I bought a cool new small LN chisel plane today! However, I’m not sure if this plane was any better than using my chisel to clean out some rabbets in the corners of my assembled plywood case. But the plane seems to only work well when you need to plow out less than a 1/16th of an inch. I ended up using my chisel to remove most of the material and finished up the last bit with the chisel plane. Is this typical for a chisel plane? At first, I thought it was because I tried to use the plane straight out of the box (I heard that you can do that with LN planes) but after being disappointed with its cutting, I used an 8000 grit water to put a back bevel on it and it was nice and sharp but it was only slightly better.
Is it just that I need more practice? Planes sure seem to take a lot of practice!
Replies
I have the same plane, and use it alot. It's not designed for taking huge chunks of wood. For that, you'll still need your chisels. It excels at cleanup, whether it be dried glue in a corner, or a quick swipe over glue joints for a table top. If you need to flatten a corner referenced to the flat surface, then once again, it is the tool to use. However, for squaring up corners, etc.....continue to use your regular chisels.
LN does not hone their blades before they deliver the plane. You should flatten and polish the back of the iron, which won't take too long because they do an excellent job of preparing the blade for final polishing. Then, put the same polished microbevel on the bevel of the plane, and your results will improve greatly.
Jeff
I agree with Jeff and have had a similar experience. In addition to honing, I would recommend placing a gentle camber on the iron to avoid gouging at the edges. Also, I set up the plane by placing it on some float glass with a sheet (or two) of paper under the sole (but not under the iron). I mount the iron and let it "overhang" the paper with the cutting edge resting on the glass. This allows the iron to be advanced evenly a few thou deeper than the sole, and makes for an even, light cut.Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
I think that I will end up liking the chisel plane now that I'm understanding its limits.Also, it appears that LN does a decent job of tuning their planes but definitely not enough to slice wood like a hot knife through butter. However, it was pretty easy to hone the blade with to a mirror finnish. I only wish that hand planes were as effortless as power tools! I guess I need to work on my planing skills and muscles.
All good things in time....
Enjoy the plane, and the experience.
Jeff
I only wish that hand planes were as effortless as power tools!
I find it far easier to use a hand tool than a powertool. It is just point-and-shoot. I have much more confidence in my ability to cut to a line with a handsaw, perhaps cleaning up with a handplane, or ploughing a groove with a plough plane, than in setting up and using the equivalent power tools (which I do own).
Regards from Perth
Derek
My attitude is less elegant than yours, I'm afraid- I've grown to like and admire hand tools... mostly because I find it remarkably easy to trash stock in a second with a power tool. Using hand tools, it takes me much longer. Seriously, the precision and control gained by using a plane or a chisel is hard to find with power tools...Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Hmm... The first thing I made with my jointer (Delta DJ-20) was a hand plane out of cocobolo. I don't think I could have made a hand tool like this without a power tool! Also, I find that I can ruin parts to a project just as easily with hand tools or power tools. But I've been trying to take it all in stride as part of a learning process.
Derek,
You make the surprising admission: "I have much more confidence in my ability to cut to a line with a handsaw, perhaps cleaning up with a handplane, or ploughing a groove with a plough plane, than in setting up and using the equivalent power tools...".
You need to have proper Ypean power tools that are precise. Also more practice. Send the airfare and a few extra $$s so I may pop over with a new Scheppach TS, P/T, a woodrat, etc.. The lessons in precision machine cutting will be free! (Except for the first class board and lodging, beer-allowance and other paltry expenes).
Hopefuly you have not succumbed to the Adam "I am genetically incapable of powre toole woodworking" meme, as this is self-defeating and an unnecessary limitation to your vast human potential.
Lataxe, looking to repay his larnin' debt re the handtools.
You need to have proper Ypean power tools that are precise.
Hi David
There was a time - it seems more than a decade ago - when I still aspired to become Norms Apprentice. I was working on my army of power tools.
Somewhere along the line I lost interest .. it lacked challenge.
I still have (and occasionally use) my 12" tablesaw with sliding table. I have a router table with dedicated router, plus 4 other routers, the workhorse being an Elu 177e. I actually started collecting vintage routers. I have a couple of "R2D2" types from the 1950s, which I just love because they look so cute!
View Image
I cannot recall when I last use one of these buggers. I hate the dust and the noise scares me now. I don't look cute wearing a mask, and even more of a dork when I use a headset - not to mention that this distorts the sound of Bill Evans playing in the background.
What is more clean fun than chiseling, then (plane) routing or ploughing a groove for a box or a drawer? You know you really don't want
that DirtyRat, do you?
There are only two power tools that I use in woodworking these days. One is a bandsaw for resawing (no, I'm not about to do this by hand), and the other is a lathe (tool handles don't grow on trees you know).
Even just a few years ago I could not have imagined working without a bandsaw to crosscut. Now it is second nature to use a handsaw.
My birthday present in January from my wife was a Wenzloff half-back saw. This is so Sweet! It cuts straight, to the line, no worries.
View Image
View Image
Mmmmmm :)
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 3/7/2008 8:03 am ET by derekcohen
Derek,
That old router is a fine object, reminiscent of Robbie the Robot, of whom I once had a tin toy, until a big kid pinched it and ran off. Perhaps you are going to align them router robots on a shelf, just for looking at of a night time? Better than three plaster ducks, certainly. Of course, they may come alive at night and dance with your scuttle leg stuff.
As to the preference for handtool work and its slower, more considered and quiet nature - well I confess to being something of a convert of late. (Knots - you can get a mind-disease). There is still the odd wonky shoulder next' the tenon, which tenon might sometimes be less than parallel sided but.....practice makes "perfect". But "perfect" seems now less desirable.....albeit M&Ts oughtn't to wobble.
My surprise was just at your suggesting you couldn't be as accurate with machines as with handtools. I find machines able to produce stuff that shows just about zero faults, in terms of gaps, flatness, close-fitting, 90 degree corners etc.. "Precision woodworking" as Robert Ingham calls it (and he also seeks and achieves it).
But these days I am a follower of Samson (not quite as radical as Adam) and have come to like the small imperfections induced by handtools (my use of them, at least). A perfect roundover or chamfer from a router is now somehow not pleasing; and a surface is no longer satisfactory without a little faint evidence of a scaped-over plane track or similar - to the point I am inducing and leaving them there deliberately! (The planes are quite capable of making a blemish free surface, even in my cackhand).
Weird - you neanderthals have given me your queer taste-memes as well as those for quality planes, saws and such!! Before long I'll be getting an oilstone. :-)
In a while I'll have completed a rather over-engineered version of that A&C coffee table by Kevin Rodel. It's awash with chamfered tenon ends and square plugs, all done by hand with a chisel (as was nearly every other construction task). There is wonk, no hiding it. But perhaps this improves it? I'll post pics in due course and all may poke fun at it's maker's marks; or even mention any attractive attributes.
Precision or wonk, that is the question.
Lataxe
PS Stop creating Wenzloff-envy - I am spent up just now. Also, I am sad you cannot listen to strange classical music on Radio 3, whilst in your shed, but instead have to put up with rather old-hat pop music from 1977. Just this afternoon, my square plug-making was accompanied by some kind of violin-murdering music (with apalled horn-shrieks in counterpoint). I'm convinced this has influenced the shape of the plug ends to manifest a somewhat medieval and anxious demeanour. What does Bill Evans induce? A bland yet restful form...? :-)
Edited 3/7/2008 12:34 pm ET by Lataxe
when you need to plow out less than a 1/16th of an inch.
I have no idea! However.. I NEVER take off any wood larger than that with a router, planer, jointer ETC'' I live with that and it USUALLY turns out OK!
You can ALYAYS take off MORE wood but NOT if it is to small ALREADY!
Hi Will,I agree on how one should take shallow cuts. On my jointer (okay, just to be clear, this not a hand tool but an 8 inch jointer), I never take more than 1/32nd of an inch in a pass. The problem with the chisel plane is that I needed to clear out about 1/16 of an inch of material but the way the sole of the plane sits right behind the blade, you can't easily make light passes with the plane. I would have used my rabbet plane if I could have gotten it all the way into the corner.
Jm,
A beagle usually works. :>) Sorry, couldn't resist.
How about a chisel followed by a scraper?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
J,
Have you considered a cranked chisel? These can be got in long or short varieties of various widths. Here is LV's selection as an example:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=3&p=51576&cat=1,41504,41539&ap=1
I have a small bullnose plane that acts like a chisel plane when the nose is removed. It does work but not so much to take long shavings but rather to chisel off a protuberance that's up agin'a side or in a corner, where it's awkward to get a full length chisel in.
Those cranked chisels look like they have more control for the job than a chisel plane and one has been on my list for a while now.
Lataxe
Edited 3/7/2008 2:50 pm ET by Lataxe
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled