Thin Irons tryouts

[steven c newman]

A few of my smooth planes...
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Each was a different maker, although my Stanley No. 4 is busy elsewhere...these will have to do..
Each has their original irons and chipbreakers. First up...
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Millers Falls No. 9, type 4. Wood was some Cherry scrap. Also tried it on some Fir ( Barn Wood)
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It can do them "see-through" shavings....I prefer not to. Waste of time and effort to plane a board taking those Uber thin shavings....
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A #4 size plane...
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Almost polished the surface..the plane?
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A-4 Anant. Ok, one more plane, one more Maker..
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Made by Sargent, sold as a Dunlap, iron stamped as "Eclipse"

All irons in this shop are sharpened to 2500 grit, then stropped. Backs are flat where they need to be flat at. Chipbreakers have a knife edge where they meet the blade. They have a polished surface where they curve up and away from the back of the iron. Set ~1mm back from the edge. Frog is set in-line with the surface of the ramp at the back of the mouth. None of these planes show any sign of chatter. Soles are as flat as needed. Mainly the toe, mouth and heel are even/coplannar. I usually rub the sole with an old, plain candle before use.

Don't really want to spend the entire day making whisppy thin shavings....takes too long to get anything done ( other than to show off ....) I need to get the job done, so I can continue on with the project.
On that "polished" board above....there was an old nail hole. Planes slid right on by it, not tearing things out. I tend to "circle around" knots, rather than just plowing straight across.
Set up is the same for other non-cambered planes in the shop.
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Even on a Stanley No. 5-1/2 Jumbo Jack I was using to flatten a glued up panel with. Even it has the original iron and chipbreaker
Just the way this shop works...YMMV...

[Jim Koepke]

It can do them "see-through" shavings....I prefer not to. Waste of time and effort to plane a board taking those Uber thin shavings....

Most of the time this is the case. A plane should be able to work through a full range of shaving thickness.

Setting a plane's lateral adjustment seems easier, for me at least, with as thin a shaving as the plane can make.

Super thin shavings are good for the last few passes of a smoother. Way less chance of tear out and the surface a super sharp blade leaves is like glass.

A super thin shaving can also be a diagnostic to let one know the blade is getting dull or chipped.

Finally when fitting a wedge to a molding plane it is best to take as little off the sides as possible when fitting it in the wedge mortise. My only plane used for this kind of work that doesn't have an original Stanley "thin" blade is a Lie-Nielsen #1.

FWIW, my original "thin" Stanley blades have been able to take shavings in a range between <0.0003" and ~0.020". I have taken thicker shavings with unmouthed planes like a Stanley #45. Usually beyond about 0.015" and my shoulder soon starts to ache and my jointers start to clog.

jtk

[Graham Haydon]

Steven

I fully agree with the cut and thrust of your post. I've dealt with a wood described as "the wood from hell" using a standard bailey #4 and feel that there is little it can't tame. What it can't plane is in the realms of something that would need scraping. However I would mention your demo pieces seem to be straight grain pine and some cherry.

[steven c newman]

I prefer straight grained wood....although....
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Some Maple will come through the shop....
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I will also use that Cherry..
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Maybe a little Walnut..
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Maybe some White Oak when I can get some...
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Old Fir Floor boards from a One Room School House...
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And about any other wood than happens to wander into the shop.

[Derek Cohen]

Steven

I fully agree with the cut and thrust of your post. I've dealt with a wood described as "the wood from hell" using a standard bailey #4 and feel that there is little it can't tame. What it can't plane is in the realms of something that would need scraping. However I would mention your demo pieces seem to be straight grain pine and some cherry.

On woods like cherry, walnut and pine - probably White Oak as well (in my experience with a limited amount of US white oak) - especially when it is straight-grained, there is little that a basic Stanley cannot handle even with the chipbreaker backed off. These woods are not challenging the edge or the cutting angle.

For the past 6 months I have been working a lot with USA hard maple. Gee, I love this wood! It is quite closed grained compared to much of our local hardwoods, not nearly as abrasive, and takes detail very well. It can be brittle, but not nearly as much as, say, jarrah. I have learned to respect any knots or obvious reversals of grain as they will tear out very easily. This is easily contained with a closed up chipbreaker. A set up Stanley #3 has no difficulty with this wood either.

One of the reasons I've enjoyed working with this maple is that blades last longer. I can use a Stanley blade or a Clifton O1 blade without having to re-sharpen nearly as often as I would on jarrah or similar West Aussie woods, which have a high degree of silica. I've been planing US back walnut as well, and it is child's play.

I'm not knocking walnut, or anyone here's ability - just pointing out a difference in woods and their workability. It is all relative. However, working only the softer, straight-grained examples will not give one the appreciation of the other end of the spectrum. In the same vein, working only the "hard" end of the spectrum will not offer an understanding that not all planes require hard and thick steel. It is horses for courses, as with everything.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[lowell holmes]

What do you mean by "thin irons"? Do you mean the irons that came with the plane? Or, do you mean thins shavings?

[Warren Mickley]

On woods like cherry, walnut and pine - probably White Oak as well (in my experience with a limited amount of US white oak) - especially when it is straight-grained, there is little that a basic Stanley cannot handle even with the chipbreaker backed off. These woods are not challenging the edge or the cutting angle.

For the past 6 months I have been working a lot with USA hard maple. Gee, I love this wood! It is quite closed grained compared to much of our local hardwoods, not nearly as abrasive, and takes detail very well. It can be brittle, but not nearly as much as, say, jarrah. I have learned to respect any knots or obvious reversals of grain as they will tear out very easily. This is easily contained with a closed up chipbreaker. A set up Stanley #3 has no difficulty with this wood either.

One of the reasons I've enjoyed working with this maple is that blades last longer. I can use a Stanley blade or a Clifton O1 blade without having to re-sharpen nearly as often as I would on jarrah or similar West Aussie woods, which have a high degree of silica. I've been planing US back walnut as well, and it is child's play.

I'm not knocking walnut, or anyone here's ability - just pointing out a difference in woods and their workability. It is all relative. However, working only the softer, straight-grained examples will not give one the appreciation of the other end of the spectrum. In the same vein, working only the "hard" end of the spectrum will not offer an understanding that not all planes require hard and thick steel. It is horses for courses, as with everything.

Regards from Perth

Derek

It sounds as if you don't have much experience with some of these woods. When a piece of wild black cherry (Prunus serotina) was presented to representatives Lie Nielsen at an Event a few years ago, they were unable to plane it cleanly while trying multiple planes and fresh sharpening. I am sure I could find examples of black walnut (Juglans nigra) or white oak ( Quercus alba, Q. bicolor, Q. macrocarpa, Q. montana and others) that would present problems for them as well.

By the way, do you have any data on the actual silica content of jarrah? It always seemed to me to have low silica and I have read in numerous places that it has extremely low ash content.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Warren

Indeed, I have only a little exposure to USA timbers, which is to be expected. But then, I imagine few in the USA have much, if any, experience of Australian timbers. What experience I have with Black Walnut and Hard Maple and Cherry is recent, hardly representative of all these woods, but enough to comment about the advantages of planing softer woods with a low level of reversing grain. In this respect they differ greatly from West Australian woods.

Interestingly, it seems that Jarrah has less silica content than many other Australian timbers. The point you make here is correct. It is hard on blades owing to a combination of resins in the wood, in the form of veins, and the hardness of the wood itself.

It is past midnight here, so I will do some research tomorrow. Here are three articles that came up with Google ..

http://www.wood-database.com/jarrah/

http://www.woodworkdetails.com/knowl...ardwood/jarrah

http://ezinearticles.com/?Woodworkin...rah&id=4058420

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Andy Nichols]

I'm not as experienced as most here, but I'll add a few items and talk about the greatest woodworker I've had the pleasure of knowing/working with ( sorry Rob, you are still in the top 3!)

I've personally ran into 3 types of wood that could not be planed with any plane in my arsenal, one was some type of white oak, another was Osage Orange, and the 3rd was a surprise, long leaf pine heartwood, reclaimed and very old, plane would just bounce off it, no matter how sharp or at low to 55 deg.....

A friend of mine who use to live near by made and repaired musical instruments for Juilliard music school, told me that my smoother should plane as well with or against the grain. He used straight grained southern yellow pine with huge spring/ summer growth rings to demonstrate.

With the grain on that SYP none of my planes had a problem, but against the grain, wow! Most of them would take up long pieces of that almost mushy wood.....That opened my eyes to setting up smoothing planes.

He was 85 years old at the time and getting ready to retire, both his father and his grandfather had been luthiers and I learned so much from him in the very shot time I knew him. He also gave me a huge supply of Cuban mahogany and maple that his grandfather had milled in the late 1930s. I'm using the last of the maple for my tool cabinet, kinda sad....

Regards,
Andy