How to read grain direction?

[Winton Applegate]

The double iron plane is better because it leaves a finer surface. Cutting at a lower angle not only cuts more cleanly, it is less abusive to the edge of the iron. And for heavier cuts it is less effort than a high angle plane.

FINALLY. It took 111 posts to get to this point. Wouldn't it have been simpler for someone to say that than all the endless questions about the questions?

These things are obvious to anyone with a volume of experience using the plane.

I have a volume of experience using these planes. Though my volume is a METRIC volume and so is not quite as large as the imperial volume that you possess.

These things were not obvious to me.
No
I am being serious now. I started with the BD and when I switched to BU I KNEW intellectually that the steeper bevel is harder to push and I always strive to use the minimum angle I can get away with because I know it is harder to push . . . but with all honesty it is not that noticeable. It certainly isn't obvious from using it.

it is less abusive to the edge of the iron.

I can see that. That makes sense.
Is it significantly longer lasting ? I haven't noticed an obvious difference. Perhaps a bit.

in response to the suggestion that the double iron a "marketing fabrication and gimmick", I wrote this:
My feeling is that anyone who does not see the value of the double iron system probably does not understand how to use it.

And in all seriousness again I say that I hope you then included simple and clear step by step instructions for the basic beginner on how to proceed to use the double iron plane so that they / I / we can understand how to use it.

And so
would you please, for the love of Bob, give me a link to that information so that I may read and assimilate it. Mostly I am a bit unclear on setting the breaker for coarse cutting. As I understand it way back is fine on a heavily cambered blade for diagonal planing rough cuts. My point is I do not see how I could screw THAT up.

And for fine finish, better than the BU (right ?) I am to set the chip breaker as close as possible to the edge on the order of the thickness of a sheet of paper or even less. I have not done that. I probably was about two thickness of a sheet of paper. I was getting tear out on the wood David mentioned. I back beveled the blade. The tearout stopped.

It took a whole lot of volume to get to that point. It was very frustrating that the instructions I found did not include what ever I am about to discover in the link that I look forward to following from you .

There is a big gap there for me from cross grain try plaining or jack planing, I shy away from using the term scrub planing so we don't get into specifically the scrub plane which is a single iron plane. I am quite enamored with my LN bevel down scrub by the way.

Anyway there is a big gap there between the cross grain planing with the chip breaker back a ways and the with the grain planing with the chip breaker set very close to the edge so there is no tearout while taking fairly heavy cuts with the grain. Some one admitted in this thread that when the chip breaker is set close enough not to get tear out then the depth of cut is not that great.

I simply do not get where one goes at that point to take fairly heavy cuts and not keep tearing up the surface.
Where does one go at that point?
Please.

[Winton Applegate]

Most of that test just involved common sense,though.

that is what I am ATTEMPTING to apply here, that an about ten years of reading what others have to say about the subject. Quite a bit more than that actually but of late it has gotten rather bogged down in dead ends and repetition. I look forward to discovering a new avenue very soon perhaps tonight.

Apparently I am failing at my attempt to apply common sense and observation while using the tools.

I have solved problems in the past using common sense and specific reading and my distantly related studies where the experts were stumped and gave up . . . for instance in miss directed oil galleys in automobile engines.

The expert with all the experience caused the problem at the machine shop and now I got to solve it. Thanks expert.

[Winton Applegate]

a better mousetrap

I am a live trapper. I take the little sucker across a body of water and turn it loose so it can't find it's way back.
I once had a perfect live trap. I bought it at a health food store. It was soooooo easyyyyy to set and use and worked for me and the mouse.

I left it at a house when we moved. I have been searching since for one like it. Some of the ones I have bought are torturous to the animal to the point of driving them mad with panic. Or my latest one by a company that specializes in all sizes of live traps is ludicrously difficult to set. I is like playing a game of . . . what was that game where you had to operate on a fake body and not touch the sides with the tweezers. OH Operation right ? it is like that to set only you have to lay on the floor on your side with a flash light and a long spoon to do it. Any takers on that one ?

Ha, ha,

[Winton Applegate]

Warren,I'm not quite sure what your point is. Yes,any one should know that a lower cutting angle will cut more easily,etc. . The point here,though,is the worth of the chip breaker in planing difficult wood. You seem to have been the one to have proved its use in practical experience.

I had a LN low angle plane at work. I have the miter plane at home. They work quite well. But,If I have wavey grain wood to plane,I'm going to go for the safety of the properly set chip breaker as opposed to tearing my expensive,figured wood.

I don't think there is a whole lot of difference in the actual angle the cutting edge enters the wood between the 2 types of planes. I got into grinding the bevel on my coffin smoother so that it was rather blunt compared to the ordinary blade. But,it gave a clearance angle of nearly nothing on the underside of the plane. I still got the plane very sharp,and that cutting edge was more durable than a more acutely ground one,too. The plane worked quite well. Back then though,I was not aware of how to set the chip breaker. No one else was,either,as far as I know. Had I known then what I know now,I would not have had to plane cross grain on curly maple,perhaps.

Even with a sharp BU plane,I still would not want to risk planing a very curly German maple guitar back. Too much money at stake,especially when planing an extra large piece for the back or sides of a baritone Viola da Gamba.

Well at least you all will have something to read in the morning if I keep at it with replies.

Civil and respectful replies I intend. Thank you George.

To jump in here a minute I believe I see what they are saying. The standard 45° bedded BD is , well , a 45° CUTTING ANGLE.
CUTTING ANGLE. The definition of that is very important.

The BU can be a much much steeper CUTTING ANGLE than that (or shallower) but he is right in that I was talking about a CUTTING ANGLE ( not sharpening angle) of in the neighbor hood, some times, of 65°. That is a huge difference to be sure.

Clearance angle, under the blade, is another topic. For the BD that is bed angle MINUS sharpening angle. For instance 45° bed angle minus 30° sharpening angle leaves 15° clearance angle.

What I think is being said here about the BD being easier to push is the cutting angle is 45° and so is (or should be) much easier to push than a 65° cutting angle. That with the chip breaker one can use a 45° cutting angle to cut difficult wood that would require a BU with a 65° cutting angle SOME TIMES.

What my brain bangs against and gives me a head ache over is the chip breaker being even more of a barrier IN MY VIEW.

It has been said in other threads that the chip breaker is not a barrier because the blade is severing the wood first before it is really an issue.

I have trouble with that for a couple of reasons but I think I understand what is being said here.

[Kees Heiden]

Winton,

Before the "Great Internet Chipbreaker Revolution of 2012", it was indeed a bit difficult to find specific details about how to set and use the capiron. After that there has been some effort to publish something usefull.

In the woodcentral article section you can find this piece from David Weaver: http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/r...cles_935.shtml

Together with Wilbur Pan I have written an article for Popular woodworking. It's in the April issue 2014: http://www.popularwoodworking.com/ar...ker-theory-use

I published a short instructional video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSjpzta0FuY

Regarding your specific question about the jackplane. First bear in mind that difficult wood and thick shavings are not a match made in heaven. There is just no way to get a tearout free surface with a 1/32" shaving along the grain, no matter the cutting angle or chipbreaker setting. With the chipbreaker set as close to the edge as possible (even overlapping the corners of a cambered blade), the best you get is some limiting of the depth of the tearout, so it isn't so much trouble to remove later. But the fairly typical 8" cambered jackplane is best used across the grain. Then you get your tryplane with mildly cambered blade and close set chipbreaker and work along the grain to remove the jackplane ridges without introducing more tearout. The last spots of tearout left are best removed with a smoother. At the other hand, when I am preparing a small piece of wood like for a sawhandle or so, I do everything with one plane and don't care about different cambers. I just set the iron less rank and set the chipbreaker closer to the edge as I get closer to a finished surface.

Hope this was somewhat helpfull. I think you are just as much a geek as I am, so you might be interested to really measure how close the capiron is. This is not something done during normal work, but it is insightfull to get an idea how a 0.1 or 0.2 mm setting looks like. I have tried with my vernier caliper of with feeler gauges and got somewhat usefull information. But the most accurate method is a microscope with calibrated measuring software. I am NOT advicing anyone to buy a microscope to measure capiron distances, but it is kind of fun when you happen to have one.

And appart from all literature and internet advice, the best way to learn to use the chipbreaker is experience. One tip: "When you still get tearout, set it closer".

[Warren Mickley]

Warren,I'm not quite sure what your point is. Yes,any one should know that a lower cutting angle will cut more easily,etc. . The point here,though,is the worth of the chip breaker in planing difficult wood. You seem to have been the one to have proved its use in practical experience.

My point has long been that it is hard to imagine that anyone who actually learned how to use a double iron plane would not want to use it. The advantages in efficiency and surface quality are really obvious to an experienced user. I took a lot of abuse over the years for suggesting this. A manufacturing company is going to have a tough time making improvements to a plane if they can't even get up to speed with 18th century technology. As one example, Lie Neilsen made an "improved chipbreaker", but since they had no idea how to use a cap iron they thought it best to flatten out the bevel. And I think for a while the cap iron could not even be put close enough to the edge to be effective.

I can imagine a company with a good marketing department could sell new and improved violins. Or new bow hair that lasts three times as long as horsehair. But to improve a violin you have to be able be able to play the violin at least a bit. You have to get up to speed with 17th century work, which is not easy. You can't just get amateurs to test your work, you really need the best players. Violinmaker Samuel Zygmuntowicz could live anywhere in the world and sell his instruments, but he lives in Brooklyn so that he has access to the world's best players and historic violins.

[george wilson]

There are some new violins. Made out of carbon fiber. Cellos,too. They are ugly,soul less looking instruments. The cello has no "points" on its body. So,it became a strangely shaped,rather amorphous thing. Yet,they sound good,and some players use them. Certainly easier to take the abuse of traveling with them(where so many instruments get broken).

There is artificial bow hair,but it isn't making it! Horse hair has microscopic teeth that help hold the rosin and grab the strings. Nylon hair is for students.

I have heard about a guy who apparently makes great sounding violins out of balsa wood!! They are funny,awkward looking things,too. I think it will still be a long time before the classical violin will be out of vogue.

But,this is not helping this ridiculously long debate about how many angels can dance on the cutting edge of a plane. I think if Winton is enamored of his BU planes,he should just stop arguing and go use them. Your actual,real life accomplishments are not impressing him. He has made up his mind. Do not confuse him with FACTS!!

[David Weaver]

As one example, Lie Neilsen made an "improved chipbreaker", but since they had no idea how to use a cap iron they thought it best to flatten out the bevel.And I think for a while the cap iron could not even be put close enough to the edge to be effective.

That's correct (regarding the LN planes). some were short and some were at the bleeding edge of adjustment to be able to be set relatively close. I had a jointer that could be set close enough for a coarse shaving but not for a fine one, but I wasn't using it that much by the time. LN planes are very nice planes, but they would've been well advised to try to keep the bailey or bedrock design and improve the consistency or quality of the components without changing them much.

As far as the shape, I don't know what improvement the "improved" cap iron is. I guess you can mill it out of bar stock, but you'd have to stamp the bailey style with reliable accuracy - which I thought they had mastered, anyway. I have had better luck with a bailey cap iron than any other design (the curved type and stock profile), and the feel of it with a tight lever cap is far better than a flat slab of bar stock with a little lip (which doesn't have that same spring). If they wanted to keep with their idea of making things heavier, they should've just made a heavier bailey-style stamping.

[Kees Heiden]

The problem with a lot of old Bailey capirons is that they don't fit very well anymore on the back of the blade. Lots of gaps, which fill up with jamed shavings. It takes some time to cure this, but it is a worthwhile investment of ones time. Sometimes they lost any spring they had and then you have to bend them a bit to get a tighter fit.

The LN capiron has a leading bevel of only 25 degrees, which is really too low. The curved front of the Bailey works better. So you need to put at least a small microbevel around 45 degrees on the front of the LN capiron.

[Derek Cohen]

Stanley + chip breaker vs high angle planes

BD vs BU

LN vs LV

Hollow grind vs flat grind

Free hand vs honing guide

Figure-of-8 vs side sharpening

Japanese vs Western saws

Japanese vs Western planes

Japanese vs Western chisels

Wood vs Metal planes.

Vintage vs Modern

etc

etc

etc

Actually, it is interesting .... but in small doses. Sometimes it goes on f-o-r-e-v-e-r .....

Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Weaver]

Kees, what you describe is exactly why I mentioned in the other thread that it's worth an extra 10 bucks of ebay price to buy a plane from someone who has taken the time to show that the cap iron has little wear and the iron is pit free and with a lot of life left.

(I say that because items with lots of pictures bring more money on ebay).

I think my LN cap iron was set somewhere in the 45 to 50 degree range (my favorite range for a cap iron), but I sold the plane. I've just had better results with the curved bailey design (and the old cap irons that are curved) than with a cap iron that has a specific flat bevel honed onto it, but I don't know why that would be. It's subjective to some extent, I guess.

I did have a friend ding up a LN cap iron after he honed it to its primary angle and a sharp point. He had to get a replacement from LN (i'm not sure what possessed him to do that, but I guess he felt if the iron was sharp, then the chipbreaker should be, too.

[george wilson]

Derek: You are exactly right. But,don't forget sharpening stone threads. And stropping. We need to start one about HONING FLUIDS.

These are all hypothetical topics where everyone just gets aggravated.

I wonder how I have stumbled along through life and made anything at all since 1954. I do everything completely wrong!!!

[David Weaver]

If we had access to a bench when most of us are on here, we wouldn't type much.

I wrote an article a while ago describing how to set a cap iron, I can't believe anyone would contend there's not a guide out there. Kees wrote one then, too, in coordination with wilbur. I don't want to put words in warren's mouth, but warren knows what warren knows, and I get the feeling that if you're not going to get something, warren may not feel that it's his job to try to parameterize everything so every beginner gets it.

the same way larry williams will not argue with someone if he doesn't think they know enough to irritate him.

I kind of feel at this point the way warren does. If someone can't "get it" after honest experimentation, then maybe it's not for them and I don't have any interest in arguing other than to say (paraphrased) what warren has pointed out before - that it's probably not good to argue conclusions about something that someone doesn't know much about. I wouldn't argue about spokeshaves or chair making, or even turning, and especially not complex carving - I'm not very good at them. At this point, I know more about plane design than most amateurs, I'm willing to argue about it, but not for very long if I get the sense that the person I'm talking to doesn't know about the same amount.

[Derek Cohen]

I have worked with interlocked Australian hard woods and handplanes for nearly two decades. Most of this was using smoothers with high cutting angles, be they on a single iron BD or a BU plane. In the past 2 or 3 years I have included BD double-iron planes with a tuned chip breaker.

In my experience, Stanley chip breakers are not as reliable as those from Veritas and Lie-Nelsen. Yes, they need to have a micro bevel ground at 45-50 degrees at the leading edge, but I find their lack of springiness easier to set close to the edge. Stanley work well, but they need more care in setting up. Your mileage may vary.

I have 4 ultra reliable smoothers. I have many smoothers (I have many planes!), but if I were to choose just 4 of them to take that final shaving without hesitation and without a test shaving, then these would be ...

1. Marcou S15 bevel up smoother (15 degree bed, 50 degree bevel, bevel up)
2. Lee Valley Bevel Up Smoother (BUS) (12 degree bed, 50 degree bevel, bevel up)
3. HNT Gordon smoother (60 degree bed, bevel down)
4. Stanley BU infill smoother (shop made, 25 degree bed, 35 degree bevel used bevel up).

Does it matter that these planes are mostly bevel up, or that they are single iron? Frankly I don't care. They are amazing performers on the wood I work.

What of the Stanley+chipbreaker smoothers? There are times I get superb results (my best performer is a Stanley Type 11 with a LV PM-V11 blade and LV chipbreaker. It just never fails). However the results of others, including LNs, is just not as reliably good as the BUs and high angle bed planes.

Your mileage may vary.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Koepke]

I simply do not get where one goes at that point to take fairly heavy cuts and not keep tearing up the surface.
Where does one go at that point?

Either to the sharpening stones or the bandsaw.

How heavy a cut are you trying to take?

When taking a thick shaving a plane's blade starts acting more like a lever lifting the wood than it does a scalpel surgically slicing through the wood.

jtk