier.
You should be able to pick up a quality 4,000 grit and 8,000 grit stone for around $40 to $70 each, or a pair of 1000/4000 grit and 1200/8000 grit combination stones for around $150 for both stones; with the combination stones, you have all the grits you really need, unless you have to remove a really BIG chip or a LOT of metal to rehab an iron or chisel.
Woodcraft, Rockler, Lee Valley, Lie Nielsen, Traditional Woodworker, and Tools For Working Wood are all reputable dealers with good to absolutely great customer service, although their prices can vary substantially.
Perhaps the most important part: pick a method and stick with it until you get good at it.
Sharpening is an area of woodworking where you can spend a gazillion dollars on cool gadgets, and still not get any sharper than with a basic set up. Unless you have some very special sharpening requirements, you can buy a sharpening set-up that will allow you to sharpen all of your tools for around $150 to $200 dollars. If you like gadgets and want to buy them, your choice, of course, but they're not necessary to get a good edge on your tools.
Sharpening is also an area where people can get rather testy about certain aspects of it. If someone tells you that you can get "sharp" only by doing "X" (and "X" just so happens to be what they do), I'd suggest believing them in about 3 weeks....
Like most other things in woodworking, and especially hand tool woodworking, there are many paths to the same end; some are more efficient, some are easier, some depend on having a specific set of tools and/or skills, but in the end, you still get there - same thing with sharpening. The most important things about sharpening, in my view, are that you can get the degree of sharpness you need for the project at hand and that you can reliably duplicate it; everything else is pretty much extraneous....
2. The LN low angle jack plane would be a good choice. It's good for planing end grain (especially on a shooting board with the hot dog attachment), and you can switch out the irons for working on gnarly grain that might give a standard angle plane some difficulty.
Assuming that you are in the process of building your tool set, will be using only hand tools, and depending on whether you start with rough-sawn wood or surfaced wood you'll eventually want (rough sawn) a scrub plane, a jack plane, a jointer plane, and a smoother plane; or (surfaced wood) a jack plane, a jointer plane, and a smoother plane. A low angle adjustable mouth block plane is a handy addition to either set, and if you start doing a lot of mortise and tenon joinery, you'll want to consider a shoulder plane or a router plane for trimming tenon cheeks, etc.; the router plane is the more versatile of the two.
3. In my experience, the most important contributor to a cleanly planed surface is a truly SHARP iron. Next comes a closely set (1/64" to 1/32" or so) chip breaker, and then a tight mouth opening. The iron should be set up so that it extends through the sole just enough to take a shaving of .001" or .002", with the mouth opening just wide enough that the shavings don't jam in the mouth and throat of the plane.
4. In a word, YES!
5. A Bailey-style metal #4-sized plane has been the standard finishing plane for at least 140 years; before that - for hundreds of, if not a couple of thousand, years (and still to this day) - a more or less #4-sized wooden plane performed the same functions. With a properly set up plane and a bit of skill, you can plane a surface that is ready to finish without any further ado. After a bit of practice, you'll find that you can prepare a surface with a hand plane, ready for finishing, in considerably less than half the time that it takes to sand it to the same degree of readiness. I personally like a planed surface better, and really like the absence of all of the noise, switching grits, and all of the floating saw dust and necessary protective gear. I also like the fact that a hand plane is a tool that can be handed down to the next several generations of woodworkers, when the time comes, instead of ending up in the landfill, like many tailed apprentices....

You might also want to take a look at a couple of books, either on hand tools in general or on hand planes specifically.
The Anarchist's Tool Chest is a good primer on what you really need in your tool set, and is very entertaining, as well.
Handplane Essentials is a good overview on hand planes.
If you want to save money on quality tools and go with some vintage tools, Mike Dunbar's Restoring, Tuning, and Using Classic Woodworking Tools is an excellent step-by-step guide.
These are just a couple of the many excellent books out there on hand tool working and hand tools.

I hope that this is of some use to you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all that out. It's MUCH appreciated! Thank you to everyone actually.

I went out last night and bought a 4000/8000 water stone. I watched the lie-nelson video on sharpening 10 times and gave it a shot!
I was able to shave the hair on my arm and it now cuts like butter. I also did alot of reading on the cap iron and moved that really close. All the tear out i was getting is gone now.

I will now finish my nightstands by smooth planing everything and I'll make sure to post a picture when they're done.

I will also look into all the other planes you mentioned now. Now i know what a sharp blade feels like. lol

THANKS!!!!!!

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Sorry to derail the thread w/o any useful info, but is anyone else seeing all the instances of the word "planers" in Jonathan's first post link to Amazon pages? The link URLs all seem to go through "pgpartners", which is a Price Grabber site thing. I'm just curious if this a new monetization thing from SMC, intentional linking from Jonathan (which seems odd, since they seem to link to a fishing thing), or if there's something odd with Jonathan's computer, or with my computer. I'm not seeing this anywhere else, so all of these seem a bit odd. I see it looks like Jonathan posted this same question over at another forum a day before he posted here, so maybe it's just a case of that forum inserting those links, and his copy-pasting the same thread here?

I know this isn't super helpful to the topic at hand, (but I think anything I could add has been covered by others) I'm just curious if anyone else is seeing it - I'm wondering if my browser has been compromised somehow.

[David Weaver]

No, I think you have some sort of bot installed on your browser, bot or addin or whatever it's called. Check your add ins. If you don't, you might have a redirect type virus or something, which is a real pain in the butt (harmless generally, but very annoying because you get redirected sometimes and links added where there aren't links - the viruses are designed to generate click-advertisement revenue for the virus writer).

[Shawn Pixley]

Thanks,

I've updated my location. I never thought people would be so kinda to let me try their tools haha. I will look for a Lie-Nielson event. I've been looking for some in my area now that I've been so into woodworking. I have a local woodworking store about 30 minutes away and think I'm going to try to go pick up a 8000 stone after work tomorrow.

Jonathan,

Thanks for adding your location. I am not too far from you. If you wanted to come up to Ventura County some time, please send me a PM to set up a time. I have a LN low angle jack, and a mix of other planes (both old and refurbished and new) that you are welcome to try. You may also try various sharpening techniques (Water stones, oil stones, or the worksharp) though it looks like you have figured that out already.

[Jonathan Gennaro]

Sorry to derail the thread w/o any useful info, but is anyone else seeing all the instances of the word "planers" in Jonathan's first post link to Amazon pages? The link URLs all seem to go through "pgpartners", which is a Price Grabber site thing. I'm just curious if this a new monetization thing from SMC, intentional linking from Jonathan (which seems odd, since they seem to link to a fishing thing), or if there's something odd with Jonathan's computer, or with my computer. I'm not seeing this anywhere else, so all of these seem a bit odd. I see it looks like Jonathan posted this same question over at another forum a day before he posted here, so maybe it's just a case of that forum inserting those links, and his copy-pasting the same thread here?

I know this isn't super helpful to the topic at hand, (but I think anything I could add has been covered by others) I'm just curious if anyone else is seeing it - I'm wondering if my browser has been compromised somehow.

Yeah that's firefox doing it. I didn't put any links on the planer words.. It does it for me too on this forum, and others. I think its just a addon like someone else said.

Yes, I did post the same question in another forum as I was waiting for my account to be registered on this forum. I waited for like 2 or 3 days to get access to it but I guess not having my last name completely filled out was what the hold up was. I really wanted to only post it here, as everyone on this forum seems to be more knowledgeable but I got ansy

[Jonathan Gennaro]

Jonathan,

Thanks for adding your location. I am not too far from you. If you wanted to come up to Ventura County some time, please send me a PM to set up a time. I have a LN low angle jack, and a mix of other planes (both old and refurbished and new) that you are welcome to try. You may also try various sharpening techniques (Water stones, oil stones, or the worksharp) though it looks like you have figured that out already.

Thanks so much!!
I will for sure PM you if im ever heading up that way. For now, I think I got it down. I have a couple older planes that I'm going to practice on more tonight.

[Judson Green]

Jonathan something that I did to my plane that's exactly like yours to round over the edges a little bit, were the sole meets the sides and the front and back of the plane. Won't help your tear out at all, but made a better experience for me. Just take a file and a few strokes, not much is needed.

I also slightly rounded the leading edge of the chip breaker. I did this by dragging it backwards while increasing the angle on sandpaper glued down to MDF. Not sure if what I did was right, maybe others could chime in on that.

I mostly use this place for shooing now as I prefer vintage 4s to smooth and sharpen and this plane is the only one I have that is square and it has lots of mass, very heavy compared to vintage 4s.

Just my 2¢

[Jonathan Gennaro]

Jonathan something that I did to my plane that's exactly like yours to round over the edges a little bit, were the sole meets the sides and the front and back of the plane. Won't help your tear out at all, but made a better experience for me. Just take a file and a few strokes, not much is needed.

I also slightly rounded the leading edge of the chip breaker. I did this by dragging it backwards while increasing the angle on sandpaper glued down to MDF. Not sure if what I did was right, maybe others could chime in on that.

I mostly use this place for shooing now as I prefer vintage 4s to smooth and sharpen and this plane is the only one I have that is square and it has lots of mass, very heavy compared to vintage 4s.

Just my 2¢

Oh ok! Thanks. I'll try it on one of my older planes and see if it makes a difference. If it does, I'll do it on my new one.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

No, I think you have some sort of bot installed on your browser, bot or addin or whatever it's called. Check your add ins. If you don't, you might have a redirect type virus or something, which is a real pain in the butt (harmless generally, but very annoying because you get redirected sometimes and links added where there aren't links - the viruses are designed to generate click-advertisement revenue for the virus writer).

Yeah that's firefox doing it. I didn't put any links on the planer words.. It does it for me too on this forum, and others. I think its just a addon like someone else said.

Yes, I did post the same question in another forum as I was waiting for my account to be registered on this forum. I waited for like 2 or 3 days to get access to it but I guess not having my last name completely filled out was what the hold up was. I really wanted to only post it here, as everyone on this forum seems to be more knowledgeable but I got ansy

I'm confused now - are folks saying this is my computer, or Jonathan's? I'm seeing the word "planers" being a link three times in the first post in this thread ; and I just tried a few different browsers - I'm seeing it on both Chrome and Safari on my computer, the browser on my iPhone, and Firefox on my wife's PC. If I'm understanding you correctly, David, you're not seeing that word as a link? I managed to get something wacky on all those computers? If I do a "reply with quote" to Jonathan's original post, the vBulletin code for a link is included around those words when it quotes Jonathan's message, so I'm thinking that means it made it into the actual SMC post, and is not being added by my browsers, but I get nervous.

Sorry to continue to derail this, Jonathan.