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Thread: New experiments

  1. #31
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    You do have a good point Sean. What's the relevance?

    For the old guys who were doing everything by hand and had to furnish the Versailles and all those places, i think it was very relevant. And they sure didn't need my measurements, because I believe they intuitively knew all I took so much pain to invest. But they didn't write it down, which shows that you always should document your knowledge.

    But what is the relevance for us? When you use planers and thicknessers to dimension your wood, I think it won't matter too much if your final smoothing strokes are a little heavy handed or your blade wears faster (at the same time, A2 and PMV11 are populair because it wears slower). For the few of us who only use handplanes the efficiency is as valid as ever.

    I am a hack. I've made a few projects with handtools, the dining table was the largest. I get plenty of tearout with the wood I use, which might be second choice. Using my humble set of vintage planes, the chipbreaker is the only viable way to get good results.

  2. #32
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    Re. set ups to suit different hand planing situations Kees. 'But they didn't write it down…'

    Sounds like it could be a really interesting project to interview Warren (with samples and tools to hand - in a demo context) and a few more of his ilk who have so much information - to attempt a 'brain dump', and try to get it written down. Chances are of course it'd very quickly run into stuff he knows or just intuitively does - without necessarily having a rationale worked out for doing so. If nothing else it could provide all sorts of insights and leads for experimental work.


    It seems like leaving it to the user to figure out the details is a bit of generic issue in woodworking, even in terms of machine usage. There's for example so many standard tasks involved in using a table saw. The detail of blade selection, cutting accurately to a mark, squaring a fence etc etc. It's almost never actually written about except very superficially, much less reduced to a set of rules or principles. Trouble is differing machines and shops often use very different set ups for the same task....

    PS This more modern version of the Marunaka machine is impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpWoGKwCqk4 Look at the full width shavings coming off… Shop sized version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8phndWW2qQ (look at the shine on the planed surface at the end) It seems likely that some of the factories making these machines have done a lot of work on these topics too.
    Last edited by ian maybury; 09-17-2014 at 6:27 AM.

  3. #33
    Ian, I believe the super surfacer was somewhat behind the kato and kawai. The usefulness for hand tools was just an offshoot (a different abstract) that was less precise.

    A member of another forum (who sells them) gave us the run down on their chipbreaker setup, which answered the question a lot of us had about them - that being how they take such a large thick shaving with no tearout.

  4. #34
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    Ta David. It seemed likely that they had done a bit of work on the process. That the machines existed at all was news to me. I guess their data may or may not be applicable to the hand tool situation - where a lot hangs on getting acceptable forces, characteristics and feedback as well as a clean cut.

    Don't let me confuse the flow of discussion by lobbing the odd comment into the mix - it's intended only to help spark thoughts. Feel free to ignore if the ground is already covered - i've certainly not been down the road you guys have.

  5. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by ian maybury View Post
    Feel free to ignore if it repeats territory already covered - i've certainly not been down the road you guys have.
    No problem at all, I personally thought it was interesting that the work done by K&K was to find a way to make a machine eliminate tearout - it's one that works a lot the same as kees' contraption.

    When I first started woodworking, a buddy and I saw videos of it and puzzled about it for a while (as in how can it plane with no tearout reliably), and I can't remember what we concluded - probably that they were using good stock. I'm trying to remember the name of the other user who runs solid wood machinery (a marunaka dealer - among other things) - mark something (edit: hennebury, I could've just looked at the video text) - but he was nice enough to give us a rundown on how the double iron on the machine works and how it's set. It's pretty interesting.

    If I had to bet at lloyds, I'd say that the whole study itself was for the benefit of marunaka, but I don't keep good enough mental records of the translated stuff that came out in april or may of 2012.

    The hand tool paper that was written after the industry study type stuff was done said something about it not being that easy to be prescriptive about the cap iron, and IIRC, concluded that users should watch the shaving to see if it's set close enough to be doing anything. I think maybe it was written separately for technical schools or something. Warren always said something along the lines of "use is subtle", and the paper seemed to agree somewhat. The japanese planes are not nearly as convenient to set, and take a little more finesse to set and adjust the planes' depth of cut with the cap iron set close, which may have led to some of their trouble coming up with something prescriptive (experience in use is more important than prescription or jigging, anyway).
    Last edited by David Weaver; 09-17-2014 at 8:36 AM.

  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kees Heiden View Post
    the chipbreaker is the only viable way to get good results.
    Scrapers and sandpaper can help a lot too. ;-)

    I guess my problem is that my output is not held back by my tools. Maybe when I catch up to their present capabilities, I'll be more interested in squeezing just a little more out them!

    Part of what I don't like about some aspects of power tool work is the fiddliness of measuring and setting and jigging. I'm too impatient and frankly not that good at that sort of anal retentive stuff. I resist bringing that sort of thing to my hand tools. I'd rather be more intuitive, on-the-fly empirical, and reacting to immediate actual situations. My perversion in this regard is no doubt holding me back, but I yam what I yam.
    ~ Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

  7. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Sean Hughto View Post
    Scrapers and sandpaper can help a lot too. ;-)

    I guess my problem is that my output is not held back by my tools. Maybe when I catch up to their present capabilities, I'll be more interested in squeezing just a little more out them!

    Part of what I don't like about some aspects of power tool work is the fiddliness of measuring and setting and jigging. I'm too impatient and frankly not that good at that sort of anal retentive stuff. I resist bringing that sort of thing to my hand tools. I'd rather be more intuitive, on-the-fly empirical, and reacting to immediate actual situations. My perversion in this regard is no doubt holding me back, but I yam what I yam.
    Sean, I think you're exactly right. The use of the cap iron is less fiddly, and less time consuming than the fiddly you describe with power tools (and I agree with that, it's the reason I'm using hand tools, despite the person who taught me woodworking relying on machines unless it was unavoidable not to). The talk about the cap iron is very specific, but the use is subtle and unobtrusive and "unfiddly".

    I don't think you need to get more from your tools, personally, I've seen your work. Whether you fiddle the cap iron for 15 seconds after each sharpening is up to you.

    Dare I say it, I've been slowly making kitchen cabinets and final sanding the surfaces. If they were a piece of material that I could take with me when I leave the house, I wouldn't do that - I would finish plane them. I have final smoothed these cabinets, including all of their junctions, with a smooth plane. Some of the wood is quartered, but I want them to look factory, and what using the cap iron has allowed is for me to sand with 220 and 320 on a power sander and that's it.

    If I'm honest (I try to be), using hand tools in general hasn't sped things up vs having a better complement of power tools, but I don't have a better complement of power tools (don't have a power jointer at all), but using the cap iron has expedited the amount of time I am creating dust, and has allowed the use of the plane until it's literally dull if chosen without having much effect on anything other than the surface brightness (which is immediately obliterated by the sander, anyway).

  8. #38
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    FWIW, I have paid more attention to the cap iron based on your and Warren and Kees, etc. insights and it definitely helps. I'm not suggesting that using the cap iron is fiddily. Angsting about blade angles and bed down to the half a degree and so forth is not something I anticipate ever doing though.
    ~ Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

  9. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Sean Hughto View Post
    Angsting about blade angles and bed down to the half a degree and so forth is not something I anticipate ever doing though.
    I agree with that, too. I hope if anyone is a newbie that the takeaway that they get is that the stock plane (whatever it may be) as it is will do the trick without measuring anything, etc, and that the cap iron set generally is just out of the range of working a shaving or just barely working it on the heaviest one you're likely to take. That's the subtle part, I guess, that's better done with experience. It could be inferred that a super close set is something that some people use all the time, but that's not a practical thing, either, it limits how fast you can remove wood.

    (I think it's not fiddly, I'd imagine warren thinks its not fiddly, and maybe not kees either. But if one tried to measure all of the stuff on a regular basis and duplicate a video intended to test a setup for a commercial machine (supersurfacer), it would definitely be fiddly).
    Last edited by David Weaver; 09-17-2014 at 10:22 AM.

  10. #40
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    I'd say David judging by what gets written in many pieces on setting up woodworking tools is that the core bit of information coming through from this work is that correctly adjusted close set chip breakers of an appropriate shape are (all else like sharpness and edge geometry being equal) a key means of preventing tear out. There's of course more detailed considerations in terms of precisely how to set them up - but even the basic point seems not to be widely appreciated. e.g. there's experts writing that talk of stuff like setting chipbreakers back by 1/8in as a generally applicable setting etc.

    My guess is that scale effects i.e. depth of cut, and it's relationship to optimium placement of the chip breaker may be significant. i.e. a thick chip seeems likely to respond to a breaker set further back in a similar way as a thin smoother type chip does to a close set breaker? i.e. the likelihood is that truly optimum settings probably depend on chip thickness and wood type. Against that workable solutions need to be able to handle a wide enough range of requirements to be practicable - it wouldn't do (short of the adjustable on the fly chip breaker somebody mentioned?) to have to reset for every cut.

    I guess Sean that the so called 'scientific' approach tends to be about extracting generally applicable rules that everybody can apply. That's not at all the same as getting to an optimum or the absolutely best possible solution. Standardised rules (and laws) tend by definition to focus on achieveing 'desirable' conditions in respect of a narrow few variables. It's possible to write more complex rules that take account of more and subtler variables, but they quickly become so complex as to be unworkable. Which means that the price of stock rules is inevitably a 'good enough' result (we like to think), and a dumbing down effect because people just blindly apply the rules without understanding the underlying process. e.g. 90% of the people that get lifted for 'speeding' were most likely doing nothing dangerous - a situation exacerbated by the tendency of enforcement to set up in places that provide a ready supply of sitting ducks.

    I guess the point of the highly expert craftsman is that the possibility is there for them to use their intuition and expertise to get into the space that standardised manufacturing processes cannot. If that craftsman can get close enough to the testing that underpins the above rules (before it's been simplified in the blender to produce them) then maybe the improved understanding can help him/her too in delivering a solution tuned much more precisely to the situation and piece of wood at hand - by taking account of far more variables, and in a more considered way. Having a successful business in this area requires finding people that will pay for this capability.

    It's probably wiser (as many doing kitchens and the like have done here) not to end up competing with CNC machines to find who can cut up sheets of particle board most cheaply...

    Which is fine - but there's still times that the power tools as David's comment about wide belt sanders are a very attractive proposition...
    Last edited by ian maybury; 09-17-2014 at 10:41 AM.

  11. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by ian maybury View Post
    My guess is that scale effects i.e. depth of cut, and it's relationship to optimium placement of the chip breaker may be significant. i.e. a thick chip seeems likely to respond to a breaker set further back in a similar way as a thin smoother type chip does to a close set breaker?

    This is true, but there is a point that shavings don't really have enough strength to do any or much damage, so the super close set (.004" or whatever for anyone that ever has or could measure such a thing) is rarely needed. It's best to set further back so that only the thickest chip you could work would be just straightened. It's pretty are to get in any trouble doing that - it's the thick chips that lift, the thin ones really don't. So you can take a thick shaving or whatever, and finish with a thin one without changing anything. The latter set that you describe is what I aim to achieve on every plane I put a cap iron on - and it's just something you do by experience ("right about there looks pretty good" kind of thing). In two years, I have needed the super close set exactly once - on cocoblo - but that's it.

    My tearout bugaboo in the past was a matter of patience, or as the term always comes up, workmanship of risk - wanting to take a bigger and bigger shaving, even on wood that didn't seem to tolerate it. It's not practical to finish trouble wood only with thin shavings if you have to do it in any quantity, and if you're experiencing a little trouble with a shaving and then you ramp it up a little to try to flatten something uneven or whatever, you can get a whopper here or there that takes several more careful strokes to remove. It's nice to eliminate that - those are the things that shoot you past a thickness mark, etc. Everything else disappears just by reducing the shaving thickness on the last couple of passes.

  12. #42
    That seems like a lot of work to evaluate a control surface, albeit a very small control surface. A surface that has little practical application in any real project which invloves larger surfaces. Repeatability of the cutting interface controlled by a human over many strokes is where its at. The degrade of the cutting edge while planing a practical project surface over many strokes is more important than the "absolutes" that this scientific rig coughs out.

    The take away? Make sure that your tool is sharp as can be and make sure that you resharpen when that tool is not as sharp as can be.

    Me, I like to have two irons ready to go because when the shavings are flying I am in the moment and don't want to hit the stones. Results are the ultimate validity of any tool/craftsman combo.

  13. #43
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    Ta David - that reduces it to practicality. Setting up and testing a scrub plane for the first time a few nights ago demonstrated from the other end how chip breakers can only operate up to a certain depth of cut anyway. It's amazing how they glide through the wood at a scary depths - while requiring (relatively speaking) pretty minimal force. Adding a chip breaker would likely get interesting/stop it dead….

    The problem for sure Chris is always the design of the experiment - how do we know which variables to take account of, and which to discard. It gets complicated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_experiments

    For all the theory my personal experience around PhD research suggests that there's an awful lot of (quietly unstated - but subtlety ignoring) simplification goes on in statistical research in an effort to reduce the problem to a more manageable one - with the result that the conclusions can be very iffy. That's even in engineering topics - when it gets into medicine, social science and the like where the functioning of the systems being is not understood or is subject to a gazillion variables it becomes a bit of a joke. I'm much happier at the thought of the case study based research which is an alternative - that's where a specific scenario is investigated to a very high degree of detail. It's then (it goes) a much more open question whether or not the result is generally applicable, but it beats building the castles in the air that (and this is of course a controversial view in some quarters) characterise so much modern population based statistical 'scientific research'.

    Part of the problem is that statistical research is much more academically respectable (especially in the US) - basically because it generates population based results that can likely be used to justify the development and sale of mass market products. It suits the egg heads too because it's so maths based. Pharmaceutical research is a clear case in point.

    All that said the knowledge of guys like yourself, and David and Warren is the result of lots of personal experiments - informed by lots more done by others. It's hard to set up tests rigs that mimic the hand tool scenario - but it's all grist to the mill.

    As in even if the only consequence of work like Kees' is that it adds some info and gets us talking and thinking and clarifying our ideas so that they can be communicated (for use in designing a machine, or for use by a hand tool user) - that has to be hugely positive. It has to beat the hell out of crusty old master carpenters hoarding knowledge and dribbling it out in return for cheap labour from apprentices - and in doing so turning it into the 'word' (to be pronounced and worshipped, so that hands power to the priesthood, and so that heretics that might threaten this power can be denounced and burned) rather than just a staging point on the never ending road of improvement...
    Last edited by ian maybury; 09-18-2014 at 1:03 PM.

  14. #44
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    Wise words Ian.

    My bit of research is limited in scope. Of course. Influences on blade wear, apart from bedding angle and capiron setting, are woodspecies, density, humidity, grain angle, cutting depth etc. I've only tested one set of all these variables. I thought that the results were distinct enough to warant a publication, but we shouldn't forget the probability that for example grain angle, which is a large factor, could seriously change the results, one way or the other.

    It is very hard to draw definitive conclusions from the experience of woodworkers. Psychology is an extra factor in research like that. How impartial are they when they report their experience? And I don't say that in a negative way. We human beings are easilly impressed, we are vulnerable to influences from our environment, advertising for example, or things we heard from collegues. Research into this would have to deal with these social and phychologic factors too.

    Doing research like I did is more precise, but is also always limited in scope. Huge amounts of data are necessary to get the full picture.

    That said, I am pretty confident about one thing. High cutting angles reduce the negative normal force a lot quicker then planes with a capiron. In other words, the cutting edge is being pulled down into the wood more with the capiron planes. This is something you can also conclude when you combine other studies like the ones from Kato and the one from Walker, as mentioned in my study.

    What's not so obvious, is what this normal force (the vertical force acting on the cutting edge) means for the cutting of a handplane. Any insights why more or less negative or even positive values would be good or bad, would be appreciated.

  15. #45
    Kees, I'll comment on the normal force, but I have not set up experiments or any such thing, these are just my observations about driving a plane further with the cap iron set. I don't think the normal force is that big of a deal for someone who is not tired, you lean on a plane a little bit, it continues to cut. As long as the work is marked, if the plane doesn't take an identical cut each pass, no big deal.

    When you get tired, though, or at least when I get tired, I tend to focus in making sure I'm not leaning on the plane - which is something you can do as a plane seems to be dulling or losing a bit of clearance. Doing so ads a multiple to the amount of work that you have to do just to make the plane work. A plane that is staying in the work by itself will be easier to push and stay off of leaning vs one that needs some additional downforce from the user to stay in the cut. The harder the wood, the bigger the effect is on the user.

    It's preferable from a fatigue standpoint to have to apply less downforce, and when applying it becomes a nuisance, that's when I usually go back to the stones. In the flow of work, it may be an even match with an easily set single iron plane, though, in terms of being able to quickly sharpen a plane if one has a very fast routine. Not because it takes a long time to set a cap iron, but because there is some time added to a sharpening cycle for taking a cap iron apart and putting the assembly back together.

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