smoothing plane adjustments

["Gary Brewer"]

Hello, I have just purchased my first smoothing plane. A 4 1/2 LN bevel down plane which arrived today. Yeah!! I was wondering if there were any resources on how to adjust it and the teminology of the parts? Any books, videos, websites or what? I have had a small low angle block plane for a while which I have liked a lot. I have moved to the next step and would like to make sure this new purchase is adjusted properly. There seems to be a lot of parts to this plane and no directions came with it. The gap between the blade and the body of the plane seems large. Around 1/8 of an inch at least when the blade is advanced to cut a thin shaving. I assume the front plate lever needs to be pulled out to adjust the distance the blade sticks out or should the knob just be turned with the lever pulled back? ( the blade adjustment wheel is hard to turn if the front plates lever is pulled back. ) Should the blade by a little convex? If so how much?
Thank for any help.

[Tony Sade]

I'm sure a lot of folks will chime in with helpful suggestions, but you could start here:

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=4_5

Nice score, BTW.

[Andrew Homan]

Was this plane used?

It sounds like the lever-cap screw is screwed down too tight! You shouldn't have to release the lever cap in order to adjust the cutting depth smoothly (with the wheel).

If this is a used plane, I'd also suggest removing the blade and giving it a good look-over. Is the cutting edge sharpened square to the sides? Are the corners of the edge straight, "eased", or cambered? What angle is ground on the bevel? And finally, has the back of the iron been flattened and polished?

Good luck and have fun making some shavings,
Andy

["Gary Brewer"]

I do have to release the lever to turn the knob for the blade adjustment otherwise the knob is very hard to turn. It is a brand new plane from LN. I'll loosen the screw. How loose should it be?
Thanks

[Frank Desaulniers]

It should be loose enough for you to adjust the blade forward, backward, and laterally, with ease. When the screw is too tight you can damage the threads on the adjustment wheel or even bend the lateral adjuster. Nothing should move while you plane, but it's surprising how little you actually have to tighten the lever cap for it to work well.
Many people ease the edges of smoothing plane blades, but I prefer to apply finger pressure to each side of the blade when I sharpen. With a little practice it's quite possible to get sub-thousands camber without measuring anything (when you can take 1 thousandth" shavings that almost disappear toward the sides you know you're right on). I started with David Charlesworth's first book and still find it one of the best references for sharpening, tuning, and understanding a plane. With a Lie-Nielsen once you know how to set up the plane (this is very easy), sharpening is the key (practice makes perfect).

[Andrew Homan]

Many people ease the edges of smoothing plane blades, but I prefer to apply finger pressure to each side of the blade when I sharpen.

Hi Frank,
That's actually exactly how I would describe my technique for "easing" the edges (as opposed to cambering, which I reserve for my scrub blades) -- also learned out of DC's first book.
Cheers,
Andy
P.S. My excursion to Montreal on Saturday was nice, despite the rain. Schwartz's was even better than I expected! But alas, no visit to the Chas Gentmantil. Next time I'll call you!

[Eddie Darby]

From time to time Lie-Nielsen run a quick segment on this web-page that shows David Charlesworth sharpening blades. It shows how to put a camber on a smoothing plane blade, and the now Famous "Ruler Trick".

http://www.thewoodworkingchannel.com/

Just click on schedule and see what the clips for the day will be and when. I see one episode called "Preparing a Curved Blade" is on at 11:39 am EST to 11:52 am EST.

Here is a start on the parts of a plane:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(tool)

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/instructions.php

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/instructions.php?id=87

["Gary Brewer"]

Thanks for all of the tips. They have all been very helpful. The only other thing I was wondering is how big of a gap should there be between the blade iron and the plane at the opening? It came with an 1/8th inch gap when the blade was in position to cut a small shaving of wood. Is this too much or is there a way to determine how much room is necessary for the wood shaving to pass through the plane?
Thanks again!

[Andrew Homan]

The only other thing I was wondering is how big of a gap should there be between the blade iron and the plane at the opening? It came with an 1/8th inch gap when the blade was in position to cut a small shaving of wood. Is this too much or is there a way to determine how much room is necessary for the wood shaving to pass through the plane?

Hi Gary,
On my LN #4, I have the gap set so tightly that I can barely see light pass through it when the blade is set to take the thinnest shaving I can manage to set it for. The shavings that pass through are like wisps of morning dew! Well, that's an exaggeration, but they certainly are very thin, thinner than my vernier caliper can register. The plane is a smoother, and this is my understanding of how a smoother should be set up optimally.

However, there are apparently some who apparently use a #4 or 4.5 for purposes other than smoothing, in which case they would open up the gap. On a low-angle plane with quick adjustments possible, I'd be more tempted to experiment with the gap. However, for a bench plane requiring slightly more work to adjust the gap (i.e. getting out the screwdriver, etc.), my guideline is that I set it wide enough to allow the thickest shaving to pass through that I would use the plane to take. So my #7 is set with a wider gap, as is my #5. Since I exclusively use the #4 for smoothing (as I would recommend for your 4.5), I'd suggest trying to get the gap very, very tight.

The disadvantage of tightening the gap is that the shavings might stick. If this happens, try taking an even thinner shaving. If the shaving thickness is exactly where you want it, then you could widen the gap. If you back off the blade, remember to end each adjustment of the blade depth by turning the wheel in the forward direction until it engages.

I hope this is helpful. I consider myself to be a beginner at all of this, just passing on the advice that I found helpful about 9 months ago.
-Andy
P.S. as I recall now, my #4 came with a note that the lever-cap screw was tightened for shipping, and that it should be backed off a 1/4 turn (or 1/2 turn, I don't recall) before using the plane.

[Eddie Darby]

The only other thing I was wondering is how big of a gap should there be between the blade iron and the plane at the opening?

How big of a gap depends on the type of wood you are planing.

For wood that has wild grain such as some curly maple or birds-eye maple, you want a close/small gap.

The planes sole just ahead of the cutting blade puts downward pressure on the wood right before the cut. This downward pressure helps to keep the wood from getting a crack/splinter that runs wildly ahead of the plane's blade, free to go where-ever it wants to go, and thus not what you want it to do. When attacking wild figured wood, a small/thin shaving is used to help overcome the "stubborness" of the wood, by being weak ( less beam strength ), and thus more pliant to doing what you want and not what the wood wants. So a tighter gap provides better control of the cut, at the expense of a mouth that will choke more easily with bigger cuts, but this is not a problem in this case because you want to take a thin/weak shaving anyway.

On normal, easy to plane wood such as a softwood that is knot free or even a normal piece of maple, where you need to remove a lot of wood, the main concern is that in "hogging" the wood off with a deep/thick shaving being taken, you don't want the mouth to choke with shavings, so you end up with a wide mouth opening. However, this is also the *same* mouth opening that you can use when you want to take a thin shaving on the same piece of wood. The downward pressure just ahead of the plane blade is not as important in this type of cut because the wood is more "compliant/co-operative", and so a wide mouth can be used in *all* thicknesses of cut.

How much opening you need is connected to how stubborn the wood is being. Other factors to look at when dealing with wild grain is the pitch of your blade, the setting of the chip-breaker and the sharpening of the blade.

Lie-Nielsen sell an extra frog that has a "York" pitch which gives a steeper "angle of attack" which helps with wild wood. "York" pitch is 50 degrees and the standard pitch is 45 degrees. The chipbreaker should be set closer to the cutting edge, usually 1/64" or 0.4 mm or less. The blade should be very sharp.

In short; nice gentle easy going wood Big Mouth Opening, no matter what size shaving, and for "wild n' crazy" Steve Martin type wood Tight Mouth Opening and only thin shavings.

["Gary Brewer"]

Eddie and Andrew: Thanks for the tips! It helps a lot. I had called Lie-Nielsen about the gap, the lady was very nice but didn't really know. I'll experiment but I'm sure now that the 1/8 inch that it was set at is too big for difficult wood and I'll make it a little smaller for easily planed wood.
Gary Brewer

[Andrew Homan]

[...] is too big for difficult wood and I'll make it a little smaller for easily planed wood.
Gary Brewer

Hi Gary,
Again, making it as small as possible won't hurt for any wood, but it will help for difficult wood. It will, however, limit you from taking thicker shavings. LNs use the Bedrock design in order to make adjustment of the mouth easier, so one could simply have the screwdriver at the ready and re-adjust as necessary. For my use, where a #4 is only ever used to take extremely fine shavings, I keep the mouth tightened up as much as possible; when I need to take thicker shavings, I use a different plane. YMMV!
-Andy

[Robert Trotter]

HI everyone and Gary, I have no idea really about how to adjust Gary's plane but from what I am reading I would think that Gary is having trouble knowing how to adjust the mouth and not how it should be set. I think he is understanding that theo mouth has to be set narrower but unless I am mistaken (Gary, please say so if I am wrong ) Gary just doesn't know how to make the physical adjustment.???

Gary if this is the case let everyone know and then some kind folks like Andrew could possible do run through on how to actually do the adjustment.

Robert

[James Owen]

Hello, I have just purchased my first smoothing plane. A 4 1/2 LN bevel down plane which arrived today. Yeah!! I was wondering if there were any resources on how to adjust it and the teminology of the parts? Any books, videos, websites or what? I have had a small low angle block plane for a while which I have liked a lot. I have moved to the next step and would like to make sure this new purchase is adjusted properly. There seems to be a lot of parts to this plane and no directions came with it. The gap between the blade and the body of the plane seems large. Around 1/8 of an inch at least when the blade is advanced to cut a thin shaving. I assume the front plate lever needs to be pulled out to adjust the distance the blade sticks out or should the knob just be turned with the lever pulled back? ( the blade adjustment wheel is hard to turn if the front plates lever is pulled back. ) Should the blade by a little convex? If so how much?
Thank for any help.

Gary,

Congratulations on your new toy!!

To adjust the mouth: on the back side of the frog are three screws. The two outside screws are the frog tightening screws; the centre screw is for adjusting the frog forward and backward. To adjust the frog, simply loosen the two outside screws and turn the centre screw to move the frog forward or backward, until you have the mouth opening you need/want. Then re-tighten the two outside screws to hold it in place. You're done.

Planing videos: check the LN web site under books & videos. The David Charlesworth videos are very informative and useful. Likewise, the Rob Cosman videos are also very informative. I'd say that the Cosman videos are oriented a bit more toward the beginning woodoworker, whereas the Charlesworth videos seem to be aimed more toward the intermediate woodworker. That may help in selecting your video.

For smoothing plane, especially used for putting the final surface on the board, a tight mouth (1/32 to 1/64 inch) and wispy thin shavings are better. A slightly cambered (.001" or thereabouts) iron will preclude leaving plane "tracks" on your surface, that will show up when you put the finish on (very ugly....).

Hope that this of some use to you. Have fun with your new toy!

James

["Gary Brewer"]

James: The mouth of the plane came very wide. Probably 3/16 of an inch. I'll close it up. The cap iron screw was very tight also but I found that that was done by design for shipping, I've loosened that. Thanks for the tips on the videos, I think that is a good idea. I was at a workshop yesterday presented by Garrett Hack. What a bright talented guy. He brought a bunch of planes and spent the day talking and demonstrating planes, spokeshaves, and scrapers. He harvests his own wood and keeps it simple. I'm learning a lot. There is a hugh learning curve in woodworking. Thanks for the tips.
Gary Brewer