How Close is Good Enough?

[Simon MacGowen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m231_HKCOWs


That's not even a panel top.

I have yet to meet any hand-tool teachers or furniture makers who say flattening a panel top is easy. Rob Cosman can cut a dovetail in 3-1/2 mins, but I bet he won't show flattening a twisted top under 15 mins. Many struggle with truing the edge of a stock with a plane and find that task not easy. Flattening a board (cup, bow and twist) is harder than truing an edge, how could that be easy to them?

Simon

[Dan Barr]

Hi Bill, and welcome to the creek. Short answer is you can google "flatening a work bench" and you'll likely find a number of helpful videos and articles. As Nicholas said, a longer plane will be helpful, but shorter planes can work with a little patience.

I assume the low spot runs down the middle of the bench length wise. Theoretically, if the gap under the angle iron is 1/4", then that is what you will need to remove from the sides. I highly doubt it's a 1" gap, so you should end up with a decent thickness top.

If you have a longer plane (say a #5/6/7), one way to attack this is to plane diagonally, or even across the width of the top. This should help to knock down the sides and "float" over the low center. Keep going in alternating diagonal directions until you start to take shavings in the center.

If you don't have a long plane, you will need to judge the amount of wood to be removed from each side (again, by the gap under the angle iron). Check every foot or so along the top, so you don't take too much off in any one place. Take multiple lengthwise passes on each high side and continue to check along the length often.

As you get closer to level, scribble the high spots with pencil and just work those areas. One you're fairly flat, you can then take full length passes, side by side, until you smooth things out.

The nice thing about SMC, is you will hopefully get a number of different ideas to approach this. Give it a little time and I'm sure others will be along to help.

Also, when things get frustrating, just walk away for awhile. A fresh perspective will bring the work back into fun. Works for me, anyway.

What phil said plus, your top does not need to be dead flat. I just flattened my bench two weeks ago. I have a couple of spots with .001 or .002 gaps. Only makes a difference (very very small) when planing thin stock. Or if youre putting sandpaper on the top to sharpen or shape something.

[Stewie Simpson]

Dan; if you achieved a tolerance within flat of 0.001 to 0.002 thou that's a damn good effort.

Stewie;

[Dan Barr]

Took a long time. I had to make plane irons almost perfectly square, very very slight camber. After all the rough cutting with the jointer, I would make a set of diagonal or straight passes with my jack (set up more like a smoother), feel the plane tracks with my fingers, run a thin pass over the high side, check again, another pass.... Had to make some passes using minute lateral adjustments . Three days later and checking with a starret straight edge every 4-6 inches, at least thirty times. Call me crazy... Then i took a toothing plane and slightly roughed the whole top. One pass left to right, one pass right to left, both at 45 degrees to front. Two coats of tung oil after that.

[Stewie Simpson]

Dan; that the beauty of a slight to no camber, you gain the full benefits of lateral blade adjustment.

regards Stewie;

[William Fretwell]

Perhaps check the floor at each set of legs of the bench with your level. You may need to move the bench to find a flatter spot for the leveling work. Did you check the supports with winding sticks before adding the tops?

You have lots of wood left! That is a great choice for a first bench. Paul mounts his vise in front of the front edge so you can get your fingers behind the work so not square is OK if the vise is mounted square.

A long plane does help a lot but identify all the high spots and mark with pencil scribble, remove them with a #4 plane from various angles. When the high spots are minimal then change to a longer plane. Diagonal planing helps. You will have lots of shavings. Just keep scribbling, watching and learning. It will get flatter; if it does not then search out the high points again with the shorter plane.

You are not working to thousands of an inch! Changes in humidity will move the wood several % so don't worry.

[Bill McCarthy]

Dan; if you achieved a tolerance within flat of 0.001 to 0.002 thou that's a damn good effort.

Stewie;

Being new at this stuff, I'm not even going to try for that kind of tolerance. I'm shooting for no light under the straight edge kind of tolerance. I stopped working today around sundown. I think I'm making progress. I have been at it for a couple of days already though. Using the jointer has helped. (I even put an edge on the original iron and used that.)

Nicholas, I wasn't out by 1/4 inch; it was more between 1/8 and 1/16 and I did do most of the heavy lifting with a scrub type plane.

On my way home this evening a question occurred to me that I hope one of you guys could answer. On the other hand, I'm not sure I really want to know. Its regarding winding sticks. The way I've seen them used in videos and the way I am using them, is to look for twist across the width, looking down the length. Do I also need to look for twist along the length by sighting across the width? If I do, do I need winding sticks that are longer than the length of what I'm looking at? In my case, the bench is 6 ft long. Do I need winding sticks that are longer than 6 ft? (I don't think I have enough space in the room to get back far enough to see the entire 6 ft at the same time.)

Now the answer I'd prefer to hear is that I don't need to concern myself with that, thus no need for longer winding sticks. I also sometimes find myself living in a fairy tale too, where everyone lives happily ever after.

[Tony Wilkins]

Being new at this stuff, I'm not even going to try for that kind of tolerance. I'm shooting for no light under the straight edge kind of tolerance. I stopped working today around sundown. I think I'm making progress. I have been at it for a couple of days already though. Using the jointer has helped. (I even put an edge on the original iron and used that.)

Nicholas, I wasn't out by 1/4 inch; it was more between 1/8 and 1/16 and I did do most of the heavy lifting with a scrub type plane.

On my way home this evening a question occurred to me that I hope one of you guys could answer. On the other hand, I'm not sure I really want to know. Its regarding winding sticks. The way I've seen them used in videos and the way I am using them, is to look for twist across the width, looking down the length. Do I also need to look for twist along the length by sighting across the width? If I do, do I need winding sticks that are longer than the length of what I'm looking at? In my case, the bench is 6 ft long. Do I need winding sticks that are longer than 6 ft? (I don't think I have enough space in the room to get back far enough to see the entire 6 ft at the same time.)

Now the answer I'd prefer to hear is that I don't need to concern myself with that, thus no need for longer winding sticks. I also sometimes find myself living in a fairy tale too, where everyone lives happily ever after.

Just across the width is all you need. No need for 6ft winding sticks.

[Bill McCarthy]

Perhaps check the floor at each set of legs of the bench with your level. You may need to move the bench to find a flatter spot for the leveling work. Did you check the supports with winding sticks before adding the tops?

You have lots of wood left! That is a great choice for a first bench. Paul mounts his vise in front of the front edge so you can get your fingers behind the work so not square is OK if the vise is mounted square.

A long plane does help a lot but identify all the high spots and mark with pencil scribble, remove them with a #4 plane from various angles. When the high spots are minimal then change to a longer plane. Diagonal planing helps. You will have lots of shavings. Just keep scribbling, watching and learning. It will get flatter; if it does not then search out the high points again with the shorter plane.

You are not working to thousands of an inch! Changes in humidity will move the wood several % so don't worry.

Your post showed up while I was working on my last post.

Unfortunately I didn't check the supports, I think that's what has caused my problem. As for the lots of shavings part, You're right. The 5 gallon shop vac is full, a 66 qt storage container is full, and I still have a big pile on the floor. I'll dump the shavings out in the woods behind the house tomorrow. The vise showed up today, but I haven't opened the box yet, to see how it goes together. I do intend on mounting it the way Paul does.

Since I switched over to using the jointer, I have been doing just what you said. Going back to the high spots, across the width I've used the smoother, along the length I've used the jack.

Once I got the jointer up and running today, I went back 90 degrees to the width and also diagonal, both left and right. I thought I had done OK with the jack plane, but the jointer caught even more.

So far it has been a good learning experience. I plan on making wooden countertops in the kitchen (I've already done a two sink vanity, but used a belt sander.) Where I'm at now with this top is much flatter than I would need for the countertops.

[Bill McCarthy]

Just across the width is all you need. No need for 6ft winding sticks.

Now that's an answer I like! I can keep living in my fairy tale.

[Dan Barr]

Dan; that the beauty of a slight to no camber, you gain the full benefits of lateral blade adjustment.

regards Stewie;

Amen! Being able to shave just the scallops is gratifying. It took a couple honing sessions to stop putting too much camber!

[QUOTE=

You are not working to thousands of an inch! Changes in humidity will move the wood several % so don't worry.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. Get to flat with a decent straightedge along length/width (a little light peeking through here and there is fine). And you'll be more than happy. I got carried away with perfection and wasted a whole bunch of time. Necessary, NO.

[Bill McCarthy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m231_HKCOWs


That's not even a panel top.

I have yet to meet any hand-tool teachers or furniture makers who say flattening a panel top is easy. Rob Cosman can cut a dovetail in 3-1/2 mins, but I bet he won't show flattening a twisted top under 15 mins. Many struggle with truing the edge of a stock with a plane and find that task not easy. Flattening a board (cup, bow and twist) is harder than truing an edge, how could that be easy to them?

Simon

Simon
Thanks for the link. I do enjoy Paul's videos and I learn a lot from him.

From watching this, I can see some mistakes I made. When running the scrub plane, rather than just looking for the high spots, as Paul shows, I took the approach of cutting everything down to approximately the same height. Then I used the other planes.

Now I can see how you would thickness a board to a specific number. My method wouldn't get me there and I wasn't sure how that was accomplished.

[William Fretwell]

You can reflect on putting the bench on a level piece of floor and how much easier it is to plane the supports level with winding sticks than the top!

[Bill McCarthy]

Well, I can finally report that my bench top is flat.

Now to investigate the vise and get it installed.

William you're right. the nice thing about the way I did it this time, is I'll never neglect to check the legs and stretchers again.

[Phil Mueller]

Congrats Bill!