How to read grain direction?

[David Weaver]

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 . . ..

This one is not going to end up the same way, though. For a long time the "common sense" was that a cap iron served to do nothing other than stabilize a blade. Warren was the only person I recall contradicting that....literally the only person. It was "common sense" that we just needed to have a really heavy iron, and then maybe "common sense" that we needed to have finer abrasives than were available to the average shop worker in the past, and "common sense" that people were just tolerant of tearout in the past or had better wood than we did. (some of that is true, they probably had better lumber than we generally have available, but lumber quality went down long before recently, though).

This is a situation where scenario analysis is necessary, and not analysis of variables individually.

[george wilson]

BUt ,I have the wood they used to use. Much of my wood is over 100 years old.

Old wooden planes had a plenty thick enough iron even when it was a single iron!!!

Common sense is that this thread WILL end being locked.

Stop using Warren as a crutch!!!

[David Weaver]

Yeah, I guess by that I mean that it was easier to be very particular about grain orientation when you had gloms of gigantic old growth trees to cut, and cutting was a large amount of labor.

Now our wood goes through mills quickly because the market doesn't really demand the same quality, and it's probably not generally available due to desire to not waste anything. I live in western PA, and the cherry that I get here from local commercial lumber yards is terrible - it's sorted so that all of the boards are the same width, but they've been poorly sawn and they all come from different trees with bad color. That's just one example.

It's easier to always plane with the grain if the lumber is ideal, but before we get swept up in cap iron this or steep angle that, I guess we should see if we have an opportunity to plane downhill in the first place where none of it matters.

[Warren Mickley]

People have been complaining about the timber they use for quite some time. Here is a snippet from Harrison (1577). "the same stuff which in times past was rejected as crooked, unprofitable, and no use but the fire, doth now come in the fronts and best parts of the work"
Harrison 1577.png

[David Weaver]

I wonder if it's regional (as in as the original lumber from a region gets used, and then when you can't get the same quality you did before, you complain about it).

For me, the reference is between the now retired lumber dealer who would bring wood that was sawn from the same tree, and done so with car to limit runout, vs. what I get at my local commercial dealer where apparently anything goes within a liberal limit of the definition of FAS (lots of sap, bad color, non matching color, endgrain running into the face of a board).

I've noticed that some dealers have gotten creative and call this "character grade" wood now. It's not very nice to work it with hand tools when you're trying to create nice joints.

[Jim Koepke]

Some of the sawyers around here look at you funny when you mention quarter sawn.

jtk

[david charlesworth]

A little late here, I was working. Going back a page or so.

I really like the L-N "new improved" c/b design. It avoids a problem I came across, (not often) where the Stanley type lever cap front edge, touched the C/B some way down the slope, instead of on top of the curve. Advancing or retracting the blade then becomes impossible.

However I have a serious problem with ALL manufacturers for not telling us that the front edges of their C/Bs need checking and may need some attention. I do mean all. I don't think I have e ver seen one which was ready to go.

It's a bit like suggesting that the plane works out of the box!!

Expecting a plane to work without sharpening the blade, is a bit like expecting a car to go without petrol.

David Charlesworth

[Winton Applegate]

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 chip breaker setting.

Oh yah ? Is that a challenge ?
I’m kidding Kees
Kidding
I’m listening . . .

Hope this was somewhat helpful.

I sure appreciate you taking the time to post many links.
I will enjoy your articles and Vid. I’m sure.

I think you are just as much a geek as I am,

Guilty as charged.

Thanks for the metric numbers. (ha, ha, the first thing I did was convert the 1/32” into mm so I could digest it better.)

so you might be interested to really measure how close the capiron is.

What I was thinking I would do is set it by pressing lightly into some wood and tighten the screw, then press it into some typing/printer paper. I figure if it lightly comes through then it is about .003” and if it doesn’t then it is well under that pushing .001 to .002. I understand it is quite possible to look at it and tell but I need to get in the ball park first and then experiment from there.

Thank you !

PS:

The main thing is to set it so it works and not worry about the numbers.

Roger that.

[Winton Applegate]

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).

THANK YOU
I was going to respond to George Wilson that I would have no hesitation taking one of my franken planes, BU to the extremely valuable instrument wood. A test cut or three first of course to see what I need to use. I have great confidence in my planes and my ability to get them to produce a great surface.

HOWEVER obviously I have no business discussing instrument planing with him because I have never made an instrument. (I have read quite a bit about them in books that I have purchased and read cover to cover just because I want to learn about that part of wood working. To be as aware as I can about the theoretical process) sorry if that is too dilettante and unrealistic (I can apply some of it to some of my much less involved work). I really enjoyed studying about that though.

So that's all. And of coarse there is quite a difference between the rocks and boulders we plane and the instrument wood.
Can't wait to try some Ip'e.

Spruce is tops in my book (no pun intended but there it is again; my subconscious at its best) and maple if it can help produce sounds like Ann-Sophie Mutter, (I can go to sleep after listening to her Mozart and wake up with it still playing in my head ! That never happens with any one else for me)
sounds like: Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Janine Jansen, and that is just the young'ns.
I love how Joshua Bell , during studio recordings, conducts the orchestra with his eye brows while he is playing his violin like a rock star. He's a BAD WHAMMMER JAMMER. In a civilized and sophisticated sort of way. I am like soooooooo jealous.
Seriously.

[Winton Applegate]

However the results of others, including LNs, is just not as reliably good

You said a mouthful there !
That is where I couldn't get 'er done.
I just assumed LN knew what they were doing when they built a BD plane. I forgave the less than stellar blade backs (way back then ; they are fine (ish) now) because I assumed it was helping to get an affordable plane into my hot little sweaty newbie hands.
Maybe I couldn't get the chip breaker close enough because I couldn't get the chip breaker close enough.
?
Naw
I remember slipping 'er over the edge and fowling my edge a few times so that wasn't it . . . all of the time at least. I do recall maxing out the adjuster though. That wouldn't have stopped me . . . I would have just busted into it with my metalworking tools until I took care of that. Believe you me. Or returned it for another plane of the same type which I have done once or twice for other issues.
Maybe the angle of the cap iron. I definitely made sure the fit between the front of the cap iron and the top of the blade was perfect / no gaps. I knew enough to do that much anyway.

[Winton Applegate]

Carbon fiber

I picture my self on my death bed, about a hundred and fifty years old

gasping out my last and I hear some one mention their Carbon Fiber this or that.

My last words are likely to be : Bawwwww nothin' but glue and pencil shavings, glue and pencil shavings. Nasty darn razabaza blank blank.

[Winton Applegate]

It's a bit like suggesting that the plane works out of the box!!

I think I am missing the point. I suppose you mean they should's say it does if it doesn't. Not that NONE DO. But you are also kind of making my previous point that a customer, really, should not be expected to be a time traveler or a mechanical engineer to make their three or four hundred dollar hand plane work.

By the way these two hand planes worked out of the box flawlessly, Zero fettling, zero sharpening. But then I paid the nut and got what I paid for.

Yah that second one is an Old Street plane. Out of the box, to the bench and instant magic. Within their intended use . . .
here I go again . . .
no tear out and no real chip breaker.
OK enough already.

[David Weaver]

Winton, derek is the only other person I have run into who hasn't been able to get satisfactory performance out of a cap iron, and I don't know why. It may be because of the wood he's using, we don't have much access to it, but it is not as though I haven't planed everything up to and including cocobolo with a stanley 4. More difficult wood causes a little more trouble, but not an insurmountable level of trouble.

I read this, as I said earlier, as you comparing something that doesn't take any inclination, and then at the same time comparing it to something that you haven't been able to do well.

Once you know how to use the double iron, it's trivial, and much more useful when the cuts get heavier. Comparing a plane that's "ready out of the box" "within its intended role" is going back to the argument that what's ultimately better isn't so because it's not easily attainable in 15 minutes. there is also more to woodworking than smoother shavings.

[Derek Cohen]

David, I did not say that I do not get a satisfactory performance. I said that I find the performance unreliable compared with the alternatives.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Weaver]

Ahh, a difference, but one I don't have any issue with (reliability).