A tightly set mouth to control tear-out.

[Patrick Chase]

No need to take it all too seriously! Stewie is just janking our chains, and I'll be happy to bark anytime.

I agree witb Kees - it was pretty obvious that Stewie was bored and/or lonely and decided to troll the forum a little bit (and it was mild as trolling goes). I decided to take the bait for kicks and giggles, as I said in my first reply. It's more our problem than his if we get overly wound up about it.

No harm, no foul.

[Niels Cosman]

Don't forget the embroidered planing slippers.

I make sure to wear my black business socks with my planing slippers. Because when it comes time to plane, it's "business-time".

[Zach Dillinger]

I make sure to wear my black business socks with my planing slippers. Because when it comes time to plane, it's "business-time".

Thanks for the ear worm...

[Patrick Chase]

My favorite smoothing plane has a thicker blade (Hock), heavy chipbreaker (L-N) and a 0.004" mouth.

This works very well most of the time , but when faced with complex, dense, brittle timbers it can cause significant tearout.

I have come to the conclusion that a tight mouth is not so effective as high effective pitch, or ultra close C/B settings.

Currently I am trying to decide which technique I prefer.

High EP is less of a fiddle and I am very familiar with the 25 degree backbevel which I like.

David Charlesworth

High EP is certainly less fiddly (particularly if you have dedicated high-EP planes and/or blades as I do) but IMO the surface quality isn't as good as from a common-angle plane. If you sand or scrape everything before finishing then that probably isn't a big deal, but if you try to go straight from smoothing to finishing then it's a real concern. I personally try a common-pitch plane with close-set cap iron first, and only resort to high EP if/when that fails (whether due to tearout or jamming).

I run a >30 mil mouth by default, sometimes closing down to ~10 mils or even less (when I close down I use bits of plastic shim stock to gauge the opening). I've been able to combine a 10-mil mouth with a close-set (8 mils from edge) cap iron on some woods with some planes, but most of the time that's a jamming disaster. It also depends on the plane's mouth geometry, specifically how quickly it opens up above the leading edge. I have a WR #3 that does particularly well when configured with both a close-set cap iron and a narrow mouth, though I have no idea why - the mouth geometry isn't anything special.

My personal order of preference among the various tearout-avoidance strategies is: cap iron set, bed angle, mouth.

EDIT: My personal order of preference is: don't plane against the grain unless absolutely necessary, cap iron, bed/blade angle, mouth :-).

[Brian Holcombe]

Don't forget the embroidered planing slippers.

Truth be told, I've been hunting for some good tabi socks.

[Jim Davis]

Plus one on the sharpening stuff. I really don't need to separate any Higgs' bosons from the molecules in the wood I'm cutting.

[Ryan Mooney]

Truth be told, I've been hunting for some good tabi socks.

Planing with Geta? You'll have to adjust your bench height to match....

[Stanley Covington]

Truth be told, I've been hunting for some good tabi socks.

How about these:



Or maybe, some patterned jikatabi to add some spice to your planing ensemble:


Here is a more reserved pair to go with your velvet planing jacket:


The plain black jikatabi are also available with steel toes and even spikes for heavy-duty planing.

Here's a link to webstore in Kyoto.

Stan

[ken hatch]

How about these:



Or maybe, some patterned jikatabi to add some spice to your planing ensemble:


Here is a more reserved pair to go with your velvet planing jacket:


The plain black jikatabi are also available with steel toes and even spikes for heavy-duty planing.

Here's a link to webstore in Kyoto.

Stan

Stan,

I gotta have some with the steel toe . Where is the link?

ken

[Brian Holcombe]

Haha, those are awesome.....not for me....but awesome. I dont see the link?

Anything will be an improvement over what I currently use.

Ryan, I have some plans for short timber-frame type saw horses....so getting slightly lower, hah. I plan to use those as an assembly bench/planing bench for large pieces.

[Brian Holcombe]

Ken and I have very similar footwear.

[Kees Heiden]

I never understood how many people from Asia like these kinds of slippers with something in between the toes. You often see socks in flipflops on colder days! But I don't even like regular flipflops.

[george wilson]

Fabric between the toes helps eliminate toe jam.

[Barry Dima]

Fabric between the toes helps eliminate toe jam.

As a firm proponent of Vibram FiveFingers, I can say that my toes always jam with fabric between the fingers.

Jam out, that is.

[Ryan Mooney]

Haha, those are awesome.....not for me....but awesome. I dont see the link?

Anything will be an improvement over what I currently use.

Ryan, I have some plans for short timber-frame type saw horses....so getting slightly lower, hah. I plan to use those as an assembly bench/planing bench for large pieces.

Have you seen the skottbenk (unsure on translation - bulkhead bench, scotts bench?) type of planing bench?

https://youtu.be/N97nZLCNhG4

Found via:

http: / / skottbenk wordpress com /

plugging it into google translate gets a very rough guess as to what's going on. It appears to have been mostly used for doing edge treatment on architectural and (likely?) boat building.

It kind of seems like you could have a frame that clamped on top of that for assembly and perhaps flat planing. Not sure, but its an intriguing setup.