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Thread: How to read grain direction?

  1. #46
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    George,
    Oh yah . . I went way back to that thread about the tiny dividers and you did answer about the wrench. Thanks. Oh well.
    Here are the 'morphies I spoke of. I don't use them much. I find they move out of adjustment on me too easily. The other day I really cranked on that pivot screw and that helped a little.
    so anyway here is the photo cropped to just show the dividers and no punches or wrench.

    Is this a morphy ? Or is it a morphy wannabe ?
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Sharpening is Facetating.
    Good enough is good enough
    But
    Better is Better.

  2. #47
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    Shawn,

    Height of arrogance.

    Well at least I have reached the pinnacle at something.


    Sorry I misunderstood. To me I thought you sounded pretty disappointed in the method you used :

    • wanted to plane to size quickly rather than take it down with one thousandth of an inch cuts
    • There is a limit to thickness you can take with a cap iron set really close
    • grabbing a jack plane, I took a thicker shaving and suffered the tearout
    • may have had to plane from two directions rather than the easier one direction


    and asked :

    Is there a better way?
    All I meant was that I had already gone on and on about A better way. That I was surprised you ignored it.
    and yes for me it is THEE better way.

    I now realize I should have realized then that I didn’t realize that you were wanting a better way of using the bevel down chip breaker planes ONLY and not some nontraditional frankenplane, freekassoris . . . i.e., my bevel up.

    I really should just realize once and for all that there is such and interest in the bevel down RENAISSANCE that I am wasting my time offering my findings.

    It’s a Pity in my opinion.
    BU is more rigid, faster / easier, fewer parts, more versatile, often less expensive, is more quickly adjusted both throat and blade.
    A fine, . . .I think, . . . BETTER, . . . solution must die because of . . .

    well I will stop there.
    Sharpening is Facetating.
    Good enough is good enough
    But
    Better is Better.

  3. #48
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    Yes,that is a correct morphie,Winton.

    Don't be concerned about people not following your advice. It happens to everyone here,including me. I an sure I influence a few. There have been several here who apparently have switched to ceramic stones. That's just one issue. But,some good progress does happen,often to the silent masses who say nothing.

    But,if you are going to bury your advice giving metamorically (sp?) speaking,I will send you a bouquet of make believe wooden flowers.

  4. #49
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    Look at all these calcium carbonate spheres raining on the sus! It is annoying to watch them crush them with their little cloven feets!
    ~ Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

  5. #50
    Easier? Probably. Better? Hmmm, not so sure about that.

    When you think about it. Why did the entire PROFESSIONAL woodworking community convert to double iron planes? And why did the single iron plane become popular again when the professionals were all dead and the AMATEURS took over the market?

  6. #51
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    When you think about it. Why did the entire PROFESSIONAL woodworking community convert to double iron planes? And why did the single iron plane become popular again when the professionals were all dead and the AMATEURS took over the market?
    I would say I don't know, but you would say go read your literature and I would say but there is not a single issue I have with my planes. I stopped looking for solutions to my issues with the bevel down planes, which I still have and use, when I found solutions for all the issues.

    Now . . . if I really wanted a plane with a blade that flexed up and down like a diving board while I was planing . . . I can not imagine why I would want that but if I did I would buss out a bevel down.

    If I wanted kind of a quaint old timey machine to fool around with that provided a challenge to make work well, even if it worked nearly as well as my bevel up. Better ? How ? Can't get better than the results I am getting.
    . . .if I wanted that quaint old timey machine experience then I would buss out a bevel down. And I do from time to time for that quaint old timey machine fun.

    If I wanted a whole collection of planes with various tunings for specific applications of planing thickness and wood I would have a wall full of bevel downs. Ha, ha with all kinds of cute little labels on them.

    If I liked exercising my fingers spinning and spinning that adjusting wheel back and forth spin, spin, spin for very little effect and sloppy and vague feel at that . . . I would buss out a bevel down.

    I could keep going on

    and I think I will
    one more
    my favorite

    And if I really liked Easter egg hunting, which I don't, I do enough of that at work,
    If I really like Easter egg hunting I would mess with chip breakers so I could drop the little screw with only two full threads on it in the shavings under the work bench some where.
    But I don't, so I don't.

    As for what most people did then or now. I find what most people do a baffling puzzle and am thankful to the day I die that I don't need all that silliness. For example there seems to be more young people smoking cigarettes than ten years ago.

    So I should take it up ?
    Ha, ha, ha,

    There isn't one thing that a BD does, that I can see, that is an advantage other than perhaps sharpening a little quicker. The back doesn't have to be flat , though the bevel facet flatness is more critical Oh wait it just bends down and gives a little clearance. Up and down up and down up and down.

    Ha, ha, ha
    Sharpening is Facetating.
    Good enough is good enough
    But
    Better is Better.

  7. #52
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    Don't be concerned about people not following your advice
    George,
    Get with it man.
    The entire woodworking community has taken up a new, old, new way.
    It is way better.
    The new spelling for advice is "advise".

    Yep I should start looking at the fine details.

    Ha, ha, do you remember when everybody was saying "foylage" and meant foliage ? Even TV presenters that should know better.
    I didn't jump on that wagon either even though there was a standing room only party going on it every night.
    Last edited by Winton Applegate; 09-09-2014 at 3:35 PM.
    Sharpening is Facetating.
    Good enough is good enough
    But
    Better is Better.

  8. #53
    Hmmm, you don't really answer the two questions, you just say why you yourself don't like BD's, which is a different question.

    But I still can adress the issues you bring up.

    - The floppy blade is a Stanley issue, and not half as bad as you think. Pull the frog back, so the iron is fully supported and it's a lot better allready. Or install a thicker blade if you really want. And it certainly isn't an issue for woodies or infills with their thick blades, so it isn't about BD's but about Bailey's.

    - The time machine feeling? Did you know that the bevel up design is older then the double iron plane? The double iron plane comes in the second half of the 18th century. The iron, bevel up mitre plane is allready in a German dictionary in 1713, and the writer doesn't present it as a new invention at all.

    - Too many planes? Huh? Didn't you know that the double iron plane is the easiest adjustable plane available? One screwdriver and you can adjust the plane between thick and thin shavings, more or less tearout reduction. A bevel up needs extra blades or a grinder to change its ability to reduce tearout. Sorry I don't understand your point.

    - The backlash in the adjuster, again a Stanley "feature". Again not half as bad as you make it, but i believe it can be iritating. Not an issue with many other bevel down planes though.

    - The dropped capiron screw. There you really have a point. I haven't really lost any yet, but I have searched from time to time. A little bit of aptitude helps in this department though.

    Well, I understand that you are happy with your bevel up planes. That's good, I like happy people. Just a pitty you couldn't help to answer these two questions. Why on earth did the professional woodworking community convert to the double iron plane back in the 18th/19th century? There must have been some very good reasons. And why are these reasons not valid anymore in todays woodworking circles?

  9. #54
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    Kees,
    I will get back to reading your truly sage and appreciated response but first call ahead to your switchman and have him throw the one that gets you on my track for bit . . .

    Hmmm, you don't really answer the two questions, you just say why you yourself don't like BD's, which is a different question.


    1. Why did the entire
    PROFESSIONAL woodworking community convert to double iron planes?

    Answer :
    I don't know
    2. And why did the single iron plane become popular again when the professionals were all dead and the AMATEURS took over the market?

    Answer :
    for that quaint old timey machine fun
    I'm stretching the second one a bit but go with it.

    PS: until this second I thought you meant a bevel down single iron. Ohhhh you mean a bevel up as a single iron. Thank you for including my devil franken plane in the general mish mash. Well that's a start. I feel like I have , at that moment, won about all I can possibly win here today and am metaphorically speaking lying back in my posting couch smoking an imaginary cigar.

    Life is good
    Last edited by Winton Applegate; 09-09-2014 at 4:02 PM.
    Sharpening is Facetating.
    Good enough is good enough
    But
    Better is Better.

  10. #55
    Oh yes sorry that was confusing. I regard bevel up planes and bevel down single iron planes as more or less the same. But they aren't totally the same of course. They just share the single iron feature with all that goes along with that feature.

  11. #56
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    Pull the frog back, so the iron is fully supported and it's a lot better already Or install a thicker blade if you really want. And it certainly isn't an issue for woodies or infills with their thick blades, so it isn't about BD's but about Bailey's.

    So one has to disassemble the plane with a screw driver down inside and correct an inherent flaw in the design ( in the process destroying the decent throat opening) rather than just turn a knurled finger screw or two and use the plane as intended. BU with an adjustable throat and close edge support to start with.

    Got it ! You sure put that one to bed. (you thought I didn’t know that and didn’t try it. I did).

    Or install a thicker blade
    So the people who designed the Bailey/Stanleys what have you didn’t really test the prototypes, didn’t actually USE the planes they were hawking and selling like flap jacks and it is up to me to correct their laziness and lack of attention to detail. Is that what you are saying here today ? Flap jacks, ha, ha, ha that's a good one ! I love the way my subcondous works, (now if the bastard) (my subconscious) could just learn to spell ((and type)) he and I could get along), keeps me entertained. Ha, ha get it ? Flapping Jack planes. I just saw that while proof reading to see if anything here that I wrote makes the least sense.
    if you really want.
    I don’t want.
    I think we can eliminate that whole phylum from viable alternatives . . . to the perfectly functional and flawless BU Varitas especially.

    OK go on . . . I’m starting to get warmed up a little here . . . had my coffee and a little fruit . . . what you have to watch out for is when I start firing down all that evil carbohydrate in the form of pastry . . . at that point my brain starts to come on and the coffee ignites it and . . . well . . . I tend to get a little enthusiastic lets say.

    And it certainly isn't an issue for woodies or infills with their thick blades, so it isn't about BD's but about Bailey's.
    So what you are saying there is that there is a blade with an even longer main bevel, sticking out from the bed like a sore thumb, and some how because the blade is thicker up above that that creates some invisible SUPORT that comes way out there, down and around to the bottom of the edge and supports it from bellow the bevel like on a BU ? Even though the sharpening angle is the same and the effective blade displacement or cross section, if you will. at that point is the same. It is like saying we put a spacer behind the blade or made the frog thicker so the blade is more rigid. To demonstrate I am not being a complete jerk I think you mean the thinner blade flexes away from the frog in the middle near the screw. What I am talking about is just the bit of the underside of the blade at the lowest part of the bed.

    Some how THAT was something I missed SEEING but you are very adamant so I need to go look for that again. Does that mean that if my butt gets bigger my fingers will be stronger. Huh . . . interesting physics . . . must be a whole new field of theory. A field theory. Fields are often invisible to the human eye.

    Hummmmm
    you have given me something to think about tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, OK I’m done.
    That was fun.

    Didn't you know that the double iron plane is the easiest adjustable plane available?
    No I didn’t know that.

    One screwdriver and you can adjust the plane between thick and thin shavings,
    No screw driver required on BU

    more or less tearout reduction.
    why aaaaaaahhhh would one want MORE tear out ?

    A bevel up needs extra blades
    Yeeeeessssss I have stacks of them so I don’t have to sharpen all the damb time and and can just work rather than feel like I have to have one blade and try to keep it going in some half fast fashion at the work bench.

    or a grinder
    I use a shallow angle main bevel with a microscopic secondary that is easily removed with a 120 Shapton.

    to change its ability to reduce tearout. Sorry I don't understand your point.

    Blades are super easy to store and label. just a magic marker number.

    - The backlash in the adjuster, again a Stanley "feature". Again not half as bad as you make it, but i believe it can be iritating.
    I think you mentioned that you are a machinist, or were.
    I am a metal head to. I spend my time trying to get most all that slop out of a new plane. A waste of time by the way. Drives me crazy after discovering precise dialing think anti backlash, machines threads.

    Nasty things, Stanley style adjusters (the LN planes have less but still) revultin’ to touch

    Not an issue with many other bevel down planes though.
    So now I (meaning the newbie; not me) need to go test drive a stable full of BDs to find a horse without a loose joints problem.
    That was one of the advantages to BDs right ?
    I got a little lost there.

    I can be confident that when I order a BU from, well, any of the manufactures i have ever bought one from that the adjuster will be pleasing and precise even to a perfectionist/ _______er (edited for sensitive ears) like me.

    The dropped capiron screw . . . A little bit of aptitude helps in this department though.
    Yah, aptitude with a center punch on the end of the screw to expand it so it sticks part way out like a well fit drawer just before one pulls it free of the cabinet.

    Moving on . . .

    Well, I understand that you are happy with your bevel up planes
    Ecstatic. No kidding. That is why I put so much time into looking like such a jerk here. Or maybe I just like to argue.
    I do learn stuff from all this though so keep at it.
    Please and thank you.
    Winton
    Last edited by Winton Applegate; 09-09-2014 at 6:09 PM. Reason: "Moving one " changed to "moving on".
    Sharpening is Facetating.
    Good enough is good enough
    But
    Better is Better.

  12. #57
    Fascination with adjusters on planes suggests a lack of progress in actual planing. At one time, I thought backlash was an enormous problem, and now I can't seem to find a plane where it is. The only problem I've encountered with adjusters is planes where the adjuster direction is reversed from the norm. That's a problem.

    In general, it seems that machinists and mechanical engineers seem to have a problem leveling with themselves about what's really material in planing woods.

    George is an exception, though I'd imagine he started with wood and went to machining later.

    One of my woodworking buddies is a mechanical engineer, and he has a lot of trouble separating fascination with the tool from woodworking. He is appalled by a lot of things that don't matter at all, and thus doesn't use his hand tools very often.

    A craftsman will have no time for that kind of stuff, and it's good for us to try to get to the point that we're craftsmen.

  13. #58
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    Yes David,I started with woodworking seriously in 1954. I couldn't afford tools anyway,especially not metal working lathes and milling machines. Still can't really afford to buy GOOD ones(lucky I have the Hardinge HLVH,my Deckel fp1,and my Harrison horizontal mill. They were luckily found for reasonable prices). My friend Chris Vesper,who just left here for the WIA show,has nicer machines than I do. I beat him on nice little stuff like knurls,a mass of vintage files,special instruments of mensuration,and other details that make a shop complete.

    There is backlash on all machines to some degree. The CNC machines with ball screw leadscrews come the closest to eliminating it,but even they can have a little bit,which operators compensate for when they write programs for them.

    Your bevel up planes are no better,Winton. They are just NEWER. And made to tighter manufacturing tolerances than the old stuff,probably. But,brass adjusting nuts WILL wear eventually,both on their internal threads,and on their circumferences,where they run in the little slots in the steel blades-that is a recipe for wear on the part of the brass.

    Backlash is found on all the manual lathes,as I said. It is easily allowed for by a competent machinist. You note where your dial is,run the dial backwards if you need to,and run the dial back to where it was. No biggie. Planes are the same. They require a certain degree of skill to use. I got it by spending my whole life working with them.

    Me,I really like using a little brass hammer on a basic wooden plane. I got quite into it while using them daily in the museum. I still use them at home. I like my metal planes too. But I DO have the skill and good mechanical sense to know how to allow for a bit of backlash.

    Winton,your argument has already become past the point of logic. You do ignore the basic rule of survival of the fittest. And those that survived the most were the standard BD planes. And no amount of cuteness on your part can change that. Sorry,thet's just the truth of the matter.

    Warren used a standard Stanley plane to win the planing competition,didn't he? That is proof of their functionality in itself. That,and the fact that Warren KNOWS how to use and adjust his plane. End of story.

    And,I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about with your ADVISE bit. I use the words advise and advice correctly. And the spell check will not help anyone,because,used right or wrong,if the words are spelled correctly,the checker will let them stand. So will the checker let stand incorrectly used YOUR (when it should have been YOU'RE),THERE,when it should have been THEIR,(or even they're), STEAL instead of STEEL(In a machinist's forum!!!!!), and all the other grade school level foolishness that goes on out there. I'm not saying you use those words wrong,just that there's plenty of it. I might get attacked for snobbishness. But the correct use of our language is important,and not to be taken lightly. I am not in the least a member of the elite crowd. I was a troop in the museum,not regarded as a high class curator or a suit. But,in 200 years,they will be making intellectual studies of workers like me,while looking down on their contemporary craftsmen,just like they do now. I can guarantee that.

    I think it is not out of line to suggest that someone who writes as if he wants to be taken as an intellectual,as David Barnett certainly is,(A master of the language!),he should have learned to prove he has the credentials for it. And,that includes spelling correctly.

    I did hardly any writing for many years,though,and it is sometimes difficult to recall spelling and punctuation now that I do communicate by writing again.

    I know a lot of $5.00 words myself,but I don't try to put on a show and use a lot of them. I speak plainly,not advertising my indefatigable thesaurus to get a point across. It soon becomes as difficult to understand as pohompolugojasmasm(Under water bubbling and boiling sounds-you won't find it in Google.It's part of classical Greek literature.). But,I did enjoy and pay attention in school. Even taught myself for 6 years,math for one of them (horrors! I needed a job).
    Last edited by george wilson; 09-09-2014 at 7:02 PM.

  14. #59
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    Holly Hand Planes Batman it's

    The Wild Weaver

    I think I hear my mother calling . . . I gotta go.

    machinists and mechanical engineers seem to have a problem leveling with themselves about what's really material in planing woods.
    nice play on words and images :

    • mechanical engineers . . . have a hard time leveling
    • what's really material in plaining wood.

    You know capes like that were in but they caused the demise of so many super heroes they are passé now daaauuuuuhhhling.
    Last edited by Winton Applegate; 09-09-2014 at 6:57 PM.
    Sharpening is Facetating.
    Good enough is good enough
    But
    Better is Better.

  15. #60
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    Yeah,well the WILD WEAVER has made some very nice planes. I have not seen a lot of his work,but I have seen them. His designs are tasteful and his work is very well executed. His language is lucid and plain. And it is correctly executed.(And I do know it is incorrect to begin a sentence with AND).
    Last edited by george wilson; 09-09-2014 at 7:04 PM.

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