Hello guys,
I was planing the top of a simple pine stool tonight and no matter what I seemed to do, I got chatter during the first 2" of each pass across about half the width of the board. I was using my MF #9 (Stanley #4) with a very sharp Veritas blade, chipbreaker set as close to the edge as I could get it (maybe 1/64"). The frog was positioned for smoothing, even though I was taking a heavier shaving. The top is 8"x 24", 3/4" thick, clean with no knots.
I checked the grain - its pretty straight there and I was planing in the right direction. I thought perhaps I had an odd patch of grain and tried working that area from the other direction. I got tearout.
I resharpened. No change.
I tried bearing down harder at the start, both to seat the front of the plane and to perhaps hold it down. No change.
I reduced the thickness of the shavings as far as I could - down to smoothing range. No change.
I tried a #5, just to experiment. No change.
Finally, I changed to my trusty #2. No more chatter. That fixed it. But I dont really understand why. Can someone explain this to me? I think I know that the #2 would follow any small hollows that the MF9 would ride across. But the MF 9 was trying to take a shaving in this area - it was just skipping/chattering.
It would help me to learn the 'why' here instead of just putzing around like I did and stumbling into an answer.
Thanks for your insights!
Fred