I’ve been working wood for about a year, and really enjoy working with hand tools. As such, I’ve got a nice collection of veritas planes; from the scrub to jointer to smoothing. I’ve watched “rough to ready” by Rob Cossman many times, and have used his techniques to dimension rough cut lumber to useable boards.
Just recently, I’ve crossed into the dark side and purchased a used Dewalt dw733 power planer. I don’t have a power jointer yet, but have built a sled to face-joint boards. I’m undecided if I like the machine or not due to the fact that it’s noisy as hell and I have a 1 year old sleeping next to my attached 2 car garage (my “shop”) when I do most of my woodworking.
The limited use I can get out of the machine has me thinking I should have dropped that cash into a better hand saw (I have my eyes on a Lie-Nielsen panel saw) that I actually could use.
Finally, my question is this: Does anyone else actually prep their stock completely by hand? Is it possible to get quick enough with hand planes (I’m getting better) to make this feasable? I enjoy the hand work very much, but I also enjoy producing something besides wood chips…
Replies
Depends
At 63 yo. joints and muscles dictate the process for the day ;-) Especially the right sholder.
But many times, even with the aches, It's quicker by hand.
Absolutely!
I prep all my stock by hand and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have used powered jointers and planers but they lost most of their appeal after I began working mostly by hand - I really enjoy not having to listen to wurring machines and sucking dust while keeping track of all my fingers. I do a lot of my work at night and I know my neighbors are happier as well.
In terms of production speed, you can work pretty fast by hand because there is less setup time in comparison to power tools (as long as the tool is tuned prior to use); with the TS, jointer, planer, etc. you have to invest some time to dial in your setup with test pieces before you can start. If you will be making many repetitive parts the power tools have the advantage of being able to run multiple pieces quickly once the setup is dialed in. On the other hand I get a better quality finish faster with my #4 than my ROS any day of the week.
Personally I believe in a healthy mix of power and hand tools - you get the best of both worlds. I do not use powered jointers or planers because I do not have them and time is usually not pressing me to put out a large volume of work. I prefer to practice the traditional side of woodwork and keep that knowledge alive for the generations that will come after me.
-Ian
There is a bit of misunderstanding about the differences between hand tool only and machine woodworking. Since the advent of machines and the way they are used, it can often be important that stock is of even and a specific thickness. This is because you often cut from both faces with machines and use cutters that work best on certain thickness lumber. When running work against fences and into spinning cutters, it's important that the work is straight and flat. In building with hand tools only, you work back from the face that shows. A lot is by eye and feel, not micrometers. This means you don't have to dimension to a specific size, in fact, there are many places you don't have to plane the back side at all. If you look underneath old pieces, you'll see that little attention, other than an axe swipe or other rough cut, is given to unseen surfaces.
With machine work, you often set up for cutting multiples of like joints, with hand tools, each joint is an individual, cut and fit for that one connection. To get the consistency and accuracy of cutting multiples with machines, your stock has to be consistent. That isn't necessary with hand cut methods. You don't have to think like a machine operator when using hand only methods unless you mix the two. In using machines, you think in terms of preparing entire boards and then cutting them into parts. You start with a stack of nicely planed lumber. With hand tools, you cut the parts and then surface them as necessary. You can take the parts for a paneled door and plane the four frame members to match. Your plough plane and mortice gauge will reference from the face. You can scrape or plane mating surfaces after they are fit. The parts don't have to be exactly 3/4" and the next door can be slightly different, too.
Hand planing out hardwoods can be a physical experience. Reducing the size of what you have to plane is easier and you can skip around to break up the work. You could do a single door, surface the necessary materials, cut the joints and assemble then move on to another, for example. It can be overwhelming if you plane out all the lumber for a project at the start. If you are doing it for fun, spread the hard work out a little bit.
Heck YES !
I am not a hand tool only person but . . .
I have to have a bandsaw for the resawing. I tried it by hand. It is possible and I did a fair amount of it but to really resaw like they did back in the day it takes two people.
I can do without a jointer and a planer but not without my bandsaw. Quiet too.
Fast ? Quick ? What do these words mean ? I am not familiar with these words.
I know : fun, interesting, beautiful, quality, longevity, quiet, peaceful . . .
I think one of the secrets is to spend more time on the scrub or heavily radiused blade planes before going to the triplane and smoother, don't be too afraid of tear out at this stage., Wet the wood with alcohol or water when tear out is really bad or the wood really hard.
Yes watching videos of the cool guys working really helps get an idea of the rhythm and speed possible.
A super stable work bench AT THE RIGHT HEIGHT FOR YOU is super important. If your bench is wiggly and too high you may as well sit and stick your self in the leg with an awl. You will have about as much fun.
One last thing. It is possible to develop what I call planer's knee. Watch out for that one. I am still researching it but it seems to come from a combination of kneeling down too much to look at winding sticks and pushing sideways with your leg rather than in line with the body front to back. I have never had any knee problems until I built a dining table out of bubinga. Had to four square the boards before glue up twice. Long story. I am mostly fine now but I watch how I do things. I wasn't getting enough sleep for healing ligaments either. Takes more than eight hours sleep occasionally to really heal well. I was running on five a night. Not recommended for such physically stressful work.
Great!
It's encouraging to know that it is realistic to do all of my stock preparation by hand. For some reason, most likely my lack of skill, I thought, "There is absolutely no way any body really does this 100% by hand." I am glad that this is not the case. Not that I need the reassurance in order to pursue that direction -- I have done so thus far and would have continued to do so any ways. But, during times of frustration, I can now remind myself that plenty of people do this by hand, and that I will learn and get better with experience.
There have been a few frustrating moments (mostly while flattening a butcher block 6' dining table that I glued up without cauls, not knowing better at the time, so that every inch the next board was not the same height as the one next to it) that I've thought, "If only I could run this thing through a jointer, planer, or drum sander..."
That was my first woodworking experience ever, and I basically dove head first into the deep end without researching first. I messed up, and learned, a LOT on that project.
But, the challenge is part of what I enjoy. I also enjoy knowing that I did something to make that board flat. After just setting up my power planer and running a few test boards through, I almost get the feeling that I really didn't do anything. I get the same feeling when seeing an ad for a router dovetailing jig. I just don't see the point unless you are mass producing furniture.
I think I'll and sell my power planer so I can afford a new hand tool, or maybe even put it towards wood to make the Frank Kluasz style workbench I've been dreaming about for the past year.
Stock preparation can be done efficiently and pretty quickly but it is some work.
First, forget the information in your video. Randomly whacking away with a scrub plane or burnishing your bench with your stock isn't going to get you where you want to go. Skip the scrub plane, it'll just cause you grief.
Start by sawing your stock to rough dimension, don't try to work whole boards..
Traditionally, the planes are designed to work with you. Their use is dependent on factors such as length, profile of the iron and width of the iron. You basically need a fore plane and trying plane or jack plane and trying plane for stock preparation. Use a fore plane or jack plane depending on the size of stock you normally work and either should have a camber of about 12" radius. You may need a smooth plane but avoid using one unless it's necessary. The smooth plane wil clean up localized problems but it introduces irregularity into the true surface left by the trying plane.
I disagree with hammer1. The traditional term for stock preparation was "thicknessing" and the goal is to produce flat, true stock of a uniform thickness. Start by creating a true, flat reference face. Which face is the reference face is determined by its placement in a project. For case work the reference face us usually the non-show face on the case inside. For things like doors, drawer fronts or sash work the reference face is the show face. You will have some irregularity in thickness and a little is generally okay. All joinery layout is always done from the reference face or reference edge which is the second true face you'll produce when preparing stock. By having the reference face of casework on the inside, you'll be able to keep your case square and uniform and the slight irregularity in thickness won't impact how square the case is so fitting parts like drawers and doors will be easy. Allowing too much variation in thickness will cause problems, things like drawers require pretty accurate thicknessing.
From my point of view, both Larry and Hammer are right. Old work I have seen has shown both approaches. The trick -as a builder- is knowing when accurate thicknessing is necessary, and when it isn't, and hammer and Larry have given good examples of that in making their arguments.
Hammer says that the thickness of the door frame is not important, and that the next door you make need not match the first one. Well, maybe, if the 2d door isn't next to the 1st one, and overlapping the case, like the doors of a secretary frequently are. If those doors lap over the case ends, and come flush with the case front, and have a rabbetted lap joint where they meet in the center, they'd better be carefully dimensioned.
If the bottom of a drawer still has a few saw, or axe marks, and varies in thickness from 3/4" to 1/4 in thickness, as long as it is relatively flat on its show surface, and bevels to 1/4" on the three sides that engage grooves in the front and sides of the drawer, no biggie. If the several sides of a 4 drawer chest have any variation over a half a 1/16" in thickness or any appreciable deviation from flat, dovetailing (re-setting your marking guage for every different thickness in the sides), grooving, and assembling those drawers, cutting bottoms to different dimensions, and then fitting them to their case will be an exercise in frustration.
Then there is the thing of good workmanship, pride in the product, call it what you will. If the 8 pigeonhole partitions in your desk interior are ranging in thickness from 3/16-5/16, and they are 3" apart, it is going to be obvious to the most casual observer that it was built by a hack. No-one is going to see that the backboards range from 1/2-11/16 because they are against the wall.
I'm in awe of the Dunlap family of craftsmen in NH, who did all that work in maple. I hate to plane maple. then there is the whole rotator cuff thing. My shoulders ain't what they used to be, and I don't thickness any more by hand than I have too, these many years. Can't imagine what a career of pushing planes did to those guys shoulders.
Ray
Live Free or Die
They say accurate sawing is what separates the men from the boys so to speak, and I would have to agree. Roughing in with the appropriate tool is essential with hand tools, it makes everything that comes after so much easier and faster. Like Roc, I also use a tightly radiused blade in my jack as a substitute scrub with fair results, though I am glad I have not yet used a true scrub for they also say ignorance is bliss.
Like many craftsman of yore I let piece placement determine the quality of the surface - It's pointless to fully treat a surface that will never be seen and a waste of energy. Also thicknessing isn't exact unless it has to be - as long as things fit and look good thats all I care about. I like that because it emparts a more personal nature into my work, my tool marks are part of my signature. I Believe Roy Underhill did a segment on this at the N.C. museum where he discussed slave craftsman, specifically Thomas Day and his work.
Roc also brought up a point I forgot to mention - a quality bench made for handwork. This really is important because you need your work secure and at the proper height to use the tool correctly and work safely and efficiently. Klausz's bench is a good choice and many think it is the ideal design but that is a matter of preference - most build several benches over their career and different styles have different advantages. The ideal height for me was right where my fingers meet palm when my arms were by my side. I would experiment before building.
Another tip if you're shop floor is concrete is to invest in a quality ergonomic mat for around your bench. Life revolves around your bench and lots of standing on concrete will kill your feet, legs and back.
BTW Ray, I live in southern NH and had no idea who the Dunlap brothers were so I googled them. As it turns out I have done work in many of the same areas as Samuel Dunlap (Chester, Henniker, Concord, Sailsbury) and thats pretty cool. Thanks for the reference!
-Ian
Dumb question... What is the other method?
So, currently what I do is cut my lumber to rough dimension as you said, so that I have less to remove w/ the plane, and then I follow the methods described in "rough-to-ready"...
The instructions in the rough-to-ready video are pretty similar to what I've seen elsewhere, with the added "trick" of burnishing the board w/ the bench to make the high spots more visible in order to remove them. From what I can tell, the steps go like this:
1. First, get one face (usually the concave side) flat enough so that it sits on the bench w/out flexing or rocking so you can work on the convex side.
2. Flatten the convex side and use it as your reference face.
3. True up the rest of the board (sides, ends).
4. Work on the face from step 1 last to bring down to final thickness.
Forgive my ignorance, this is the only method I know, and watching/reading other videos and articles seem (to me) to say basically the same thing... Is there another process you would recommend instead?
There are no dumb questions.
The process you outlined is very similar to mine with a few caveats.
First, I read the grain direction of my piece and plane accordingly. The "arches" of a flatsawn board point in the direction you want to work. You will get tearout and more resistance if you go against the grain, and some operations will call for this, so the final passes should go with the grain. Observe any twist or cup in the piece (winding sticks are useful here) and knock the corners down enough so it doesn't rock on the bench.
Second, I take my jack with scrub blade installed and work diagonally across the length and then repeat going in the opposide direction - this will take out any high spots on the working surface and leave you with ridges to take down with a try plane or jointer. I use the edge of my jointer (held on an angle so just the edge of the sole contacts) as a straightedge and mark any high areas that remain (none if you were good with the jack).
Third, I pick the straightest edge of the board and work that with my regular jack blade then jointer. The radius on my jack allows me to correct an un-square edge without having to angle the plane itself and my #7 leaves a good straight edge for my panel gage. I set the panel gage for the width I want and strike a line the length of the piece. Depending on how much material you have to remove, you have to decide wether to saw or plane the waste - if its a lot I will saw, otherwise I scrub down close to the line with short, deep cuts. Finish with jack and jointer.
At this point I will resaw the other side of the piece to thickness if it is significantly thicker than I need or simply attack it with the scrub-jack. Finish up with the other steps.
Usually I only use my #4 on show surfaces or if I have to work down a smaller area - as Larry pointed out the smaller footprint of the plane means it will follow hollows and possibly create them if you go nuts (but thats hard for me because I'm set up for .0015-.002 shavings). I quickly pencil in a grid on the surface I am working to track my progress - nothing special. Burnish with the shavings you just made for a nice finish.
S4S lumber is for chumps - buy riftsawn or skip-planed and save yourself some money. You probably won't need a gym membership either.
-Ian
Oh now lets not get all black and white
I tried to do without a scrub plane. I took a basic Stanley jack and radiused the blade a lot and used that. I used other various bevel down and bevel up jobs. Then . . . . . . .
I got my little inexpensive Lie-Nielsen scrub.
Heaven !
Much stouter than the Stanley jack
Stays sharp for ever cutting cross grain.
Low cutting resistance because of the narrow blade and light weight.
I could keep singing its praises.
Larry is right though cut all you can off with a bandsaw / what have you so you don't have to plane it off.
By the way I finally ordered " A Real Plane " ( see photo ) from
http://www.planemaker.com/
The waiting is a hard thing to do. Months to go. Going to be a wonderful thing to have and use.
The table in the photo all glued up is about my max ( and a bit more truth be told ) . If I had it to do over again I would buy a big hand held power planer. I didn't buy one though because all the rest of my projects will be much smaller and of less hard wood so they will seem like a breeze after the bubinga table. Sheeeeeeze ! That was work !
There was just no way I could have taken enough material off with my jacks to level this table inside of a hun'ert years. I absolutely had to use the scrub. The planks were all very flat ( probably to a silly degree looking back ). I glued up the table in stages; not all at once so the planks were as well aligned as I could possibly make them. I totally took my time and in the end still had to take off some thickness here and there before smoothing.
I was continually surprised that I couldn't just use the big planes and get on with it. The winding sticks and the straight edge said other wise. Plane, plane, plane. Check for flat. Plane, plane, plane. Check for flat. Plane, plane, plane. Check for flat. Plane, plane, plane. Check for flat.
Where's my scrub ?! Scrub, scrub, scrub. Check for flat. Ok now I am at least seeing some change.So back to the scrub. Tha's a fact Jack.
The beginning of my obsession
My wife and I purchased a house a couple of years ago and did not own a formal dining room table. I'd always been intrigued by woodworking, and could not find the table I had in my head, so I set out to make it.
After some searching, I finally found some cherry for sale on Craigslist. After not enough research, I started gluing up the boards in sections. I almost used a brad nailer to keep the boards lined up, as the guy from Craigslist suggested. I also almost used a biscuit jointer to keep the boards lined up. Looking back at it, I'm glad I didn't do either, even though it was much work flattening.
After the whole top was glued together, the hard part began: get the table flat. I went to Menards and bought the cheapest Stanley "jack" plane they had. It didn't take long before I ordered the Veritas bevel up jointer. Then a smoother. Then a scrub (opposed to using my jointer w/ a radiused iron). Anyway, further and further down the rabbit hole I go... :)
you sure can
I did it for a long time. If I could reccomend a DVD, Rob Cosmons rough to ready. He's a expert and he gives you some real tips that makes the process easy. I used a scrub plane to knock it down first a #7 and winding sticks and other planes and scrapers to finish it. All it takes is time. I got quick at it not nearly as quick as my machines but it was not bad and you don't need ear muffs. It's actually very smoothing. Once I got the 12" jointer and an old northfield planer the need to flatten stock by had was reduced, but hand planes are still an intergral (pardon the sp) part of my wood working.
Dimensioning by hand
I spend a great deal of time as a carpenter. It seems like all of the work is done as high as you can possibly reach on a ten foot ladder or twenty-two foot extension ladder, or crawling around in the mud in a confined space. After a day of cutting and drilling hardieplank, powerplaning bowed studs so that they form flat walls, nailgunning reluctant studs and headers into submission, moving walls and joists 1/128th inch at a time with a 6 lb sledgehammer, putting 20 foot long pieces of trim through the planer, etc., etc., it is a pleasure to work in my own shop a night with hand tools only, including dimensioning stock for woodworking projects. Colleen and I have a pretty well-equipped woodworking shop so I know if I mess something up with the bench planes there is the large drum sander waiting to take over. Photo of one of our recent projects in progress.
Saw selection for hand work
Jeremy:
The other guys gave a bunch of good information. But none of them addressed saws. The Lie-Nielsen panel saws are nice, but not really the best choice for rough dimensioning stock. They are too short and thin for that. For rough stock you want full size saws. They don't have to cost you a lot. Hunt around and find yourself a couple of old Disston saws in good shape. You want a large rip saw and a good crosscut saw. These are easy to learn to sharpen for yourself, but I suggest checking with local hardware stores and find someone who can give your old saws a proper sharpening to get you started right. Make yourself a couple of good saw benches (check this link http://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/traditional_sawbench) to make the sawing easier and faster.
gdblake
Working away from power tools
I'm slowly working my way towards hand tools - and dimensioning by hand - and away from power tools. My shop is too small to have a table saw, but I do have a band saw and it does a lot of things for me so I won't be getting rid of it. I also have a circular saw for roughing out.
But I recently got a scrub plane and will be tuning that up after making a wooden door latch for my coat closet door.
I really dislike the noise and sawdust of power tools though, as I say, I realize I can't get away from them entirely. I'm thinking of rough cutting the wood to size so that the subsequent scrub, flat and finish planing is kept to a minimum.
We'll see how that goes.
Gregg
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