Replies

1. 
   Lataxe | Feb 14, 2009 11:39pm | #1

   Mr b,

   http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ToolGuide/ToolGuideArticle.aspx?id=29680

   http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=5299

   http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/subscription/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28408

   http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ToolGuide/ToolGuideArticle.aspx?id=3000

   http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=2747

   http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ToolGuide/ToolGuidePDF.aspx?id=27824

   http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ToolGuide/ToolGuidePDF.aspx?id=1992

   What a wunnerful thang the FWW search engine is.  It took me 2 minutes to find these.  :-)

   Lataxe

2. 
   AdamCherubini | Feb 15, 2009 05:06am | #2

   There is no one correct way of doing it. That's why there's so much fuss about this issue. I can't even begin to describe the different methods.

   What I see mostly though are those who start out with rough lumber, machine it, then perfect it with hand planes. Then there are guys (far fewer) who start out with rough lumber and perfect it with a greater diversity of hand planes. Lastly there's me. I start with rough or machined lumber then generally make those boards look worse with hand planes.

   Adam

1. 
   dlb | Feb 15, 2009 05:42am | #3

   My Dear Sir,

   You are always good for a laugh!

   I go to the lumber yard, pick out flat s2s boards, work on them w/ hand planes and end up w/ s0s lumber then take it to the millworks shop to get my work corrected!The undisciplined life is not worth examining.

2. 
   JeffHeath | Feb 17, 2009 05:53pm | #15

   Lastly there's me. I start with rough or machined lumber then generally make those boards look worse with hand planes.

   Adam,

   Thank you for the great morning laugh.  I'm ready to head to the shop, now.

   Jeff

   I would beg to differ, though.......

3. 
   prbayliss | Feb 15, 2009 06:06am | #4

   Hi dlb,

   Be prepared for a good workout. You'll have muscles you never knew existed after your first board.

   Go for it. It's rewarding and beats a trip to the gym.

   Best regards,
   Paul

4. 
   roc | Feb 15, 2009 06:23am | #5

   Looks like Latax has done all the heavy lifting and then some !

   One thing I will say is you will sooner or later get to the point where you can tell where to plane by using the side of a long plane, jointer or tryplane, or a straight edge.

   To start you will be always bending over and squinting at the gap and finding the high spots and getting lots of exercise squatting down and getting up until you develop what I call planer's knee.

   You plane and you plane and nothing makes sense because you think you understand all this but some how the work doesn't get better or it gets worse.

   Just keep at it. Day after day. Don't be down on your self if you leave it alone for a while and come back to it. Eventually it gets to be almost a sixth sense thing and you bend down to look less and just feel with the straight edge.

   Christopher Schwarz info in magazine or DVD on Course, Medium and Fine is a big help. From him I learned to stay with the course way longer than I other wise would and not to skip the medium stage.

   Forget about using a straight across blade to medium a plank ! That was a big mistake I was making. Have a bunch of radius right up until you have it totally flat and then use blades with less radius and finally once it is almost perfect go with an almost straight across blade. Other wise you don't take off enough wood in a pass and you spend way, way, way too long taking off these nice pretty curls while the plank doesn't change much.

   Plane cross grain a bunch but learn how to do it and think about what you see happening on the surface.

   Have what these days is considered a very low bench so you can get your legs into it.

   Practice and think, Practice and think, Practice and think,

   Eventually you won't have to think and you can relax and just work. I am just now getting to that bit and it is NICE !

   And once you master all this then you will just get a big old power joiner and a thickness planer (well you probably already have these ). Hand planing makes me realize how lucky we are to live in a world where an individual can have these power tools in a home shop. I have not got them power tools yet but think I might rather like to try them.

   I will always hand plane smaller stuff but there is a limit : )

   roc
   Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )

   
   

   ---

   Edited 2/14/2009 10:49 pm by roc

1. 
   prbayliss | Feb 15, 2009 06:40am | #6

   Further to roc's excellent info.If your bench is flat, placing the board face down on the bench and seeing where it rocks is another way of finding the high spots. When you get it to the point that you feel a little suction when you pull the board up, you're probably there.If you're thicknessing boards by hand too then a scrub plane will be a revelation. I found it takes minutes where a jack would take an age. Be aware though that you may tear out deeper than you wanted to go, so watch anywhere that the grain rises.Best regards again,
   Paul

2. 
   Lataxe | Feb 15, 2009 02:34pm | #7

   Roc,

   Planer's knee?  I got the elbow version, which is not unlike a mild case of tennis elbow.  It never gets bad enough to stop me planing unless thoughts of scrub-planing somehow get past my "ridiculous ideas" wetware filter.  Then the elbow pain flares up immediately and a small voice whispers in my virtual ear, "Get the Scheppach planer/thicknesser out, ye fool"!

   The last large oak project I did was a 6' X 3' trestle table and I decided to have-at one of the 5' planks (for an under-member) with handplanes only.  (One needs to exxperience these strange ideas one reads about in WW forums, made actual). This was a rough plank with a bit of wind and a slight taper as well as a slight cup.  It took me ages to square, flatten and thickness the thing - longer than it took to do all the other planks in the table with the Scheppach P/T  Also, the elbow was at full-throb. Also it wasn't quite unwinded.

   Unless one has a severe dislike of the machine and/or a masochistic streak, four-squaring rough, bent boards with handplanes seems like mere self-abuse; flagellation via plane.  It is for the more asetic WW religiosi, one feels; those fellows with an obsessive feeling of unworth that can only be kept in abeyance by Hard Work and Pain.

   Still, we must tolerate all religious nuttery, although I feel it would constitute abuse to teach innocent children the lore of scrubbing when there are lovely Scheppachs and similar in the world.  After all, we wouldnae, in this day and age, send them up a chimney with a brush tied to their heeds, would we? No.

   Lataxe, putting his planer/thicknesser up on the alter and sending scrub planes back to demonland.

3. 
   Rich14 | Feb 17, 2009 02:51am | #11

   "And once you master all this then you will just get a big old power joiner and a thickness planer (well you probably already have these ). Hand planing makes me realize how lucky we are to live in a world where an individual can have these power tools in a home shop."Every time one of these threads starts up I remember a paragraph out of one of James Krenov's books (can't remember which). He is showing a visitor his shop, decades ago. They climb down the steps to the basement. The visitor glances around for a few moments, accommodating to the dimness and eventually realizes he is looking at a large jointer (a 12" or 16" Oliver, I believe). He gasps in disbelief and asks for explanation from the world's foremost advocate of hand planes. WOOD BODY hand planes. How can this be?Krenov replies something to the effect, "Of course I have machines! What did you think? Planes are for finishing. Machines are for doing the hard work and preparing the stock. How do you think I get anything done? It's hard enough to just lift some of my wood and move it around. If it weren't for the machines, I would have no energy for designing or any of the other steps necessary in my woodworking!"Rich

5. 
   bones | Feb 16, 2009 10:36pm | #8

   While not free, the DVD by Rob cosman "Rough to Ready" did it for me.  It's amazing how fast he can flatten a board with a few planes. 

   Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:
   If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it.
   And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
   
1. 
   Lataxe | Feb 17, 2009 02:18am | #9

   Bones,

   One suspects such DVD events as Mr Cosman's are like those of that Norm, who makes large pieces in 30 minutes every time.  Them video ediitng programs are quite whizzo, are they not.

   Anyway, did you manage to achieve Cosman-velocity in your own planing process or does it, strangely, take rather longer?  :-)

   Lataxe, DVD-skeptic

1. 
   bones | Feb 17, 2009 02:36am | #10

   Actually his was real time no editing.  And after acquiring the LN scrub plane it went quite fast.  Keep in mind I was doing pieces close to finished width and lenght.  With his method, I was surprised how fast (or slow you decide) one can get a piece flat.  I'm sure having a good sharp plane has something to do with it as well like the LN #7.   Between his vid and Charlseworth's on sharpening, I gained a good respect for those tools.  Of course since I've acquired the12" grizz jointer, I've used them less, but I still use them.  Have a good'n.  Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

2. 
   AdamCherubini | Feb 17, 2009 03:44am | #13

   That's funny. When I watched that video, I remember thinking he looked like he was in slow motion.I've been wanting to do some videos of my own to give guys a sense for a different way of working wood. I did a demo a few weeks back and Shannon, author of the popular Rennaissance Woodworker Blog, taped it. See RWW #25. I'm not sure if he taped my entire freak show or not. If he didn't, he sure seemed to remember all the important bits and reported them correctly. So if you are interested in the event and what I said, you might find the entire 30 minute episode helpful. Otherwise, just start at 22 minutes in and you'll see what I think woodworking in the 18th c looked like.http://rogersfinewoodworking.com/blog/This bench had an adjustable height feature. I lowered it to allow the attendees to comfortably try my tools. Adam

1. 
   bones | Feb 17, 2009 05:08am | #14

   Thanks for the link I enjoyed your information. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

6. 
   BORKBOB | Feb 17, 2009 03:27am | #12

   Powered jointers and planers are right up there with computers, refrigerators and the internal combustion engine in my mind. I am glad to have each and every one. It is painfully obvious to me how the apprenticeship method of training came about in the furniture making industry.

   At the age of 12 you were given a broom, a stove and a pile of firewood that needed to be split. You kept the shop clean and warm and brewed the tea for a year. If you did an OK job, you got moved up a notch and spent the day sharpening chisels and plane irons and assisting the masters with any heavy lifting (they were building your muscles). Next, you get promoted to the pit saw, and guess who's in the pit. A steady diet of saw dust increases your stamina and you move to the top of the pit. Next is the two man buck saw. You're now 15 or 16 and ready to buy your own Clearasil and an occasional pint of ale, so more rewarding work is called for.  

   So now, you think you are being promoted when you are brought back into the shop, even though it's to the far corner of the shop. You are handed a scrub plane and shown how to rough dimension the boards you were recently creating from logs out back. Six months of this, 12 hrs. a day, 6 days a week and yet another promotion. Now you are taught to use 22-32" long jointer planes and fore planes and learn how to get the boards ready for use in the main shop.

   At this stage a decision is made. You are either moved into the main shop and taught the finer, and less physically demanding, skills, or you are told to invent social security disability and apply for it. You are a physical wreck at the age of 20. You have to wear a hat because you can't raise your arms high enough to comb your hair. Your knees are all but fused stiff by "planer's knee" and your elbows are knobbier and more painful than John McEnroe's will be in 100 yrs.

   I have a nice set of Bailey type 11 planes for which I spent a great deal of time not a small amount of money acquiring. I enjoy having them and will even try use them when nothing else will work. But, when I go to bed tonight I will once again thank God for my power jointer and planer.

    

    

   Please Pray For Our Troops

   Semper Fi!

   Bob Ross

   WalnutAcreWoodworking.com

   
1. 
   AdamCherubini | Feb 17, 2009 07:01pm | #16

   "At the age of 12 you were given a broom, a stove and a pile of firewood that needed to be split."

   Respectfully, I don't think anything in your post is correct.  I too have heard this many times before.  My guess is it's a view of state sponsored apprenticeships that took place in the 20th century, very likley in England that was suffering from high rates of unemployment. 

   18th c craft apprenticeships were nothing like your description whatsoever.  Apprentices were a source of low cost labor for masters.  They generally didn't accept 12 years olds.  They had a financial interest in getting their apprentices up and functioning as journeymen as quickly as possible.  Sweeping the shop and helping their employees (journeymen) would make the master no money at all.  In fact, he would be losing money because the apprentice was a member of the master's household.  Also, most masters in Philadelphia had domestic servants or slaves or both.  he certainly didn't need additional sweepers.

   How it generally worked as far as I can tell is the customer had no idea who made their furniture.  They paid the same regardless of the craftsman's skill.  It was up to the master (and his guild) to ensure the quality of the finished product. So basically, the master pocketed the labor portion of the sale as profit (and to offset the cost of the apprentice.)  Apprentices weren't huge money makers. In America, cabinetmakers didn't seem to have many.  In England where unemployment was higher and wages were lower, more apprentices were utilized. 

   I think one reason why these fantastic stories prevade is because it's comforting for modern woodworkers to think they have the right answer on their test papers.   In reality, documentary evidence (like the Philadelphia Price Book) indicates period craftsmen were capable of tremendous speed, and quality.  They matched their wit and skill with our machines' brute force producing items of superior quality that have survived and have been cherished for 300 years now.

   I think thoughtful modern woodworkers are and should be unsettled by an accurate look at our ancestors lives.  In their darkened shops, cluttered with miserable tools, they did what we with all our advantages cannot.  The more I learn about them and the more of their work I see, the less satisified I am with my own work.

   Adam   

1. 
   BORKBOB | Feb 17, 2009 08:10pm | #17

   Respectfully, my post was an attempt (apparently poor) at tongue-in-cheek humor.

   I have the utmost respect for our predecessors and developed an appreciation of hand wrought funiture many years ago. Please Pray For Our Troops

   Semper Fi!

   Bob Ross

   WalnutAcreWoodworking.com