Whew! Leveling boards by hand

[George Beck]

For the amusement of you Neanderthals, who understand this sort of thing, I am making six biscuit boards. These are from some real hard maple so I spent a lot of time getting planes wicked sharp. Talk about making shavings! What is not seen in the photo is the six inches of shavings on the floor. I enjoy hand planning but this is nuts! Anyway, they are dead flat across 24" but I am pooped!

George

[Mark Roderick]

This is why God invented electricity.

[Rob Robinson VT]

look at it this way, you've got some beautiful, hand-planed maple panels and you've saved yourself a trip to the gym!

[RickT Harding]

Have to love hand planes. I've had to do a lot of flattening by hand. With a 6" jointer and 13" planer, there's lot of glue ups and such that need to be done by hand. It's definitely a workout. I think I increased my curls by 5# after flattening the top/bottom of my workbench when I built it.

[Sean Hughto]

I was doing the same thing with an elm plank last night. Perhaps it's not pictured and you already do this, but you may want to consider some planes that take a more rank cut so that it goes quick and makes a smaller pile of thicker shavings.

There is something particularly satisfying about it when you get to the dead flat result. It's like you've bonded with the board - slapped the bit in its mouth and held on while it kicked and bucked until you finally had a good pony.

[Jim Koepke]

I do similar but with softer woods most of the time.

The shavings are great for starting fires if you have a wood stove.

jim

[Shawn Patel]

Ice your elbows. I've given myself serious tennis elbow that prevents me from lifting even my toothbrush. I blame planes!!!

[Hank Knight]

Think of each shaving as a push-up.

[David Gendron]

Since I do every thing with hand tools, I do quite a bit of that and have bags full of shavings... It is indeed a great fire starter... Love the smell... (of sweat)... Of shaving! Espacialy Black Walnut and DF!
Good work on the panels!

[Chris Friesen]

Originally Posted by George Beck

What is not seen in the photo is the six inches of shavings on the floor. I enjoy hand planning but this is nuts! Anyway, they are dead flat across 24" but I am pooped!

I agree, hard maple is a lot of work. If you really want a workout, try a large endgrain chopping board.

No idea what planes you've got, so this is just checking...are you using the right sequence of tools? Given the choice, I'd probably start with a fore plane with a heavily cambered iron and a fairly thick shaving, then a jointer with a less cambered iron and a thinner shaving, then a smoother with a shaving of a couple thou.

That looks like a low angle jack in the picture. It'll do the job (I used mine to make a cutting board before I got the others), but it'll take longer than a smaller smoother would.

[Rob Robinson VT]

Originally Posted by Chris Friesen

I agree, hard maple is a lot of work. If you really want a workout, try a large endgrain chopping board.

ditto that! we have an old 18" thick one that had lots and lots of stains and knife/chopper scars when we got it. spent many, many weekends scraping and sanding them out until I had a surface that was perfectly flat and smooth as marble. a lot of sweat but worth every drop.

[Scott Burright]

A few years ago, I did this on many feet of knotty pine using a hideous Buck Bros jack plane. I only got through it with grim determination and a portable radio.

Places like Woodcraft should give away this kind of lumber and handplane. They would make it all back and then some when you return to buy better stuff.