Scratches on End Grain

[Steve Voigt]

Steve,

…it just occurred to me we had a big O' thread here and you still haven't posted a photo of the skew miter plane you are sorting out. Was it in another thread and I just don't remember ?

Winton, thanks, I quite enjoyed this thread!
I haven't shown the skew plane, because I always try to get a plane working well before I do any of the finish work (chamfers, eyes, etc.), so it is just a big block of wood with a blade in it at this point. If you are truly a glutton for punishment, you can read about the progress here, here and here. The last one is sad. Oh so sad. And that was before my troubles with this blade, but now I get to write a happy post! Hooray! Anyway, I will post some pics of the plane here when it's done. Might be a while though; I need to build some other stuff around the house or the missus will have me sleeping in the doghouse or maybe with the fishes.

[Warren Mickley]

A few notes about lower angle planes. I have used the same five bench planes exclusively for over thirty years. Their cutting angles are 45,45,43,43, and 42. The two 43 degree planes have both been used with vintage irons, one with 18th and 19th century irons, the other with 19th and 20th. I can't see any problems using older irons for low angle work. I use the 42 degree plane for end grain and I can see a very small difference in surface quality compared to 45 degrees. I think historic American bench planes were made as low as 40 degrees.

Although the lower limit for planing with a bench plane would be in the upper thirty degree range, the closer one gets to that limit, the more things have to be just right to stay out of trouble. I think the standard 45 degree bench plane is the result of a generous cushion to keep people out of trouble. I have seen videos of guys honing irons who raise the iron "one or two degrees" on their fine stone. But when you watch they really raise it more like 8 degrees.

[george wilson]

Buying a $2000.00 Japanese plane sounds like the wannabe artist who will spend $400.00 on a Kolinski(sp?) brush!! Must be quite a few of them out there,or they'd stop offering them.

[David Weaver]

Like many things in the world of woodworking, and this is just my supposition, it probably is something purchased by well heeled beginners or spouses of wealthy beginners looking for "the best".

A couple of years ago, the average individual in the US didn't have access to a more normal set of prices for japanese tools. $1000 isn't necessarily out of line for a togo reigo plane, but $2000 .....

I guess, as they say, you can't get it if you don't ask for it, and there are certainly plenty of retailers who would like to make a whole bunch on an item and sell few of them vs. a little bit and sell a lot.

These are all thoughts completely unrelated to the thread, but anyway, there's trouble in the world of japanese tools if the maker stops making. The price of used tools of a given make stay high as long as there are new tools from the maker to compare, and as long as there is a retailer over here selling them. Once the maker becomes unknown, then you had better like the tools. There are a very few makers that I can think of who have a lot of value after the maker stops making new. After that, people just flood to the new or the recently retired legend-maker.

And completely unrelated.-(steve is right, I have a plane graveyard just like he does. Mine is a lot like a junk yard - when I have some larger tools - like wooden try planes - that are not perfect shape, they often get cut up and scrapped instead of sold). I might have 20 bench planes that are not smoothers. I'd like to have 5, I just don't know which 5.

[Pat Barry]

Today
Here is what I get on pine end grain:

Attachment 292883

For comparison, here is my no.4 with a Hock blade.--some faint scratches but nothing I can't live with.

Attachment 292884

I want to suggest that the issue you were seeing has nothing to do with the blade quality, the blade type, your sharpening technique, which plane you were using. What it has to do with is the quality of the wood you were using - rather the contamination embedded in the end grain.
endgrain.JPG
There is sand embedded in the end grain. This sand created the tiny chipouts in your finely sharpened blade in the first couple of passes you made at cutting this and left the characteristic scratch patern. I bet you a nickel if you started with a freshly cut end you would not have seen this problem.

[george wilson]

But,didn't he plane the SAME piece of end grain pine with the different planes?

I will not disagree that minerals do get sucked up in wood,making some of them,like certain pieces of mahogany,quite abrasive.

[Steve Voigt]

Pat, I wish it were true, but I repeated the test many times, and always got the same results. I probably took 3/4" off the end of that board. I always took off the old scratches with one of the other planes before retesting the Butcher iron. And I also did the same test on a piece of soft maple.

[Chris Fournier]

When I was in college, I knew someone who would always give an answer that another person (or several other people) already gave, on a delay. And then they would act surprised when they were informed that whatever they were saying had already been said (sometimes several times).

I also worked with a person in a previous job who had been taught a technique along the way to stay relevant in (business) conversations by repeating something other people already said (especially if they were technical people).

This reminds me of those.

Insightful David. Seems like you have suffered fools your entire life. Sometimes amidst the diatribes there is a single sentence answer, that gets lost due to volume of verbiage, eriudite postulation, supposition etc.

Another consideration for the OP. If the blade is brand new, grind back a further 1/16" and re-try. Depending on the production process, QC etc.. it may be that the blade is not tempered consistently throughout and the fresh edge is simply too hard at the current cutting edge. Naturally I would want to remove the least amount of material to get to a workable cutting edge, increasing the angle would be my first step regardless of BU/BD, then if this failed I would grind back a good portion of blade and re-try.

I'm always tempted to buy a used hardness tester in the Rockwell scale when I see them for sale, I would buy a white lab coat at the same time and nothing would be untested.

[Frank Drew]

Very expensive tools aren't necessarily marketed to rich newbies who don't know any better; what does a Holtey plane cost, for instance? I imagine most of his customers know exactly what they're getting even though some of them won't ever use the tools for woodworking. It can be about the tool itself, not using the tool; aesthetics rather than utility.

Some people collect super high-quality tools -- just as others collect art, or vintage automobiles, or whatever -- and have the money to afford what they consider the best. (I'm certainly not in that company.)

[george wilson]

Frank,I agree with your post 100%. In fact,I'll warrant that many of my tools have gone to collectors who never used them. Not too bad,though,the rich pay good prices and preserve the tools for posterity!!

[Frank Drew]

George,

For instance, I might buy one of your exquisite boxwood or ivory rulers, not because I thought I'd make the cost back measuring stuff in the shop, but because it was a thing of beauty and it's rewarding being close to things like that. A tool is a tool, of course, but anything made by the hand of man can be much more than that.

Thank God for rich collectors, they keep the crafts and skills alive!

[David Weaver]

George's stuff and Karl's stuff are different than the JWW catalog items. There may be some exclusive hand-made items in the JWW catalog, and they may get their stuff directly, but a lot of tsunesaburo and iyoroi stuff that lands on the shores here seems to come through harima. I'd imagine an awful lot of the stuff that ends up at retailers is distributed by harima.

In order to compare karl's stuff and george's stuff, you'd have to have someone doubling the price of karl's and george's stuff, but that's not what's going on here.

I'd imagine that if you put figures like a $1000 togo reigo plane (that's still in production) for $2,000, you won't find too many collectors paying $2,000 instead of $1,000, though you very well might find collectors bargaining with stu to get the plane for exactly $1,000, or just paying what the exchange price was

What I was referring to as targeting beginners is selling a plane for $2,000 when you can get a very very similar plane for $1,000. the cost of goods difference I see between the two is a few bucks for red oak instead of white, and perhaps the blacksmith would say that he did something special to the togo reigo that's in the $2K plane that wasn't done for the one at $1K

Anyway, I don't see anyone selling karl's $8,000 smoothers for $16,000 or I'd say the same thing. Collectors usually know what things are worth and they know that paying middlemen and retailers lots more for something otherwise available isn't good use of collector dollars. I'd imagine the hardcore japanese tool collectors probably are more focused on stuff like kiyotada, the chiyozurus, ichichiro, etc, and other makers that were awarded almost royal status and made fairly understated (but very tidy) tools.

Of course, that's all my opinion, just in case there are any JWW fans.

As for performance, there's similar performance in a $500 plane vs. $1,000 or $2,000. No matter the maker, ending up with something that's actually 66 hardness is a bit risky. That's why I'd like to see a few rockwell strikes and have a few hours of use at 66 hardness to see if everything plays out. The holy grail is something that hard that's also tough, but there's no room for error with that. People like to hear that someone is using old process with no measuring tools, just low light, and at the same time they want 66 hardness and every tool to be super. I think that's an unrealistic combination, and I wonder how the maker did the tempering - computer furnace?

I wrestle with the same thing - I like tools that are made with old skill, even though new skill probably makes more consistent tools.

Just as a side point of interest, alex gilmore raids old stone shops and hardware stores in japan and brings their stock back here and sells it. For a period of time last year, he was taking stock made in the 50s or 60s out of high carbon steel and hardness testing the irons (this being a period where a lot of craftsmen were probably using natural stones, and none or almost none of those tools were made for anything other than pro use). The most common hardness figures I remember him reporting were 60-62. I have an ogata iron, I would be surprised if it was harder than 62 - really surprised. It is a joy to work with.

I'm not trying to be contrary with the explanation above - just clarifying that the upsell that's occuring is not the tool itself, I'm sure the Tsune plane is quality. It's the markup and presentation - and that someone who saw stu's listing and someone who saw that listing would scratch their head a bit before buying the one out of the JWW catalog.

We've probably all been there before when we get excited about something (and especially before we could just get on the internet and do a query) and buy it and then find it later for less.

[george wilson]

I love working for rich people!! I accept that they are good at making money,and they want what I am good at making. Without them,I could not have done my best work and still paid my bills.

Frank,I'd HATE to be confined to just using my 18th. C. repro rulers. They are nearly 3/16" thick,the division lines did not go all the way to their edges for some reason,and the opportunity for parallax is the same as using the cheap,old thick wooden rules they sold at dime stores. The curator suggested that they might have been used with calipers for setting distances. But,I have not seen an old rule full of holes from the legs of dividers. They would have beed certainly severely defaced thus.

[Winton Applegate]

missus will have me sleeping in the doghouse

I don’t even get that . . . I have to sleep on the deck and all I get to lay on is a paper.

things have to be just right to stay out of trouble

Yah . . . I still haven't hit that formula yet.

I don’t know much about the latter but am quite familiar with the former.

the wannabe artist who will spend $400.00 on a Kolinsky(sp?) brush!!

So I got took on that brush huh ?
heck
(kiddinnnnnng)
I didn’t pay even half that much for mine.


You would be proud of Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer
a real artist, in galleries, sold some paintings, goes to figure drawing classes regularly just for the enjoyment of it . . .
anyway
she started with hog bristle brushes (oil paint / no medium) then painting knives (still used those off and on) then surgical gloves and just her fingers (impasto yah know)
lately she has been on a series where she uses a certain weight of brown paper shipping padding some how as a paint applicator.
NO Kolinsky

I just hang out and get the whole artist thing vicariously.
But if I ever wanted to paint “just like her” I know where my Kolinsky brush is.

[george wilson]

Thank you for posting that painting,Winton.Now I know where I have gone all wrong!!!!

As I have often said of certain makers I know personally(none here): They get by by selling their stuff to people who are more ignorant of their craft than they are. And,having NERVE enough to ask outrageous prices for it. There are plenty of well monied persons who automatically ascribe excellence to something because it is incredibly high priced. They haven't enough aesthetic training(or inborn talent),to use their own eyes and brains to see otherwise. I have seen an enameled brooch with a well executed rooster on it at a show,with an asking price of $10,000.00. Now,do come along!!!

There are another set of people,again well monied,who see excellence in an object that has a high degree of mechanical perfection(if NOT an artistic,creative,original accomplishment),and will pay outrageous prices for it. I won't name names of tool makers. I cannot rate a Nth. degree of perfection in a straight forward copy of a fairly simple old object as worthy of exceedingly high worth. I enjoy seeing them,but would not pay what is asked,even If I had won the lottery. For example(and THIS is not the fairly simple object I refer to) ,$50,000.00 dollars(1980 price!) for a German Luger made in the rare .45 caliber,of which only one original was ever made(one that survived. I think 2 were made,one destroyed in Gov't. testing). But,the guy gets it,and has a long waiting list. He has made special jigs to make every part by now.

By the way,I have a Luger. It takes nerves of steel to shoot it with target accuracy,as the weight is all in the grip,"balance" be hanged!! I wish I had an artillery model with an 8" barrel,to weight the fore end). And,the trigger pull cannot be made lighter. I'll take the 1911 Colt any day,regardless of its less aesthetic (or perhaps less brutal?) design. The Luger certainly looks wicked.

There are other examples,closer to home here.

It takes all kinds,as the saying goes.