Record #4 Smooth Plane - Refurbish or replace it?

[David Weaver]

In fairness to tom and the other folks machining planes, it is nice to have at least one plane that has cheeks square to the sole (for a shoot board), and getting a plane there by hand isn't as easy as lapping one. Of the vintage planes I have, none of them are square out of the box, and though it's not absolutely necessary for a plane to be perfectly square (you can skew the iron), it's nicer too have a square plane for the work.

And if someone wants to have their plane ground just for cosmetic purposes, or because they don't want to do the actual lapping work, that's fine, too. It's just not a necessity to get a good working plane.

[Adam Cruea]

5 thousandths cause the plane to rock? No. If I gave you the plane to use and told you it was flat and didn't allow you to have a straight edge to check that comment, you'd never know it wasn't flat.

You want the lowest point on the sole to be the contact around the mouth, everything else can be a tiny bit higher.

In terms of preference, set yourself up a pile of wood that has just been hit with the jack or fore plane, and with edges that need to be jointed. Take a premium plane like a Lie Nielsen 7 and do half an hour's straight work with each of the two planes. Guaranteed the plane that has been lapped by hand will be less tiring and you can literally do more work with it. Both due to the weight and due to the flatness.

What you absolutely don't want is a plane that is concave where the mouth is above the front and back. You don't even want something like that within LN's flatness tolerance, because even on something like a #8 that may be 1.5 thousandth or two 8 hollow, you will literally have a cut or two at every jointed board before you can get a through shaving, and then you will have an impossible time making a mildly sprung joint.

Usually when you fit a long joint together to see if you have high or low spots, the trouble is at the ends or far too much taken out of the middle due to a heavy shaving, but the problems are not due to having a 5 thousandths error in the sole of the plane.

It never occurred to me specifically until recently, using a plane that is dead flat, how quickly the wax is gone from it and how substantial the friction is once the wax is gone. The premium planes *do* feel more solid in test cuts, but in the context of work, they take more effort vs. the planes I've prepared. It would be interesting to see if the premium plane makers could creatively solve this. I don't think most customers of planes ever use them heavily, though, nor do most people run a plane across the end of a panel to plane to a marked line - but the amount of friction and skip a plane that's dead flat will have on end grain vs. something that's not as dead flat is substantial.

Oh, I got the friction understood really quick when I started working with my LN 4 1/2 @ 50*. I realized it was a ton of friction, and there's a reason I take a very fine shaving with that one. Anything over the width of fine hair (.002) starts to get too much for me to push. No way on this earth you could pay me to use a jointer that's milled dead flat. I'm a masochist, but even that's taking it too far for me.

I need to check my planes I guess and see if maybe I'm just thinking backwards. I could have sworn most of my soles were very slightly concave except for the toe, heel, and mouth being in the same plane. At least between the heel and mouth. I can make a sprung joint, so maybe not.

*has a psychotic break* I DUNNO MAN! I JUST KNOW I CUT WOOD AND MAKE PRETTY THINGS!

At least, according to my wife.

[Derek Cohen]

You cannot always skew the iron on a plane with sides that are out-of-square. It depends on the direction of the "lean". If towards the sidewall of the runway, then the blade will project further into it and cut it away. Leaning away from the sidewall requires extra blade projection. If a thin blade, it may flex.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Weaver]

Mouth, toe and heel in plane is fine. If the plane is concave between them, it's OK (but it's nicer if it's not, in case you end up using it on short pieces in a pinch).

When you hand lap a plane, the transition to several thousanths of clearance is slow at first and more pronounced at the end (which should make sense). When you're thinking too much about planes and not using them enough, in your mind you can convince yourself that a jointer prepared thus is less preferable than a dead flat #6, but in use that's just not the case in use.

I'm sure my wooden planes are less flat than that (I haven't checked them, though - most of the problems from not doing enough work to flatten the soles of a freshly made plane are immediately apparent, and not related to front to back flatness measured in a couple of thousandths).

[David Weaver]

You cannot always skew the iron on a plane with sides that are out-of-square. It depends on the direction of the "lean". If towards the sidewall of the runway, then the blade will project further into it and cut it away. Leaning away from the sidewall requires extra blade projection. If a thin blade, it may flex.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I agree. Even when it leans the right way, it's much nicer to just have a square plane. Someone who is "way out there" could also create a strip tilted toward the side of the shoot board. It wouldn't be difficult to do, and I'd be curious if that created a problem, but not curious enough to do it, for sure.

[Jim Koepke]

When you hand lap a plane, the transition to several thousanths of clearance is slow at first and more pronounced at the end (which should make sense). When you're thinking too much about planes and not using them enough, in your mind you can convince yourself that a jointer prepared thus is less preferable than a dead flat #6, but in use that's just not the case in use.

The only planes of mine that have been checked for flat are the ones that had some kind of problem. Then they get treated to correct the problem, not necessarily to make the sole perfectly flat and square to the sides.

The goal isn't in perfect numbers when the metal is measured. The goal is what how the wood turns out during the process.

Some of my planes have been lapped just to clean a bit of rust off of the sole.

jtk