What do you use as a planing stop?

[Jim Koepke]

Sound policy, but wooden planing stops simply won't hold thin, narrow material in place. It might be doable with a hard-plastic stop with teeth that will dig into the wood being planed, but I have not seen one yet.

Stan

There are limits to almost anything. How thin are you thinking?

Much less than 1/8" and the problem becomes a matter of keeping the work from bowing from the forces introduced by the plane.

Most of the time for holding work on the bench top my tail vise is used to secure the piece. My impression is the OP doesn't have a tail vise. I have experimented with round wooden dogs and an inserted piece of metal as Steven pointed out above. My advice is if one wants to use a dog for a stop it is a good reason to have at least one rectangular dog hole. The round dogs can turn with sideways force from the planing.

One of the continuing challenges for a woodworker is how to hold a piece so it can be worked on in a safe and productive manner.

jtk

[Thomas Crawford]

Been super busy and didn't check back in, thanks for all the great responses. Now to read them

[steven c newman]

On those thin boards: Maybe get a piece of plywood, clamp it to your bench's top. Pick out a spot about the size of the thin parts you want to plane. Remove an area that is about the size of the part, about one ply from the plywood. Double stick tape to hold the part in place. Stick part into the recess, and plane away.

[Bruce Haugen]

On those thin boards: Maybe get a piece of plywood, clamp it to your bench's top. Pick out a spot about the size of the thin parts you want to plane. Remove an area that is about the size of the part, about one ply from the plywood. Double stick tape to hold the part in place. Stick part into the recess, and plane away.

That would work, too, or I could just cut the piece long and plane it with the wood in tension, not compression.

[Warren Mickley]

I have used a two inch wide block of beech as a planing stop since 1979. Before that I used a stop with iron teeth. I like the plain wood stop because it does not mar the work. My stop is a friction fit in a mortise that goes through the bench top. Some seasons of the year it gets a little stiff or a little loose depending on humidity. Generally my stop is about 1/2 inch above the surface, but sometimes is made low for thin stuff or flush for some other kinds of work. I generally plane with the grain but for occasional cross grain planing, I put the board athwart the bench and plane toward the same stop as described by Moxon (1678) and Nicholson (1812).

I have planed stuff that is 1/16 thick or even a little less using this set up, but if the piece has some length, I do as others have said, clamping the rear end of the piece and planing with the stuff in tension.

[Stewie Simpson]

Double sided tape is an excellent strategy for securing very thin stock.

[Patrick Chase]

Double sided tape is an excellent strategy for securing very thin stock.

+1 for the "carpet tape solution" (and I mean that sincerely)

[Stewie Simpson]

+1 for the "carpet tape solution" (and I mean that sincerely)

I wouldn't recommend you use carpet tape Patrick. The adhesive bond is way too strong.

[Matt Lau]

When I googled "Ross Hook" I found some stock market diagrams.

The Ross Hook looks a lot like a beefier version of a Whipple hook from Lee Valley. Personally, I'm thinking of just making some square dogs on one end of my floorbench and some dovetailed stops on the other end.

Brian

Know exactly how you feel, because I have chipped more blades and gouged more plane soles than I care to admit. The problem with nails is time consuming to adjust projection, and eventually the bench or planing beam gets too many sloppy holes .....

Screws are easier to adjust, but they don't have the same grip, and eventually bend/break, especially the brass ones. Work hardening? I kept having to use screw extractors to get broken brass and steel screw shanks out of my benchtop.

For the most part, I use brass bench dogs on my western-style workbench, but when I need do serious planing, the Ross hook comes up.

I have different arrangement on my planing beam, which I did not bring to Japan with me this time. It is a 25mm square stick friction fit into a hole near the end of the beam so it can raise or lower. I have nails drilled through this stick, at a slight upward angle so the points are flush with the stick's top. The nails grab the wood being planed, but the whole widget can be removed if not needed. Works well for kumiko and other thin/long stuff. Not an original invention.

Ross's planing hook might be too big for kumiko.... maybe not.

A friend named Chris gave me the Ross hook, otherwise I would never have considered it.

The Benchcrafted widget looks pretty good. If I did not already have the Ross hook, I would buy it or make something similar. You should think about it, Brian. The stability is awesome, and the speed of adjustment is great.

[Robert Hazelwood]

On those thin boards: Maybe get a piece of plywood, clamp it to your bench's top. Pick out a spot about the size of the thin parts you want to plane. Remove an area that is about the size of the part, about one ply from the plywood. Double stick tape to hold the part in place. Stick part into the recess, and plane away.

I like this method for very thin parts if the part is not too long. A variation I have done is to take a flat board and super glue some thin shims to it. The shims are the same thickness as the finished part, and are glued in a pattern that the part can fit into to hold it still.

This can be refined by making sure the shims create a running surface wider than the plane, and adding a fence to keep the plane going over the same area every stroke, which prevents the shims being planed thinner with each part. This can make quick work of getting a consistent thickness on a bunch of small thin parts. I used this to make a bunch of Christmas stars a few years back.

[Mike Holbrook]

I think I found the "iron planing stops" Stan mentions finding on Schwarz's Lost Art Press site. Page 150 of Schwarz's recently revised book on workbenches has a picture of 3-6 of the same stops. Maybe Schwarz had some made that became the "models" Benchcrafted used. Maybe Peter Ross made Schwarz's or at least influenced them. Schwarz certainly has a habit of reviving "older" technology, particularly regarding bench design & fixtures.