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Thread: I'm trying...I really am...

  1. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    A lot of beginners think that the plane is supposed to do the work and that if it does not yield a flat surface, they must be holding it wrong or something. Instead the idea is that the plane is used to remove the high spots.
    Indeed! I learned this the hard way (and am still learning... as a newbie I am still struggling with many things). A lot of my time was spent going almost robotically through the text-book explanation of how to perform an operation with the hand plane. Plane across grain the entire board until every stroke give you a full shaving ... check... plane diagonally the entire board until you get full shavings ...check... plane along the grain until you get full shavings... check. It took forever and my results were always unacceptable. Same issue with squaring an edge. Once I started taking ownership of what I was doing and thinking of the plane as a tool, not the brain, everything became more economical and precise, with matching results. As it is usual the case for many, I was in a power-tool mindset, in which you rip, joint, plane and rip again to get to four square; and let the machine do the work for you. With hand-tools, there is an infinite number of ways you can approach the issue, and the most efficient approaches are always based on a good read of the particular characteristics of the board you are trying to tame.

    I don't fully regret the faults on my old ways, though. The pain and frustration caused by my wrong ways made for a lesson well learned. I think I am now better equipped to attack any task with a more critical and hopefully smarter approach that still builds on fundamental and sound technique.

  2. #17
    I disagree that perfectly straight is better. With a sprung joint you take advantage of the fact that the ends are easily
    compressed and will counteract the shrink causing air they will encounter. It's impossible to compress the middle to bring
    the ends in contact. Seen it tried lots of times though. Even when using electric jointers to get " perfectly straight" edges the machines often have a slight bias toward leaving slightly open ends. It's tolerated because because a lot of guys don't
    know how to adjust a jointer accurately and would rather deal with convex edges than have a board climb.

  3. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Augusto Orosco View Post
    Indeed! I learned this the hard way (and am still learning... as a newbie I am still struggling with many things). A lot of my time was spent going almost robotically through the text-book explanation of how to perform an operation with the hand plane. Plane across grain the entire board until every stroke give you a full shaving ... check... plane diagonally the entire board until you get full shavings ...check... plane along the grain until you get full shavings... check. It took forever and my results were always unacceptable. Same issue with squaring an edge. Once I started taking ownership of what I was doing and thinking of the plane as a tool, not the brain, everything became more economical and precise, with matching results. As it is usual the case for many, I was in a power-tool mindset, in which you rip, joint, plane and rip again to get to four square; and let the machine do the work for you. With hand-tools, there is an infinite number of ways you can approach the issue, and the most efficient approaches are always based on a good read of the particular characteristics of the board you are trying to tame.

    I don't fully regret the faults on my old ways, though. The pain and frustration caused by my wrong ways made for a lesson well learned. I think I am now better equipped to attack any task with a more critical and hopefully smarter approach that still builds on fundamental and sound technique.
    Thanks for this, Augusto. Yes, take ownership. They say that converts make the best proselytisers. I think that if I had written what you wrote, some might have written "many ways to skin a cat" or "its all good" without appreciating an efficient approach rather than a formulaic "power-tool mindset". Your paragraphs are more convincing.

  4. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Mel Fulks View Post
    I disagree that perfectly straight is better. With a sprung joint you take advantage of the fact that the ends are easily
    compressed and will counteract the shrink causing air they will encounter. It's impossible to compress the middle to bring
    the ends in contact. Seen it tried lots of times though. Even when using electric jointers to get " perfectly straight" edges the machines often have a slight bias toward leaving slightly open ends. It's tolerated because because a lot of guys don't
    know how to adjust a jointer accurately and would rather deal with convex edges than have a board climb.
    I prefer spring joints also, although I have found I get nicer-looking joints if the spring is just barely there … just a couple thousandths of an inch.

    Mel, you reminded me of a recent post by Paul Sellers. Someone asked him about spring joints, and he responded by advocating a convex joint that you close with pinch dogs on the ends! Seems crazy to me, but I'm not surprised to find him doing the opposite of established practice…it's a good way to generate publicity…

  5. #20
    Slight tangent here. Sorry Harold.

    A few weeks ago, the subject of cambered jointing irons came up, and some expressed skepticism about the strength of the joint, and whether the joint would fully close across the full thickness of the boards. I was scraping this chair seat tonight, and realized it was pretty good evidence of how well a cambered iron can work.

    Here's the seat, 3 boards (it's not done yet, obviously). Sorry, not the greatest pics, but I think they make the point.

    photo 1-3.jpg

    Here the camera is centered over the left and middle boards:

    photo 2-3.jpg


    And here it's centered over the right and middle boards.

    photo 3.jpg

    So, the interesting thing to me is, the carving at the back goes to almost half the depth of the board. I was using an iron the had probably .003 or .004 camber. If there were any problem with using a cambered iron, it would show up here. So I think we can consider that case closed.

  6. #21
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    South Coastal Massachusetts
    Posts
    6,824
    I use a four foot aluminum level and a strong backlight to see how I'm getting on.

    The plane blade needs to protrude most in the middle of the sole, not to the left or right.
    A cambered blade shape makes it easier, but I can't reliable grind mine in that profile.
    I just knock off the corners so they don't leave tracks.

    I try to emulate what Bob Rozaieski demonstrates on his excellent Logan Cabinet Shoppe podcast.

    He demonstrates what Brian Holcombe mentions above at 6:50 or so in the video.

    The sound the plane makes when it stops cutting is important,
    that indicates you've made a sufficient hollow in the edges.

    I believe that this is the key to making a sprung joint,
    the center is lower than the outside edges by about 4x the maximum depth of cut.

    At 7:23 in the video, BR uses a much longer body plane with a dead straight iron - no camber.
    At this point, he's trying to get a full length shaving, and not before.

    The jointer plane is used to get the finished joint, straight and flat.
    Listen to the sound of the jointer at 8:00.

    It cuts on the ends of the boards, first and skims clear of the hollow made earlier.
    When he can hear the jointer cutting full length, he stops.

    I'm exploring the method shown by Terry Gordon, using the benchtop as a long shooting board.
    I think this method takes a lot of the alignment errors out of the problem.

    The trick is getting a known flat reference, in either method.

    The last example I'll post is pretty fast, and poorly mic'd so it can be difficult to follow.

    The camera is pointed at the center of the boards being jointed, so you can
    see his progress from roughing the boards close to square, forming a hollow
    and final jointing - all with a #5. He's clearly practiced, so he's faster than I try to work.

    Last edited by Jim Matthews; 11-24-2014 at 9:47 PM.

  7. #22
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Millerton, PA
    Posts
    1,558
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Voigt View Post
    So I think we can consider that case closed.
    Yeah...and the joints too! REALLY nice job on this!
    I am never wrong.

    Well...I thought I was wrong once...but I was mistaken.

  8. #23
    Don't quit. If I can do it anyone can.

    Rocking a long straight edge on the boards helped me.

    Also, try sighting down the boards and look for the offending areas. I was surprised this worked for me.

    I had problems at the leading edge of the board. I don't think my entry was engaging correctly so I was ending up with a sprung joint unintentionally too.

  9. #24
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Ventura, CA
    Posts
    530
    David Charlesworths hand plane video shows the process beautifully I highly recommend it.

    watch the video once and you will have first-time success when you go to apply it.

    -Tom in Ventura

  10. #25
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    Princeton, NJ
    Posts
    7,254
    Blog Entries
    7
    I'd go for sprung over convex, I don't like attempting to close gaps near the ends.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

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