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Thread: Wooden wedge-set smoothing plane advice

  1. #1
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    Wooden wedge-set smoothing plane advice

    Still learning how to use planes here.
    I got a Mujingfang (Chinese made) ~7" smoothing plane. I flattened the sole and sharpened the blade when I got it, and it seemed to work pretty well on soft wood. Last night I tried it on a piece of oak though and couldn't get it to cut at all. The blade kept getting pushed back into the body instead. Anyone familiar enough to diagnose the problem? I'm guessing either the wedge is not set tight enough (I tried making it tighter) or the blade isn't sharp enough, or some other problem I didn't think of

    Also when planing the pine wood I felt some chatter, would that be a chipbreaker adjustment problem?

    Thanks!

  2. #2
    Some things to look at.
    - Sharpness indeed.
    - Flat sole, check again.
    - How well is the blade bedded on the bed?
    - How well is the wedge fitted?

    Those last too are a bit harder to diagnose.

    Checking the bed: Smear the iron with something that prints on the bed of the blade. Pencil, oil, candle sooth. Choose something that makes clear marks. Insert the blade again in the plane carrefully and lay it down on the bed carefully. Set the wege, and tap it tight. Now advance the blade down with a few hammer taps. Remove the blade and have a look at the marks on the bed. There shouls be a well defined line low down almost near the mouth of the plane. When you see only marks in the middle of the bed, then surely the blade is wobbling about.

    Checking the wedge fit. Insert the blade and wedge and tighten it. Now look very carefully along the wedge fingers. Use a thin feeler gauge to check for any gaps. Best is a fit all along the wedge fingers but again the fit down below near the mouth is most important.

  3. #3
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    At the risk of asking an insulting question: How are you setting the wedge? The usual approach is to give it a light rap with a mallet to lock the iron in place. As you sure you're really getting it wedged in there (pun intended)?

    As Kees suggests, both the blade retraction and the chatter are consistent with lack of sharpness, and IMO that's by far the most likely explanation for the combination of symptoms you describe.

    Both of your symptoms are also consistent with inadequate clearance. What are the bed angle and tip bevel angle?

  4. #4
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    Is it still working on the softer wood? When it is not working it can be frustrating, so it helps to go through a checklist of the very basic stuff (bevel up versus bevel down for example).

    If you are trying to use it with a very close setting on the chipbreaker, back that off to 1/8 or something and try it again.

  5. #5
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    Patrick no worries, I asked the question after all. I set the wedge with a good tap from a wooden mallet. I'm more worried I wedged it in too much than anything else, took a few taps on the body to get it out again.
    After looking at the iron and reading up again on sharpening, that's probably the culprit. I didn't flatten the back of the blade so all the factory grind marks are still there. I've been rubbing it on 120 grit wet/dry paper for the last 20 minutes and can finally see some of them disappearing around the edges, maybe I need to get some coarser paper lol. Anyways after I finish *properly* sharpening the blade I'll give it another try.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Mikes View Post
    Patrick no worries, I asked the question after all. I set the wedge with a good tap from a wooden mallet. I'm more worried I wedged it in too much than anything else, took a few taps on the body to get it out again.
    After looking at the iron and reading up again on sharpening, that's probably the culprit. I didn't flatten the back of the blade so all the factory grind marks are still there. I've been rubbing it on 120 grit wet/dry paper for the last 20 minutes and can finally see some of them disappearing around the edges, maybe I need to get some coarser paper lol. Anyways after I finish *properly* sharpening the blade I'll give it another try.
    ...and another perfectly good SMC thread goes to the sharpening dogs.

    120# is ~5 mil abrasive particle diameter, so the back must have been out of flat by at least several mils. That would be enough to cause cap-iron mating issues, so that's another possibility to consider. You'd have trouble with that iron sooner or later, so I think you're right to start by fixing the sharpening, and then try again to see if there are other issues hiding behind that obvious one.

    The fact that you got a wedge-based ECE to work well is good in the sense that it gives you something to compare to and aim for.
    Last edited by Patrick Chase; 06-23-2017 at 1:33 AM.

  7. #7
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    Progress! I did the following:

    Starting with 60 grit paper ground the back of the blade until all grinding marks near the edge were gone. This took /forever/ (like, more than 1 hour. My hands were not happy.)
    I mostly polished it up after, there are some scratches left still but it should be pretty decent.

    Sharpened the blade. Put a ~28 degree micro bevel on the edge, polished to a mirror finish.

    Flattened the sole of the plane again, this time on a sheet of sandpaper large enough to fit the whole thing at once, and I used my granite kitchen counter top as a flat surface.

    Reshaped the wedge. The wooden wedge is not flat like the ECE plane wedge, it has two prongs with empty space in between. One side was visibly thicker than the other and was wedging first while the other one still had a small gap.

    Smoothed the surface of the cap iron that contacts the blade. It was very rough with grind marks.

    After spending several hours doing all of the above, it seems to work pretty well. I was able to plane on both soft and hard wood!


    One remaining concern I have is the cap iron: The edge that contacts the blade is noticeably tilted, i.e. it wasn't ground flat in relation to the body. When seated on the blade before tightening, one corner is floating above the iron. When the screw is tightened it does pull down along the whole edge, but I'm worried this is applying some sort of twisting force to the blade. Is this something that needs to be fixed, or does it not really matter? I don't think it's something I could do by hand with sandpaper, there's too much of a difference to level it out. Would have to take it to a machinist to grind it flat.

  8. #8
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    Assuming you have the blade sharp (note how I dodged sharpening here!) What I usually do is either one to getting the iron set. One is: I set the plane on a very flat board and set the iron into the throat before it hits bottom then
    i slip in the wedge and gently tap it into place enough to not let the iron slip. Then,looking down into the throat, I tap the iron down till it touches the flat board which the plane is sitting on. Then,I give the wedge a harder tap to hold the blade tighter.

    At this point,I go ahead and let the iron take a cut. If the cut is too coarse,I strike the top front of the plane - hopefully you have a striking knob!- and try the iron again for cut,and any sideways tipping it may WELL have. I hold the plane upside down. With one hand,I make a 'bridge ' over the iron. That way,I can see the iron better. It is pointed at a window or other DIFFUSED light source. Then,with the small brass hammer I made long ago for this,I knock the blade about from underneath till it is dead parallel across the sole of the plane. If the iron protrudes too much,I hit the striking knob again,with as much force as needed to jump the blade back down the required amount. THIS TAKES PRACTICE!!!! ALL THIS TAKES PRACTICE. Again,I take a little cut,and if the blade does not cut cut enough,I strike the top of the iron with the SMALL brass hammer (Brookstone used to sell a little brass hammer with a head 1/2" in diameter and about 2" long. I have seen this little hammer in various catalogs. This is a decent little hammer for tweaking the blade about.) If the long parentheses confuse the sentence's meaning,read the sentence again,skipping over the parentheses. Now that the blade is very close to perfect,you can give the wedge a firmer whack-but not enough to jar the blade. This takes skill and judgement,too.

    This whole process takes me about 15 seconds or less. Usually less. It sounds like a LOT of trouble,but it is not. I'm leaving out another approach I use because it takes even more skill,and might frustrate you as a novice. I really ENJOY setting wooden plane irons as after just a few months of doing it daily in my 18th. C. shop,I already got very competent at it,and it was instructive to the audience and quick,to hopefully inspire those so inclined to get a wooden plane. THERE IS NOTHING LIKE THEM AS FAR AS SMOOTH PLANING, especially with a bit of paraffin on the sole. The plane slips effortlessly over the wood if properly adjusted. Metal planes tend to feel like pushing an anchor by comparison (at least it SEEMS that way). Of course,I have made many infills though,mostly without any adjustment mechanism,since I enjoy setting the iron manually. EVERYTHING TAKES PRACTICE AND BUILDING UP SKILL.

    There was a Japanese(off the boat) in a drafting class in college. He drew everything with a traditional brush that had the needle like point if the hairs were smoothed down. He was drawing a THIN line along the T square (construction lines). When asked how he d drew thicker lines (object lines),he said BEAR DOWN HARDER!!!!! I think that guy had no nerves at all! That's the way thousands of draftsmen in Japan learned to do drafting before all went computer.

    If you think you are having a hard time,remember the Japanese student!
    Last edited by george wilson; 06-26-2017 at 6:08 PM.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Mikes View Post
    Progress! I did the following:

    Starting with 60 grit paper ground the back of the blade until all grinding marks near the edge were gone. This took /forever/ (like, more than 1 hour. My hands were not happy.)
    I mostly polished it up after, there are some scratches left still but it should be pretty decent.

    Sharpened the blade. Put a ~28 degree micro bevel on the edge, polished to a mirror finish.

    Flattened the sole of the plane again, this time on a sheet of sandpaper large enough to fit the whole thing at once, and I used my granite kitchen counter top as a flat surface.

    Reshaped the wedge. The wooden wedge is not flat like the ECE plane wedge, it has two prongs with empty space in between. One side was visibly thicker than the other and was wedging first while the other one still had a small gap.

    Smoothed the surface of the cap iron that contacts the blade. It was very rough with grind marks.

    After spending several hours doing all of the above, it seems to work pretty well. I was able to plane on both soft and hard wood!


    One remaining concern I have is the cap iron: The edge that contacts the blade is noticeably tilted, i.e. it wasn't ground flat in relation to the body. When seated on the blade before tightening, one corner is floating above the iron. When the screw is tightened it does pull down along the whole edge, but I'm worried this is applying some sort of twisting force to the blade. Is this something that needs to be fixed, or does it not really matter? I don't think it's something I could do by hand with sandpaper, there's too much of a difference to level it out. Would have to take it to a machinist to grind it flat.
    You should always bear in mind that this plane was fettled in by its maker before being offered for sale. If the wedge is now not fitting correctly, then the whole stock has moved out of alignment due to the long term effects of seasonal movement. Fettle the bed in 1st, then the wedge abutments, then the planes sole last.

    Note; the wedge abutments are reshaped to fit the wedge. You don't reshape the wedge to fit the abutments.

    Apart from a couple of notables on this forum site, the rest of the membership are as green as grass when it comes to offering much advise on fettling in traditional wedge abutment bench planes.

    Stewie;

  10. #10
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    I did assume that the plane to be adjusted by the OP was already properly fettled in and ready for use. Most are unless over many years a different wedge has somehow been fitted. Very often a different iron may be put in. In the old days,a cabinet maker would sharpen 3 or 4 irons in the morning. Then,he'd put in another iron when the other got dulled. The irons had to be similarly tapered,with similar cap irons. Most English irons I used,though hand forged,were surprisingly similar in those considerations,and would fit o.k..

    I made a habit of collecting antique English irons at flea markets in Pennsylvania when I was using old tools daily in the instrument shop. It was a good thing that those people in Pa. seemed to never throw away anything!
    Last edited by george wilson; 07-01-2017 at 7:36 AM.

  11. #11
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    As an alternative to George's method, although mine is essentially similar, I use a sheet of glass or perspex that is glued to hardwood.

    Set the sole of the plane (minus the blade and wedge) on the glass. Slide the blade in until it touches the glass surface, pressing it firmly against the bed. Now slip in the wedge and firm it down with finger pressure. Give it a little tap with your mallet.

    The glass will not damage the edge of the blade.

    This set up leaves the blade almost flush with the sole. It should cut with the minimum blade projection. Use it this way for a very fine cut.

    It is easier to tap the back of the blade for increase projection than the opposite. Rapping the rear of the plane's body will loosen the wedge and this can throw the settings out.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek

  12. #12
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    With all due respect Derek. And admitting that I haven't tried glass for setting a plane blade,how can glass,which is harder than most plane blades,not hurt the very fine and sharp cutting edge? I think I'd better stick to wood. I have less trouble with the idea of instead using perspex (Plexiglass to us here),though wood is definitely easier on a razor sharp edge.

    I know how hard to hit the striking knob to jump the iron downwards a bit. If a novice can't do it right,hitting the top of the iron is good,too,and I often do it also. Actually,striking the top of a tapered blade to jump the iron downwards does also loosen the wedge if you think about it.My method just depends upon how I feel about it at the moment.This last sentence sounds vague. But the brain's mood can make different choices,and if it is familiar with both approaches,and skilled,it can pull it off.

    I only rap the back of a plane(hopefully also with a striking knob there! To loosen the wedge so I can easily remove everything and sharpen the iron.

    Like I said before: PRACTICE.
    Last edited by george wilson; 07-01-2017 at 12:10 PM.

  13. #13
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    Heh .. George, try it! I have used glass for years and never damaged an edge, or vice versa. All I know is that it creates a very fine setting, which is perfect for smoothers, such as my HNT Gordon smoother and palm smoother.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Mikes View Post
    One remaining concern I have is the cap iron: The edge that contacts the blade is noticeably tilted, i.e. it wasn't ground flat in relation to the body. When seated on the blade before tightening, one corner is floating above the iron. When the screw is tightened it does pull down along the whole edge, but I'm worried this is applying some sort of twisting force to the blade. Is this something that needs to be fixed, or does it not really matter? I don't think it's something I could do by hand with sandpaper, there's too much of a difference to level it out. Would have to take it to a machinist to grind it flat.
    Before grinding the cap iron you might try bending it by hand. This has worked for me a few times.

    The cap iron can be set in a vise and a couple of pieces of scrap wood can be used to make a handle to apply a little torsional correction.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  15. #15
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    By the time a machinist grinds it flat,the curved down end may not have enough down bearing to keep chips getting under it. Take Jim's advice. I can tell you from experience,it won't be easy to bend. You won't break it.

    Derek: I'm sure that it works for you as you are an accomplished wood worker. We just have different ways to go about it. And,are both too old to change our ways!

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