Japanese chamfer plane question

[Patrick Chase]

I'm almost embarrasses to mention this because it's such a thoroughly inferior option to Stewie's and Derek's' planes, but...

LV makes a chamfering toe for their block planes. It works reasonably well for me, though I did need to add some shim stock between the toe and the body to bring the toe level with the body of the plane (if you leave the toe recessed it can "dive" like a chisel plane).

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Patrick

I have the LV chamfer attachment for the LA Block Plane. It works the same way as my plane does. However I have an issue with this attachment in that it only lies over the toe. As a result, once the toe area runs over the end of the edge being chamfered, the plane runs out of registration. Perhaps I am missing something?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

Hi Patrick

I have the LV chamfer attachment for the LA Block Plane. It works the same way as my plane does. However I have an issue with this attachment in that it only lies over the toe. As a result, once the toe area runs over the end of the edge being chamfered, the plane runs out of registration. Perhaps I am missing something?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Nope, not missing anything. There's a very small (the size of the mouth opening, <1 mm) gap between the end of the guide and the cutting edge, so you have to hold the angle manually for at least that long. Obviously if you're blending one chamfered face into another then the guide will "release" earlier than that, so it may be unsupported for up to 1/2", which is the max chamfer size with that attachment.

By the same token you must rely on the consistency of your strokes and on the heel of the plane resting on the "guided" part of the cut to control depth at the very end. When I use that attachment I'm even more careful than usual to weight the heel as I approach the end of the cut.

That's one of the reasons I described it as "thoroughly inferior" to your plane.

With that said, IMO if you can hone freehand then you should have sufficient control to manage it :-).

[Steve Voigt]

Reading through this thread, I notice that several people have problems with their chamfer planes; I also notice that some of these planes have Rube Goldberg-like mechanisms that remind of metal multi-planes in their ungainliness. Here's a suggestion: chuck your chamfer plane in a dusty drawer, and plane to a pair of lines with whatever bench plane you like. You will never have the sort of problems with the depth mechanism that Derek and Patrick described, if there is no depth mechanism. Draw two lines and don't go past them, and your chamfers will be perfect, or perfect enough.

Aside from the issues already mentioned, chamfer planes have a lot of limitations. There are a lot of chamfers in woodworking that aren't 45°; for example if I am chamfering the underside of the ends of a tabletop, the chamfers will be a lot shallower than 45°. An ordinary plane can make any chamfer, but a chamfer plane can only make one. A chamfer plane isn't much help on curves, but any small plane will work just fine for chamfering gentle convex curves.

Not to mention, learning to plane to lines is a valuable skill that will pay off in lots of other applications.

I guess I can see using a chamfer plane if you were making dozens or hundreds of picture frames, and you wanted them to all be exactly the same, without having to pre-mark them. But for most applications, they're really unnecessary.

I suppose the example I gave (of planing hundreds of picture frames or whatever) is how chamfer planes originated, at least in the West. You definitely don't find them in 18th c. tool kits; they show up in the 19th century, when people were doing production work in factories but not yet using power tools for everything. The advantage of a chamfer plane in that situation is that you can hand it to a relatively unskilled worker and set them to work. That's the sort of situation that these planes were made for.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Steve

I essentially agree with you, and this is what I tend to do - using a cutting gauge to strike the lines, and plane to them (block plane, small smoother, even a jointer). Mostly, I just freehand with a block plane.

Perfectly accurate bevels are not important 90% of the time. Where a chamfer plane earns its keep is when the bevels need to be even and straight, such as when they sit alongside another line (could be a drawer front or, as in my example earlier, a thin table edge) that will make it easier to see imperfections in a chamfer - imperfections that impact on a design. As mentioned before, most of the time imperfections are considered within the accepted range and simply part of the handcraft.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Stewie Simpson]

While you 2 guys are busy marking your lines out, then stopping to check how close your working to those marked lines, the cutting edge on my boxed chamfer plane would have bottomed out on its 4th chamfer to reveal another perfect match.

On occasions, the depth of knowledge expressed on this forum can be quite misleading.

I guess I can see using a chamfer plane if you were making dozens or hundreds of picture frames, and you wanted them to all be exactly the same, without having to pre-mark them. But for most applications, they're really unnecessary.

I suppose the example I gave (of planing hundreds of picture frames or whatever) is how chamfer planes originated, at least in the West. You definitely don't find them in 18th c. tool kits; they show up in the 19th century, when people were doing production work in factories but not yet using power tools for everything. The advantage of a chamfer plane in that situation is that you can hand it to a relatively unskilled worker and set them to work. That's the sort of situation that these planes were made for.

Stewie;

[Stewie Simpson]

Its interesting to note that well respected handplane maker Philip Marcou, also manufactures a traditional Japanese Chamfer Plane.
https://www.dictum.com/en/tools/wood...japanese-model

http://cnckingdom.com/philip-marcou-...e-new-zealand/

[Steve Voigt]

Hi Steve

I essentially agree with you, and this is what I tend to do - using a cutting gauge to strike the lines, and plane to them (block plane, small smoother, even a jointer). Mostly, I just freehand with a block plane.

Perfectly accurate bevels are not important 90% of the time. Where a chamfer plane earns its keep is when the bevels need to be even and straight, such as when they sit alongside another line (could be a drawer front or, as in my example earlier, a thin table edge) that will make it easier to see imperfections in a chamfer - imperfections that impact on a design. As mentioned before, most of the time imperfections are considered within the accepted range and simply part of the handcraft.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek, I hear your point, and if people love their chamfer planes I'm happy for them!

I did a little digging on ebay this morning. I get a lot of hits for "chamfer plane", but very few for western-style planes of the type made in the 19th century. These are rarer than hen's teeth, and priced accordingly. I've never seen one in an antique shop or tool dealer. I would guess that bench planes outnumber them a thousand to one, if not more. From this I conclude that 18th/19th c. Western woodworkers really didn't see much need for such a tool.

The chamfer below was marked and planed to the lines with a jack followed by a smoother. The angle is around 20°, so a chamfer plane would have been useless here. To your point, it is not up against another line, which would as you say make any imperfections more clear, but I am pretty confident this would still look fine in that situation. Planing to a mark can be very accurate. (the oil was wet when I took the photo, hence the slightly unnatural sheen)

IMG_2401.JPG

[Bill Houghton]

Have you considered a small bench or block plane? Not as precise, but more versatile.

[Bruce Haugen]

Have you considered a small bench or block plane? Not as precise, but more versatile.

Actually, Bill, I didn't know there was any such thing as a chamfer plane until I read this thread. I've been using a block plane for such tasks for 50+ years. It was free, too!

[Bill Houghton]

Actually, Bill, I didn't know there was any such thing as a chamfer plane until I read this thread. I've been using a block plane for such tasks for 50+ years. It was free, too!

Free if you don't count the hours working under your dad's supervision, right?

[Bruce Haugen]

Free if you don't count the hours working under your dad's supervision, right?

Well, he had a way of encouraging me to produce those little chamfers (as well as everything else) with a pretty high degree of accuracy and consistency.

[Brian Holcombe]

Reading through this thread, I notice that several people have problems with their chamfer planes; I also notice that some of these planes have Rube Goldberg-like mechanisms that remind of metal multi-planes in their ungainliness. Here's a suggestion: chuck your chamfer plane in a dusty drawer, and plane to a pair of lines with whatever bench plane you like. You will never have the sort of problems with the depth mechanism that Derek and Patrick described, if there is no depth mechanism. Draw two lines and don't go past them, and your chamfers will be perfect, or perfect enough.

Aside from the issues already mentioned, chamfer planes have a lot of limitations. There are a lot of chamfers in woodworking that aren't 45°; for example if I am chamfering the underside of the ends of a tabletop, the chamfers will be a lot shallower than 45°. An ordinary plane can make any chamfer, but a chamfer plane can only make one. A chamfer plane isn't much help on curves, but any small plane will work just fine for chamfering gentle convex curves.

Not to mention, learning to plane to lines is a valuable skill that will pay off in lots of other applications.

I guess I can see using a chamfer plane if you were making dozens or hundreds of picture frames, and you wanted them to all be exactly the same, without having to pre-mark them. But for most applications, they're really unnecessary.

I suppose the example I gave (of planing hundreds of picture frames or whatever) is how chamfer planes originated, at least in the West. You definitely don't find them in 18th c. tool kits; they show up in the 19th century, when people were doing production work in factories but not yet using power tools for everything. The advantage of a chamfer plane in that situation is that you can hand it to a relatively unskilled worker and set them to work. That's the sort of situation that these planes were made for.

You know I make hundreds of picture frames, right?

For larger chamfers I agree, for smaller chamfers I disagree. That would add a lot of time to my frames.

[Matt Lau]

I'm late to the game, but that's gorgeous!

Incidentally, it looks a lot like the Japanese chamfer plane I bought

[Robert Hazelwood]

The japanese style of chamfer plane really is a brilliant design. It does have a certain Rube Goldberg vibe, uniquely so for a Japanese tool, but I have not found it to be fiddly in the least. The blade is bedded at a fairly low angle, like most kanna, so it cuts end-grain cleanly, yet has a chipbreaker to manage long-grain tearout. The shaving thickness is set independently, and in practice you don't often change this. The chamfer depth is adjusted by altering the spread of the 45 degree "jaws" instead of by advancing the blade, which seems like a big advantage over other types I've seen. The shavings are a constant thickness and the tool just stops cutting when the depth is reached. The jaw spread is adjusted by turning two wingnuts a few clicks either direction- only takes a second and requires no tools. On top of this, you can move the plane body left and right in the main housing to keep exposing fresh sections of the edge, so you can go quite a long time between sharpenings.

A lot of Japanese work features continuous chamfers, and they go through considerable trouble in their joinery designs to include mitered abutments, etc. to allow this. It would be pretty tedious to layout an 1/8" chamfer on a bunch of parts, and then they would all have to be done perfectly to achieve the desired effect, since even a tiny discrepancy will show up where the chamfers intersect at a miter. You can see why they'd develop such a specialized tool for the job.

For a larger chamfer on something like the underside of a dining table, it does make more sense to mark out and use bench planes, taking most of the waste off with a jack, and smoothing to line.

Also, the chamfer plane works fine on convex curves. It is completely useless for any kind of concave curve. A small bench/block plane, heavily skewed, can handle a mild concave curve, but on anything more dramatic you need a spokeshave anyways.