Prelim Bevel Up Vs. Bevel Down Plane Impressions

[ian maybury]

This is having set up the bevel down plane (a Clifton no. 5) as a jack some subjective first impressions vs. the Veritas bevel ups.

Used side by side on pine (which is no great test) they feel so different. The bevel ups (jointer and smoother) have a very light camber (maybe 0.002in) at 30 deg and 38 deg respectively, while the Clifton has several times that much camber at 45 deg (still fairly light) - so no surprise. All cut beautifully (still bubbling here about the sharpness, performance and precision of sharpening on waterstones with a guide down to very fine grits), but they vibe (literally) and feel totally different.

The Clifton with its relatively lightweight body and blade feels like there's lots going on and produces the classic sharp plane tearing cloth noise as it cuts, while the bevel ups (they cut with amazing precision) with their much more rigid and more vibration absorbing heavier bodies transmit much less by way of sound effects.

That's not to favour one over the other (it's far too early to have a view here), but it's easy to see how people might respond very differently to the two types and have strong preferences based on only this very subjective difference. Especially if used to one or the other. The bedrock just somehow feels like a much older design - like the difference between say a 1950s motorcycle and a more modern one. There's a video on YouTube showing (in fairly trimmed form) the manufacturing processes/plane making (mostly casting and machining of the bodies) in the factory. Search under 'How its made Bench Planes' - by a rodensa56. Very North of England and traditional in feel….

The Clifton seems to have a good blade (the back flattened and it sharpened easily), but the body took quite a bit of flattening. The frog seems well fitted. Flattening to the point where the important bits were seated) and lightly polishing the blade and the back of the chip breaker holder, dialling in the removable chip breaker (relieved at the back, roughly 45 deg, knife edge, punched to tighten up the fit in the locating slot) and waxing up everything made such an enormous difference to the ease with which both blade adjusters work. David Weaver's piece on Wood Central describing his application of research in Japan into chip breaker geometry is very interesting (found afterwards): 'Setting a Cap Iron How to Make Your Bench Plane Perform at Its Best' - next up is to try a steeper chip breaker angle.

Turns out too that while suction/stiction of the blade (once flattened) on to fine waterstones becomes problematical with the bevel down format of blade too that (a) the extra length makes it somewhat easier to handle, and (b) the lesser thickness speeds up bevel grinding and honing quite a bit...

[David Weaver]

Not to nitpick, but we (I believe kees was, too) were actually using the double iron before any of the japanese research information came out. At the time, nobody believed that we were on to much other than warren - because warren had it mastered 35 years before. My conclusions about where to use the cap iron (from before I saw the study) and what angle are apparently a little different than the kato and kawai stuff, because the takeaway from that for most of the people who viewed it was to set a cap iron twice as far away as minimum and use a very blunt angle on the cap iron. It works OK, but not as well, to me, as a less gradual angle and a little more finesse on the set.

We were talking about the cap iron one day on wood central, I had said something to warren like "you were right, I was wrong, I've figured out how to use the cap iron such that I haven't had tearout in quite a while and it's easy to set" (in less than two weeks, which including experimenting on how to use it). Bill Tindall sent me an email shortly after that and said that he and Steve Elliot had been working on digging up some study work that had been done for industry, and once he was able to secure it, it put an end to the people telling me that I was just a troll for people suggesting that they should learn to set the cap iron rather than buying another plane for difficult wood (something that I was guilty of myself).

In a little over two years, the discussions on this forum have completely changed when the question of "I have difficult wood and am having some trouble planing it" comes up. The old response was scraper plane, separate high angle plane, high angle infill, etc..... some of the solutions costing many hundreds or thousands. Now the suggestion is that you can do those things if you need to, or you can use the common plane you already have.

It's strange that i drew heat before the video came out, and when it did, I recall saying that people will have the following response:
* of course it works (the same people who never said it did)
* I've been doing it forever (for anyone who could find old literature where it was mentioned to set the cap iron close)

It changed overnight just because there was a video, but I would've written the article without the video. It just wouldn't have been believed by many. It was an opportune time to write an article because when you first master something, you're filled with details about the problems you encountered and how you set it. When you've done it for 35 or 40 years like warren has, it's subtle and those problems and steps aren't fresh in your mind, you just do it. Without the video, I would've eventually had to have made some elaborate videos on youtube to compare results without the K&K stuff, something I was dreading.

I have been deliberate in trying to promote listening to warren's advice because of this. When george shows up, it's like a fireworks show, the pictures of his works are available, and he's been mentioned on the woodwright show, etc (well, he's been on it). Disregarding george's advice is like pointing at the sun and calling it dark. A few people knew warren was for real more than a couple of years ago, but a lot of beginners showed up to forums and disregarded his advice because there weren't gobs of pictures of his work, and we could all conclude he's doing coarse boat work for all we know. His advice was subtle. I paid attention over time, though, and noticed that warren was winning contests at WIA over everyone, including people half his age, and I know he's not into those kinds of circus tricks, so it's a legitimate display of his skills. The whole thing came about because I got a burr in my rear very early 2012 to use only a stanley 4 to smooth several things I was working on (i thought warren had won a planing contest with a stanley 4), despite having a gaggle of premium planes and some infills that I had made recently, and it took those two weeks to eliminate tearout and get quick at setting the cap iron without having the benefit of any instruction to do it.

I later dumped my premium planes because I like the iron and cap iron design in the stanley planes better, and I despise having premium planes sitting around getting rusty - chasing rust off of those planes and trying to keep them perfect occupied a lot of my time as a beginner.

At any rate, I guess i'm specifying that the credit for the cap iron should go to warren more than the japanese video. It was just something (the video) that came along that showed people who only believe things in videos, and not what they see and do with their own eyes and hands.

[David Weaver]

By the way, I wouldn't make the cap iron for the clifton any steeper than about 50 degrees. That's, to me, where it works the nicest. I don't know what the stock stanley profile is on an unused and never set up stanley cap iron, but they are my favorite and the easiest to use. I'd avoid going to steep initial angles on a cap iron, because they're not necessary, they can lead to a less lustrous finish on a board and they really narrow the range where the cap iron is actually affecting anything.

On the cliftons, they get mixed reviews, apparently because of their inability to make their planes flat and square every time, and because if they are out of square, the reports of customer service from this side of the ocean have been inconsistent. I don't think they are wacking peoples' wallets, I think there just isn't a great mechanism set up for immediate satisfaction like a buyer gets with LN or LV. Their oil hardened iron and their cap iron setup might be of interest to some over here, but they are out of line in their pricing here compared to the gaggle of iron and cap iron setups that are available - which is too bad.

The people who have gotten cliftons that are straight and true usually gush about them.

As you go on, and if you continue to get deeper into hand plane use, fitting things with them and doing more heavy work with them, continue to formulate how you feel about various planes. Some of your opinions will probably change as time goes on.

[Steve Friedman]

David,

Just want to commend you for your words about guys like George and Warren. On these forums (fora?), it's easy to dismiss postings from some of the old timers are just the rantings of some crotchety old men without knowing who they are or what they've accomplished. I love the fact that these guys are willing to share their experience and knowledge with the rest of us, even when they sometimes get unkind responses. So kudos to you for your efforts in encouraging them to keep sharing.

Steve

[ian maybury]

Pardon any unintentional impliation David/Warren/Kees/George - now that you mention it i remember the thread in question. Think i even posted to the effect that i recall being shown the benefit of this on a an old wooden plane when as a kid. The post was primarily only to communicate surprise at the big difference in feel between the BUs and the BD - and to provide a focus for discussion whould anybody be interested. While it's fresh...

The Clifton is a nice plane, but what you say about their sometimes needing a bit of tuning fits with mine. Chances are they are quite a small concern. I guess that what works by way of a very high angle chip breaker in a rig on a milling machine isn't necessarily ideal on a person powered tool of limited mass…..

[David Weaver]

Ian, I vaguely recall you mentioning that, too. The timing of all of that stuff was pretty close together.

[ian maybury]

That work/experience and the paper Kees has just put up beg some interesting questions for us no cap iron bevel up plane users David. If we take it that the effect of a close set and steeply angled cap iron is to 'chip break' - to cause the shaving to curl tightly, and in doing so to generate a reaction force that prevents splitting/tear out and that a high bevel angle honed into a bevel up does something similar - then the million $ question becomes does one or the other bring any significant advantage in any situation?

The cap iron over bevel down blade set up creates what may in effect be a concave bevel - which with the extra clearance to the rear means that the angle of the cutting edge will be quite a lot smaller than on a bevel up blade that's sharpened to a high pitch angle. Does this matter? Or does a close set cap iron of say 45 deg in effect amount a high pitch angle blade?