LV or LN. Which plane do you prefer and why?
Thanks for your time and comments
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Replies
I just got the LV LA bevel up jack and am very pleased with it. No experience with the LN planes (yet). Major step up from old fettled Stanley. Easy to adjust. Very solid feel. Very satisfied customer.
Randall
May I ask why you chose LV instead of LN?
Thanks
No real deep analysis. A bit due to cost. A bit due to the strong review at Derek Cohen's site. I am very sure I would be very happy with either.
Randall
As far as price, right now, there's only $26 difference. FWIW
Have you used your Jack in smoothing mode where a camber on the iron would be needed or helpful?
I know how to put a camber on a bevel down but cambering a bevel up iron I seem not to understand.
Thanks,
I like my LV planes a lot.
I could talk about the advanced design, or the great customer service, etc, etc, but the real reason that I like them is that they WORK ... as advertised... right out of the box.
I have no experience with LNs, but folks that have them seem to be equally enthusiastic about the LN brand.
Mike D
I have the LN and love it. Perhaps I would love the LV if I had purchased it. The differences are I think as follows:
LN smaller a #5 size plane while the LV is more like a #5 1/2. Heavier and wider.
LN has a different adjuster more like a bailey and no lateral -- you just tweak the blade. The LV has a Norris type adjuster -- one adjuster for lateral and depth. Depends which you prefer.
The LN has a cam for the mouth opening -- like a block plane. The LV has no cam but has a set screw to prevent pushing the shoe into the iron and it lets you reset the mouth the same opening if you open it up to clear out a jam.
The LV has set screws on either side of the iron.
The tote on the LN is more angled the LV is more straight up and down.
The LV lets you interchange irons with the other planes in it's BU family. You will probably want 2 irons (or 3) for you BU jack. I have 2 for my LN; one sharpened at 25 and one at 37.
The LN is a bit more traditional in appearance -- not that the LV is radical.
Both are superb BU planes with 3/16" thick irons.
I think it's a no lose choice!
I have no experience in sharpening plane irons. Just bought set of Norton waterstones 220 thru 8000. Could a novice buy the 25 degree iron and sharpen to 37 degrees with waterstones or would it be best to get LN to do that for me and then maintain the blades.
You are the 1st LN Low Angle Jack plane "user" that I have found and I surely do appreciate the points you made in your post. I have an LN adjustable mouth small block plane and love it. Have an LN No 4 smoother which I have not been able to use effectively.....still a work in progress. Owning 2 LN's, I lean toward the LN Jack but no outlets or woodworkers anywhere near me where I can look at, or handle the two Jacks. This makes your response all the more valuable to me. Thank you!
No need to have LN or LV grind your additional angles -- just do a microbevel at the desired higher angle. A honing guide helps with the BU planes. Its easy to convert a 25 degree iron to a higher angle -- the other way around needs grinding.
Thanks again for your concise and clear information.
With gratitude from one who has a lots to learn but having a barrel of fun while learning.
jphelps7,Your profile does not indicate where your from, but LN does have two day shows around the country where you can learn a ton and try all the planes. Last Saturday I went to their show with Christian Becksvoort and Bob Van Dyke, great teachers. You might want to check out LN's website.
And they call me a name dropper cause I mention the names of the greats to give some cred/reference to an article i read some where.This person is hanging with them ! Sounds like a fine day you had !
Joel has provided an excellent overview of many of the different features of the LN and LV LA Jacks. What is not evident from the posts so far is the experience of using these planes.
The trouble is that not many have used both planes enough for a reliable estimate. I certainly cannot do so. I have used the LN several times, and I like the way it feels in the hand, but I have not placed the LN and LV side-by-side. The closest I can come to this is a comparison of the forerunner to the LN, the Stanley #62, against the LV, both of which I own.
View Image
It is interesting (for me at least) that I wrote my first review of a BU plane just 4 1/2 years ago, and it was the comparison of the Stanley #62 and the LV LA Jack that really made me sit up and take notice: Son of Stan .... or LV and its development of the Bevel Up Jack plane. The BU plane "revolution" had not yet begun, but was gaining momentum. The review was a journey of discovery. I ended it with the awareness that this design had a lot to offer, and I was left wondering what future advances would be.
What has this to do with the LN? Well I really like the Stanley #62. It has a light, delicate feel compared to the LV. I would definitely go for the LV if shooting end grain or smoothing hardwood, where the extra mass of the LV counts. But when smoothing softwoods or planing one-handed, the Stanley is a joy.
Can one extrapolate the LN from the Stanley? To some extent this is realistic, but keep in mind that LN are in a different class to the Stanley with regard to build quality and materials.
Cambering BU blades? Not really an issue anymore ...
Regards from Perth
Derek
p.s. Mel, what you smokin'? :)
I haven't used the LV BU Jack -- except a few passes at a wood show. But I think Derek's point about the lightness and delicacy of the LN is well taken. I use mine as a smoother and do not feel the need for anything else for smoothing at this point. I have an ECE smoother and have tried the LN 4 1/2 -- what can I say, the LN 62 works better for me. I have a Stanley 7 so I do know how to get a BD working well. In terms of the comments about "professionals" -- the OP is not, nor am I one, so I don't know what disadvantages the BU has in a more "production" environment.
Derek,
Not officially to do with the jacks,but the subject of camber is very close to me 'eart at this time.
I read your article "The Secret..etc.," and found it most illuminating,but the whole thing of BU and BD still seems shrouded in some mystery for me.
I gather that BD is basically for higher angle frogs and cranky grained timbers,and BU is for most else and 'fine' finishing ?
As I type,I'm thinking that there might be a publication I could read rather than wasting your [and everyone elses] time.
Would be grateful if you could point me in that general direction.
From the other side,
Robin
I gather that BD is basically for higher angle frogs and cranky grained timbers,and BU is for most else and 'fine' finishing ?
Hi Robin
I do not think that this is representative of the strengths of BU and BD planes.
Firstly, I would say that the best cutting angle range for a BD plane is 45 - 50 degrees. This is appropriate for most well-behaved grain.
The cutting angle range for a BU plane is a wide 25 - 65 degrees. This is appropriate for all grains from end- to the most interlinked face grain.
Secondly, this is a bit simplistic since blade preparation is also about adding a camber, in varying degrees from very fine (as in a smoother) to moderate (as in a fore- or jack plane) to high (as in a scrub).
Here, BD planes excel in the mid- and high range of cambers. While it is fairly straight forward to add a camber to a BU plane, and even use one as a jack, this is not their area of strength.
For most effecient use, reserve the extreme ranges (high and low) for BU planes, and the mid range for BD planes.
Note that this must not be misconstrued to infer that either configuration cannot be used outside this recommended range - just that this range is a particular strength.
Why do I excude BD planes from the 55 degree and up range? Well I am not, just that they are harder to push than the same cutting angle in a BU orientation. And why do I not recommend the mid range for BU planes? Because BU planes really rely on a honing guide to add a specific angle secondary bevel, and while this is not an issue for those that use honing guides, it is less easy for freehanders (myself included) that prefer to hollow grind the primary bevel. Most planing occurs in the middle range, and ease of honing is an important factor here. So my preference in the middle range is a BD plane.
Second note - if one is not cambering, then one would not have reason to discriminate between BU and BD planes. For a flat bevel just grind a desired primary bevel and hone that. No big deal. However the equation changes with cambers - hence the article I wrote (to which you are refering).
Regards from Perth
Derek
Hello Derek,
Couple questions for you. Who knows, I may hit the lottery (171 million $ this wkend) and could finally compete with Lataxe for one of Philip's creations.
1) you said,"The cutting angle range for a BU plane is a wide 25 - 65 degrees."
Please explain how one gets a 25 degree cutting angle on a blade that's bedded at 12 degrees. 13 degree bevel? Or is there a zero degree bed plane? What am I missing here?
2) also,"Why do I excude BD planes from the 55 degree and up range? Well I am not, just that they are harder to push than the same cutting angle in a BU orientation."
Can you explain why this would be? Seems to me that, given the same sole area (friction against wood) the same blade projection and cutting angle, and adequate clearance angle, there ought to be no difference in the effort to push the two through the same piece of wood.
3) finally, "And why do I not recommend the mid range for BU planes? Because BU planes really rely on a honing guide to add a specific angle secondary bevel"
If the mid range of cutting angles are reserved for mild-grained, forgiving woods, like our domestic herdwoods here in US, why is it so critical to maintain any specific bevel angle? That is, why is jigged honing necessary, if any angle in the range of say 42- 50 degrees will work on this variety of stuff?
Thanks,
Ray
Hello Derek,
Couple questions for you. Who knows, I may hit the lottery (171 million $ this wkend) and could finally compete with Lataxe for one of Philip's creations.
Hi Ray
I'll do my best ...
1) you said,"The cutting angle range for a BU plane is a wide 25 - 65 degrees."
Please explain how one gets a 25 degree cutting angle on a blade that's bedded at 12 degrees. 13 degree bevel? Or is there a zero degree bed plane? What am I missing here?
Definitely typing faster than my brain thinks! :) That should have read a 37 degree cutting angle (using a 25 degree bevel). As a note, the lowest cutting angle for a BD plane set on a 45 degree frog/bed is, of course, 45 degrees.
2) also,"Why do I excude BD planes from the 55 degree and up range? Well I am not, just that they are harder to push than the same cutting angle in a BU orientation."
Can you explain why this would be? Seems to me that, given the same sole area (friction against wood) the same blade projection and cutting angle, and adequate clearance angle, there ought to be no difference in the effort to push the two through the same piece of wood.
For years I read how others found a high cutting angle (55 and 60 degrees) hard work compared to lower angles. I was a little sceptical since my experience was with the HNT Gordon range (60 degree bed) and I did not find these difficult at all. I think that woodies are a different category. About 18 months ago (?) the LN Anniversary #4 1/2 came out. This has a 50 degree bed. I bought one. For about a year I used it alongside a 45 degree LN #4 1/2. There was a significant difference in the effort required to push each. I have since used other metal BD planes and experienced something similar.
I put the difference down to centre of gravity and centre of effort. In both cases it is much lower on the BU planes. I think that this is the reason for less effort in pushing a BU plane with a high cutting angle.
3) finally, "And why do I not recommend the mid range for BU planes? Because BU planes really rely on a honing guide to add a specific angle secondary bevel"
If the mid range of cutting angles are reserved for mild-grained, forgiving woods, like our domestic herdwoods here in US, why is it so critical to maintain any specific bevel angle? That is, why is jigged honing necessary, if any angle in the range of say 42- 50 degrees will work on this variety of stuff?
I did say that there was no reason why a BU plane could not be used in the mid range. And yes, there is no reason why one need be exact with a bevel angle. 42 degrees is probably a little low but 45-50 degrees sounds just fine to me. It is just that BU planes, set on a 12 degree bed and a 25 degree primary bevel, would require a secondary bevel of 33-38 degrees. I suspect that this is going to be difficult for most to "ball park" if they freehand ... and a little too high to camber if grinding a hollow. In the end it is just easier to use a BD plane for this angle range.
Remember, I am not advising on absolutes here - just suggesting strengths and preferences from my experiences.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 12/11/2008 10:19 am ET by derekcohen
Thanks Derek,
Guess I'll keep on keeping on with my 50 degree bevel down smoother, til my ship comes in, at least.
Ray
Derek,
Thank you for your reply. Roc,Joinerworks and Lataxe also, I hope they will glance at this and accept my appreciation of their discussions,all contributing to my spinning head.
I was stupid enough to log onto Knots at work during a quiet spell,[which IMMEDIATELY turned into bedlam on wheels] and it has taken until the close of play for me to return to it.
I'm now tired & emotional and wish to quit the coal-face.So I have copied all articles and correspodance,stuffed it in me hold-all to be read closely a little later in me favourite arm chair,faithful hound at me feet,wine in hand,S.O. happily preparing sustenance in the galley
I feel certain there'll be more questions when I've studied this lot.
Thanks again
Robin.
Hey Derek,
Thank you for going to the trouble of such a detailed reply.
When I had finished reading both it,and the plentiful flow of thoughts from the other fellows,one thing was very clear to me.
That if I want to camber my cutters,then I should choose the appropriate format and act accordingly.viz: the article on your website.
And perhaps a second, that only by experimenting,after the example of Professor Lataxe,will I discover which format I like,and for what timbers.
What had me a little discombobulated was that I have purchased a fairly elderly Stanley#5 and its cutter looks to be set somewhere near 45* AND it has a well formed camber,as yet unmeasured.Will do this instanta...(out with the wixie,the protractor,and sundry devices).It was set for BU operation.(it was when I took it out of its box,in any case).
What happens next will depend upon what the values for the various n= are, I guess.
BTW I am a Veritas MkII bloke, but don't have the cambered roller although I have my heart set on a set of cambered blades for my miniscule collection.
Cheers from the other side,
Robin
Cheers from Bowral
Robin
You've got the nullarbor plain in the middle of yer post, Robin. Ed, who used to live in Vincentia, near Nowra."Yes, but what's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weak-minded." - Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove
Gosh, I think I would gouge my eyes out if I read through to the end.
So I apologize should this observation have been made since this thread has grown past this response to Derek...
You wrote:
I put the difference down to centre of gravity and centre of effort. In both cases it is much lower on the BU planes. I think that this is the reason for less effort in pushing a BU plane with a high cutting angle.
I believe the effort to push Stanley/LN BD planes in comparison to the BU planes is due mostly to the tote angles. A LN et al BD plane has a greater transfer of force towards an area just ahead of the mouth. (an LV BD plane is nearer under the knob on a #4). An LV BU Smoother has that direction of force somewhere in front of the plane.
In other words, with a typical Stanley et al BD plane, the force is transmitted below the sole from an area at the mouth to the knob placement. A BU plane of the LV flavor, the force is more in-line with the direction of movement and less under the plane itself.
This is no different an issue than saw handles and other handled tools that direct the users force of motion.
Take care, Mike
Gosh, I think I would gouge my eyes out if I read through to the end.
Don't gouge your eyes out Mike - I am still waiting on a saw ... :)
I believe the effort to push Stanley/LN BD planes in comparison to the BU planes is due mostly to the tote angles.
Nah, I don't go for that. Rather, the tote angles simply reflect the direction of force exerted.
High centre of gravity planes, such as the Stanley/LN BD types, benefit from a tote that angles downward to facilitate drive in line with the bed. The low centre of gravity planes, specifically the BU types, have more vertical totes. These facilitate a more horizontal drive along the lower bed.
BD planes, such as the HNT Gordons, are somewhere inbetween. You can push them from low down - indeed, that is their design. I added a traditional tote to my jointer, but that was a personal preference because I found it more comfortable to hold, not because it was easier to push.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Mike & Derek,
Hmmmm. I thinks you two are guessing-up theories about tote angles and such. Where is my 3-page mathematical proof along with the equipment list for the exprerimental proofs? :-)
Lataxe, who knows that theories must always be proved or die.
>I put the difference down to centre of gravity and centre of effort. In both cases it is much lower on the BU planes. I think that this is the reason for less effort in pushing a BU plane with a high cutting angle.I can help here. He is talking from the point of view of one who has studied Chinese Gung Fu or Tai Chi. Or as a coworker called it "itchygoo".anyway the center that he speaks of is not in the plane. It is in the practitioner. It is located just bellow the navel and a fists depth inside the abdomen. Well . . on old farts this may vary.The much lower is a measure of spiritual under standing. As in "that was deeeeep".The way this relates to the hand plane is through the simple fact of the Interconnectedness Of All Things which can be studied in the book by Douglas Adams called Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agencyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_GentlyI hope this clears things up. Only too glad to help. No thanks necessary. Carry on. Don't mind me. I'll just sit over here.rocEdited 12/14/2008 1:43 pm by roc
Edited 12/14/2008 3:17 pm by roc
roc,
I am a Doug Adams fan, all well and good til you go quoting Zaphod Beeblebrock's poetry. Then I'm afraid I'll have to start listening to Lataxe's prose.
Ray
>Zaphod Beeblebrock's poetryI have a particularly long Vogan poem ! Would you like to hear it ? Or shall I just throw you out an air lock ? The air lock you say? Nooo I am feeling especially cruel today. I will read you the poem.Once I read about Vogans and the description of how they are. I felt better. Not that I liked the way they ran the universe. What are you nuts ! It's just that my opinion was correct, there were a lot of other people who felt the way I did, everyone but the Vogans, and at least I would have company I could talk to while wading through the bureaucracy.Some day soon we should stop off for a quick pangalactic gargle blaster. For those who are unfamiliar with a pangalactic gargle blaster the drink's effect is similar to having one's brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.I have included the recipe:Take the juice from one bottle of that Ol' Janx Spirit.
Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of Santraginus V
Allow three cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the mixture (it must be properly iced or the benzene is lost).
Allow four litres of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it (in memory of all those happy Hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia).
Over the back of a silver spoon float a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract, redolent of all the heady odours of the dark Qualactin Zones.
Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve, spreading the fires of the Algolian suns deep into the heart of the drink.
Sprinkle Zamphour.
Add an olive.
Drink...but very carefully.Who knows we may even have time to galavant over to Eroticon Six if we get the improbability drive going. Visit Ms Gallumbits.You are one hoopy frood!PS: I once told my partner that no matter how bad things get if I am incapacitated just feed me chocolate cake while reading from a Douglas Adams book and I will pull through.She loves to read to me. We to each other. However she categorically refuses to be read to from a Douglas Adams book and I am afraid to say she would probably let me expire before stooping to read the book to me. I find that hysterically funny when I think about it !
Edited 12/15/2008 12:16 am by roc
Edited 12/15/2008 12:25 am by roc
roc,
I appreciate your sharing the gargle blaster recipe.
Oh, and thanks for all the fish,
Ray
Ray,
Whilst I can't offer an explanation of the technical kind, I can tell you from immediate experience that pushing a higher angle BD plane is harder than pushing the same cutting angle within a BD plane. In fact, it's even weirder than that!
As you know I yam in experimental mode just now so, reading the exchange atween you and Derek I decided to have another investigation. I've just cut a last plank of iroko, to make a couple of Adirondack chair parts to replace two I found with cracks in when doing the oiling-up of the many parts. (The many, many parts). So, there is currently a 5 inch wide, 7/8 inch thick 3 ft long board on the bench with bandsaw ripple marks on both sides......
This board has steeply rising grain on both edges, so is relatively easy to plane with the grain on the faces. There are some strings of rowe grain down the faces so a high angle plane avoids tearing them out. This proves to be the case in practice and I can take relatively thick shavings with no tear out appearing.
There is a BD plane of 50 degree bed and a 2 inch wide blade, with a minimal camber. There is 20 degree bed BU plane of 2.25 inch wide blade with a combined bevel/micro-bevel of 46 degrees (cutting angle in the plane therefore 66 degrees) and no camber.
One would assume that the 50 degree 2 inch wide blade would cut easier (for a given shaving thickeness) than the 66 degree 2.25 inch blade, would one not? Good Lawd! It is the other way around!! The steeper BU is easier to push (relatively speaking) than the BD! Understand that neither goes swoosh like a 45 degree blade in easy wood.
Both planes had their blades resharpened after doing all that Adirondack work last week and the week before, so neither is anywhere near blunt - not even used since they were last sharpened. Both planes are in good order in every way. So why is the BU easier to push than the BD is with it's lower cutting angle and narrower blade? I don't know.
Am I kidding myself in some way about the relative amounts of effort needed? I don't think so. The difference is too great; also the slight tennis elbow I have from all that planing last fortnight gives a twinge with the BD but not with the BU. (There's a handy test, eh).
There must be a reason for this effect. I've seemed to notice it before but thought maybe it was due to differences in sharpness, or in thickness of cut. But apparently not.
Lataxe
Well, I've never before stumbled into so much low-hanging fruit as in this thread.So much, in fact, that I am at a loss for words. And it's probably better than way.I'm going to sit this one out.
Edited 12/11/2008 12:29 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
Charles,
I believe you would be well advised to avoid any fruit, low hanging or not and "sit this one out" until you have actually compared the two plane types mentioned.Unless you know how to shoot in the dark.Philip Marcou
I'm sure I would be well advised Philip....
>I'm sure I would be well advised Philip....actually compared the two plane types mentionedAnd well paid for the investment of your time.
roc
Edited 12/11/2008 3:35 pm by roc
Philip,
You must not discourage that chap to sit things out as it is his hobby to offer his fine opinions concerning stuff with which he has no experience.
Perhaps he does indeed shoot in the dark, an activity that requires an excellent imagination, I'm told. It is a wunnerful thing when one's imagination is so good that it can suss out The Truth about everything without ever coming near the everything. Perhaps he is a one of them gurus I have heard speak of?
Lataxe, who draws limits to experiments of the imagination in preference for the experiments with reality.
Lataxe,
Maybe it's those special gubbins friend Philip installs, just for you. Or the fact you are on such good terms with the gremlins and such. Remember the mice in the "Tailor of Gloucestershire"? (Spelled Glostasher three different ways, none of 'em look right...) Do you keep those beauties inside a pyramid?
I have an idea. Send 'em both to me, for an unbiased (hah) test.
Ray, edging towards making his own BU, just to see what the commotion is about.
edit: Gawd, did I say that out loud?
Edited 12/11/2008 1:11 pm ET by joinerswork
Ray,
I urge you to make a bevel up smoother out of metal- regard it as an after toil relaxation .Philip Marcou
O philip,
Making any plane body from any type of metal would not be relaxing, given my abilities and equipment in the metalworking line. What reason(s) can you give me not to try and make one with a wooden stock, say in the 15-20* range? I bet there are plenty, given old ones are not very thick on the ground.
Ray, saving up to make a down payment on a lottery ticket--balance due upon winning
Ray, Old chief,
One reason for not making a woody low angle of 12-15 degrees is the fact that there will be that long shallow ramp which is very delicate.Even if one fitted some sort of metal there what is to support it at the sides?
If you can think up a practical solution let me know and we will then manufacture them for the deprived masses and you can moth ball the Chief and treat yourself to a Honda cruiser.Philip Marcou
Edited 12/11/2008 11:33 pm by philip
philip,
True enough about the fragility of a low angle bed's edge. However, I am thinking of a high angle, bevel up smoothing plane, that would be solely dedicated to those woods demanding a high angle of attack to subdue-- you know, that legendary bubinga, or Lataxe's lignum burl--not a jack plane of all trades. Would not a 20, 25 or even 30 degree bed angle be appropriate for such a plane, combined with a typical 25 or 30 degree blade edge bevel? Keep in mind, I do not embrace the concept of having to calculate a different bevel angle for each piece of timber I plane, and adjusting some jig to make it happen, nor do I want to have a bunch of different blades and/ or frogs rattling around in a drawer. "I say, Smedley, this cherry is a bit curly. What say you, maybe a 53.5 degree attack angle? Let's go with the 18 degree frog, and the 35 degree bevelled blade. We'll put a half degree secondary onto it with our adjust-o-matic jigger-de-rol. Sometime tomorrow, we'll put plane to wood, Wot, wot?!"
Ray
Ray
I am thinking of a high angle, bevel up smoothing plane, that would be solely dedicated to those woods demanding a high angle of attack to subdue-- you know, that legendary bubinga, or Lataxe's lignum burl--not a jack plane of all trades. Would not a 20, 25 or even 30 degree bed angle be appropriate for such a plane, combined with a typical 25 or 30 degree blade edge bevel?
Hi Ray
I have long argued for a higher bed for a dedicated BU smoother. The angle I consider to be a good compromise is 25 degrees. This would permit a hollow ground 25-35 degree bevel for interlinked grain, and which can be honed and cambered freehand.
One of my favourite small smoothers is just such a design, which I build out of a Stanley #3. This ended up 7 1/2" long...
View Image
Regards from Perth
Derek
>small smoother built out of a Stanley #3Now you'r talkin ! Nice
Chief,
As Derek says, either 20 or 25 would do well. Possibly K Holtey pondered on this as well as he produced a 221/2 degree item if I am not mistaken.
I would prefer to go for 20 degrees because:-
1)The lowest cutting angle you can start with would be 45 degrees instead of 50 assuming you don't grind to less than 25 degrees. What's wrong with 45 degrees cutting angle anyway? (;)
2)It depends on your design of plane but I find that at 20 degrees the adjuster knob etc are at a suitable place in relation to the tote, given that I elected to use Veritas blades which means that I am restricted by that distance from sharp end to peg holes.
I am not saying that 25 or 30 degrees are not appropriate-simply that 20 is more convenient and gives a wider range should one need it."Keep in mind, I do not embrace the concept of having to calculate a different bevel angle for each piece of timber ...."
Steady on old chap, the situation is not as dire as that, but if you often need to work some of the nastier woods and take advantage of the benefits of a bevel up high angle plane then I would say that 3 blades would be most useful, giving you 3 cutting angles starting with 45 degrees.
I am not an embracer of moving frogs so onto the next item which is the subject of honing jigs. Again, if you want to fully exploit the benefits of a bevel up plane, you need to be able to hone consistently at the angle you require- just not doable without a guide-can you free hand 35 degrees-every time?
I maintain that over the years my use of an Eclipse guide for honing of both plane blades and chisels has in fact saved me time and steel, and see every advantage in its use .Also, those that go into extremes of fine grits(over 1200 in my opinion) are just jigging the cat if they then don't use a guide to hone. But I digress .
When are we to view the Creation and what wood are you going to use?(I suggest you kick off with something like Ossage Orange, Lignum Vitae,or African Blackwood).(;)Philip Marcou
philip,
1)The lowest cutting angle you can start with would be 45 degrees instead of 50 assuming you don't grind to less than 25 degrees. What's wrong with 45 degrees cutting angle anyway? (;)
Nothing at all, I have a bevel down Ohio Tool Co common pitch smoother already.
2)It depends on your design of plane but I find that at 20 degrees the adjuster knob etc are at a suitable place in relation to the tote, given that I elected to use Veritas blades which means that I am restricted by that distance from sharp end to peg holes.I am not saying that 25 or 30 degrees are not appropriate-simply that 20 is more convenient and gives a wider range should one need it.
Adjuster knob? We don't need no steenking knobs. We have a mallet. I'm considering a tote (my toothing plane has one), but all the hoopla about those pesky vectors and lines of force are making me reconsider.
Wider range? We're talking a high angle dedicated plane here for those woods that my common pitch and York pitch planes won't deal with. You know, the ones that I can sharpen without a honing jig.
"Keep in mind, I do not embrace the concept of having to calculate a different bevel angle for each piece of timber ...."Steady on old chap, the situation is not as dire as that, but if you often need to work some of the nastier woods and take advantage of the benefits of a bevel up high angle plane then I would say that 3 blades would be most useful, giving you 3 cutting angles starting with 45 degrees.
Here we go again. Are you suggesting I throw out the two planes I have already have, already set up, easy to sharpen freehand, and use, for one plane, three blades, and a honing guide, and the need to be swapping blades out when I go from pine drawer sides to curly maple fronts, in a cherry case?
I am not an embracer of moving frogs so onto the next item which is the subject of honing jigs. Again, if you want to fully exploit the benefits of a bevel up plane, you need to be able to hone consistently at the angle you require- just not doable without a guide-can you free hand 35 degrees-every time?
First, and redundantly, again, I am not at all interested in exploiting all the myriad benefits of the thing, but in picking it up and using it at those times when I need it. And, is it really that hyper-critical that the bloody thing be sharpened at only 35 degrees, and not 36 or 33? And where is the owners manual that prescribes these exactly ground and honed angles? Presumably it is not written in stone, but (I hope), jarra, or maybe bubinga? I begin to wonder if I have the proper mindset for one of these fussy temperamental technological marvels. It's a wonder Festool doesn't make 'em.
I maintain that over the years my use of an Eclipse guide for honing of both plane blades and chisels has in fact saved me time and steel, and see every advantage in its use .Also, those that go into extremes of fine grits(over 1200 in my opinion) are just jigging the cat if they then don't use a guide to hone. But I digress .When are we to view the Creation and what wood are you going to use?(I suggest you kick off with something like Ossage Orange, Lignum Vitae,or African Blackwood).(;)
No idea, none whatever what grit my whetrocks are. I hone with a fine India, then a soft Arkansas; if I'm feeling flush, I'll pull out the hard Arkansas.
My York pitch smoother I made in '95 from an offcut of 3x3 mahogany, with an ebony sole 1/4" thick. In daily use since then, that ebony is hard and stable enough I haven't needed to resurface or flatten it since it was first tuned. I have some more ebony, and I reckon it'll be durable enough for this project if you don't talk me out of starting on it.
Ray, beginning to wonder if this bevel up stuff isn't more about the foreplay than the actual act
>bevel up stuffI used to work with an Army Ranger. He used to say with a scary twinkle in his eye ( totally unlike Santa's twinkle ) "ya' don't know do ya' ? "roc
roc,
Nope, I shorely don't. And I'm beginning to think the bevel up club is pretty exclusive for a reason.
Ray, optimistically shovelling, like the little boy in a room full of horse $hit, saying, "There's gotta be a pony around here someplace."
Edited 12/13/2008 11:32 pm ET by joinerswork
>ponyya can't find him cause he is younice imagery/story though hadn't heard that one.BU not exclusive; is there for all for what it is possible to use it for. Apparently not for everything as I thought. BU club just sharing info, experience, science, interesting so-far-unexplained-stuff.Can you imagine the first dudes who were messing with lodestones and pieces of iron?One wants to show his friend: " look if I wave this rock over this metal chunk then I can move the metal chunk without actually touching it ". And having the friend refuse to even look at the act and just say I don't believe it ! No I don't want to TRY IT ! ! ! It is all a bunch of pony poo.How would the lodestone and iron guy feel ?rocEdited 12/14/2008 12:01 am by roc
Edited 12/14/2008 12:08 am by roc
Morning Ray,
Heh, ye could always jes grab a scraper and avoid all this nonsense, that is if you hold it at the right angle.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Well, Bob,
Up to now, if a back bevel on the York pitch smoother didn't do the job, then my homemade scraper plane did. But I am trying to be open to new ideas, as Lataxe says it is beneficial to the wetware. But it seems all I am doing is poking fingers in various BU eyeballs.
Ray
Ray,
Your old fashioned approach to planes could be a real detriment to your furniture making business in the future. You need to widen your horizons. For example, suppose you get an order for 50 Chippendale highboys to be made out of gnarly Australian species of wood. Can your stable of planes handle that job? I don't think so.Suppose you get on Jeopardy, and the one of the categories is "Bevel Up Bench Plnes". Unless you buy and use a number of them, you will just not be able to compete in the game. I have been waiting for the Springfield Woodcraft store to get a LN BU Bench plane, but no luck. The store also carries Groz and Stanley lines, but I haven't seen any BU Bench planes in those sections either. I really do want to find out whether there is a pony around here, because the pile is getting deeper. I mentioned to Rob Cosman that I am interested in trying a BU Bench plane. He growled. Given the size of the pile, I just don't understand how you and he can make fine furniture without them. The way to determine the real value of BU Bench planes would be to institute the "IRON WOODWORKER" analog to the "IRON CHEF" TV contest. One of the two contestants gets to use BU Bench planes. The other one doesn't. Then the resulting furniture is judged. However since making furniture isn't the only reason to use planes, a psychologist will be brought in to see which of the two contestants had a more satisfying experience. Mel (who has been spending more time in the shop)PS As a result of scanning this thread, I planed some red oak last night. Didn't have any white oak handy. Used a piece with the rays showing and one without. Never noticed that I had big problems before reading the thread, but last night I was highly conflicted about selecting which plane to use. But then when I went to the plane cabinet, I found there was no reason to be conflicted. There wasn't much choice. :-)Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
Shurely shome mishtake, to be writin' here in the electronic telegraph machine? In future I will expect handwritten letters (with a quill and on parchment mind) through the post rather than these new-fangled screen messages. Hang on! That postal system is rather too modern, eh-wot!? Let the letters come via a courier on a hoss or even a pidgeon.
After all, many great works were written by Erasmus, Shakespeare and even Francis Bacon with none of this silly electric stuff needed, so why are we so silly as to think we should use the electrons now?
Lataxe, who is always convinced by logically-flawed argument (no he isn't).
David,
"lataxe, who is always convinced by logically-flawed argument (no he isn't)."We have all gotten to know each other a bit over the years. So it is dangerous to describe oneself to others. You, IMHO, are driven far more by the heart than by the head. This is not a derogatory statement. It can also be translated as "You have the soul of an artist rather than that of a scientist." To be a great artist, you have to become a child again, and shrug off the tight constraints of adult logic. You have to be a romantic. You are a romantic and an artist. You are definitely not ruled by logic. You are ruled by PASSION. When the PASSION hits, you roll with it. If you want to buy a tool, you go for it. If you want to learn a new skill, you take a course. You are a man who moves quickly toward fulfilling his needs. (where the term "need" is defined by Bill ClintonI would neither admonish nor praise you for your approach to woodworking. I accept you and your approach as valid. I would not seek to change anything about your approach to woodworking. If anything, I would seek to turn your story into a TV series, and make money off of it. I believe if the question were asked on Knots: "Who is the one woodworker in the world whose tools you are most jealous of?", virtually everyone on Knots would say loudly and quickly "Lataxe". Of course, some might say "Derek". (but no one knows how many tools Derek has. It may be close to 186,000). No-one would say "Mel". Mel would say "Norm". But then again most people don't know that Norm has a penchant for hand tools as well as power tools. NO-ONE HAS MORE TOOLS THAN NORM, and I don't believe he has paid for any of them. Sight unseen, if I could have either your set of tools or mine, I'd take yours. How is that for Hero Worship. But don't let that go to your head. After getting all of your tools, I would sell one quarter of them and use the money to buy the State of Kentucky, where I would use the leftover money to build a large shop. Being a religious man, my shop would include a small chapel dedicated to my favorite saint, Saint Thomas (Lie Nielsen). I'd better stop now. I promised Cicero that I would cut down on the length of my messages.Have fun.
Mel (who talks a lot but who preaches to no one)
PS if you take offense at anything in this message, then my poor ability to write clearly caused you to miss the point. Do you think that if we keep this up, we could turn this into the next 5000 post thread? I have been accused (and rightfully so) of hijacking threads in the past. I see that I am not the only one who does this. :-)Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
I wouldn't trade my tools with anyone, no matter what they had.
Covet not thy neighbor's tools.
Sean,
"I wouldn't trade my tools with anyone, no matter what they had.
Covet not thy neighbor's tools."I rarely disagree with you. But if I had the opportunity to trade my tools with Norm, it would not take me long to make a decision. His collection and mine are in different universes. I am one of the few around here who actually practices your tool philosophy. My focus on skills over tools, and my focus on accomplishing great work rather than accumulating great tools has not endeared me to many. (of course, my sour personality plays into this also). David (Lataxe) has playfully been on my case for ranting against those in the woodworking community who are continually selling the newbies and mediumbies into buying lots of expensive tools. My point has long been that professionals don't go out and buy all these newfangled tools, and they make some pretty good stuff. If Ray, Rob and Richard dont need all of Lataxe's tools to make great furniture, then its the skills that are needed, not the expensive tools. Now when it comes to coveting skills, I can give you a long list of people I would trade with, but who wouldn't trade with me. The list is getting shorter as the years go by, but at 65, I don't have more than about 40 really good years left. MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
Why I would I want Norm's tools? I have no desire to learn to accomplish tasks I have already doped out my own methods forwith a different tool set. Vision of dovetailing with a leigh jig or making panel doors with a router table send chills up my spine.
By the way, I am no ascetic. I have plenty of first rate tools. I'm surely among the good for nothings Charles sneers at with multiple "boutique" dovetail saws, redundant block planes, redundant chisel sets, etc.
Cheers.
Sean,
"Why I would I want Norm's tools?"Well, I use a jointer and a planer and a table saw and a band saw, and my stuff, while serviceable, is second rate. Norm's are first rate. He has also admitted to being a hand tool afficianado. I believe you would be surprised at his collection of "the good stuff". Besides, I figured that statement would be provokative and cause some responses. That proved prescient. Knowing which buttons to push around here does not take a rocket scientist. You mentioned about not being an ascetic. Who the hell wants to be an ascetic. My goal is to build better and better furniture, and to have and use the tools NECESSARY to do it. To find out what the necessary tools are, I look to those who turn out the top notch furniture in as pragmatic an approach as possible -- the professionals. If one needs fourteen high priced dovetail saws to make dovetails, I will get them. If I can do it with one saw, that would be my first choice. My focus is on output. Just as form should follow function, the process and tools in woodworking should be secondary to "output". MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
>Norm's are first rateAgain "Hardly that, Hardly that".Norms's are mid priced. Seen the Felder, Hammer, Laguna (etc., etc.,) prices lately ?>driven far more by the heart than by the head.Sounds like Delta has gotten to your heart not your head. . . definitely not ruled by logic.oops
roc
roc,
"Norms's are mid priced. "Well, mine are priced well below that. So the trade would be in my favor.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
"My point has long been that professionals don't go out and buy all these newfangled tools, and they make some pretty good stuff."
Perhaps this is the case in the circle of professionals that you know, but I think you'd be surprised with at least some examples. One particular antecdote I can relate has to do with a local woodturner. He's quite well known, has received awards for his work in national exhibitions, and makes his living exclusively from turning, both "art" and architectural like newel posts, etc...
He doesn't have a 1950's vintage lathe that's been fixed up. He has a OneWay - the most expensive non-CNC woodturning lathe on the planet that I'm aware of. His gouges and skews are not the inexpensive variety, either. There are a lot of professionals that would vociferously disagree with you, but I'm not equipped (and not that interested, actually) to conduct a complete survey.
D,Your point is well taken. I was talking about "sensible" woodworking professionals. I mentioned Ray, Rob and Richard. If your woodturner buddy really needs that CNC lathe to make the item that he has in mind, then HE MUST HAVE IT. I am not talking about tools that one must have to accomplish one's projects. I am talking about buying lots of tools which are not needed.This goes for more than tools. It also goes for "Process". Did you read Ray's line about honing with a fine India stone and a Soft Arkansas stone, and only going to the Hard Ark when the spirit moves him? Well, look at his furniture. I have. MAGNIFICENT. If Ray can build that stuff with chisels and plane irons honed with a Soft Ark stone, then a 4000 waterstone is OVERKILL, an 8000 is WAY OVERKILL, and a 16000 is an absolute waste of time and energy. I am sorry that I didn't make that clearer in the first place. I focus on whatever tools, processes and skills are needed to do the job. Anything more is strictly a luxury or a waste, depending on your frame of mind.NOW LET ME EMBELLISH - suppose that your values are different than mine. Suppose that you really enjoy having and using Holtey planes, and suppose that you have so much disposable income that buying two each of the Holteys is not a problem. Well go ahead and do it. Enjoy it. Have fun. If you want a Lamborghini, get it. If you want an Indian Motorcycle, get it. (( Well, actually, an Indian motorcycle is more of a necessity than a luxury, but the other things I mentioned are luxuries.)) There is nothing wrong with acquiring all of the luxuries that you want and can afford. You'd be silly not to get them if that is what you want, and you can afford it. Hell, the entire world economic system would collapse if everyone thought like me. (( actually it has collapsed, hasn't it? -- and the reason was too many people spending money they couldn't afford to -- do you see what has happened here. The woodworking community has cause the collapse of the world economy by buying too many fancy tools. :-)Hey, have fun. These points are for kicks only. It is the only way we can get this thread up to 5000. Your friend, who is a throwback to the Dark Ages and who believes that Attila the Hun was a left winger,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
>8000 is WAY OVERKILL, and a 16000 is an absolute waste of time and energy.Yes but the glint of the sun on the over killed blade as the sun rises through the window behind the workbench is simply divine. Highly recommended for the soul.: )Saving up for the 15,000PS:
Although . . . a customer was hanging around waiting. She mentioned the tools I was using, mechanical, I said when a person gets really good they can do every thing with a hammer but I am not that good yet. She said that she always uses a rock. So there is yet another level to be obtained that I was not aware of up to that point.She's got me beat. Maybe the 15,000 rock will help ! ? ! ?Edited 12/14/2008 3:50 pm by roc
Edited 12/14/2008 3:52 pm by roc
roc,So she uses a rock!I have used rocks to try to flatten warped boards (antique restoration.
Gotta tell ya. It only worked for a while, then everything returned to the original warp. Shoulda used more expensive rocks with more modern features. When I sharpen my carving gouges, I use a translucent Hard Ark followed by the smoothest Spyderco ceramic stone. While carving, the ceramic is the only stone I keep on the bench (for frequent but quick honing). Much better than a strop with honing compound. When using waterstones to sharpen/hone plane blades, I go from 1000 to 8000. That's only two stones. So you can see, I am not in the earliest of the Dark Ages. I even have some "better" sharpening stones than Ray. But his furniture is better than mine. Do you think he has some tools he is not telling us about, or do you think its skill?MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
>skill or better tools Rays workI think his kills are better cause he spends his time making furniture rather than farting around this chat room like you and I. I only can get something done cause I am part terrrier and won't quit even if it takes way too long which it always does.>translucent Hard Ark I always wanted one of those ! They are so cool looking. Doesn't fit into my system right now but who knows I might get one just to have. I had a bad experience with a pair of Arkansas stones I bought when a kid. They were so varied in their grit across the stone that all I did was ruin pocket knives on them. A stone made from a consistent grit, my 1000 water stone, was a revelation and I been a water man ever since.: )
Edited 12/14/2008 11:37 pm by roc
"If your woodturner buddy really needs that CNC lathe to make the item that he has in mind, then HE MUST HAVE IT. I am not talking about tools that one must have to accomplish one's projects. I am talking about buying lots of tools which are not needed."
A OneWay is not a CNC lathe - it's just an "ordinary" (but quite expensive - about $5000 and up) woodworker's lathe. It is definitely true that he could accomplish his work with a much less expensive lathe. However, there are things about a OneWay that go into the price - there is little to no vibration because of its design, and the parts are such that it will take a huge amount of heavy-duty work without wearing out or needing work. It also has extreme torque at low operating speeds.
But was it necessary to accomplish most of his work? I think he'd tell you "no" - most of the newell posts he turns out could've easily been done on a spring-pole lathe.
My point is that there are plenty of professionals that have made the choice that they will use the best tools that money will buy, and they do it for business reasons. There are also professionals that will not spend anything over what is absolutely necessary to get the job accomplished. Neither of these attitudes is any more "correct" than the other. THe world would indeed be a dreary place if everyone had the Wal-Mart mentality (i.e., cheap at all costs).
d,you have me "dead to rights". When I said that "professionals do it without the fancy expensive unnecessary tools", I really should have said that at least two of them do, Ray and Rob. Actually, if only one could do it, that would prove my point -- that one does not need lots of fancy equipment to make great furniture. So people without the funds to buy that unneccessary stuff should NOT feel bad. They should just go and make masterpieces with tools that can get the job done. When they hit the lottery or marry a rich wife, or inherit a bunch of money, they can get all of the candy they want.I am not "talking down" the buying of neat fancy cool tools that are the latest and greatest, and that have the undersides of the heads of their internal screws polished. If a woodworker or even a woodworker wannabe is someone like Bill Gates, he should buy not only all of the fancy tools but also the companies that make the tools. That is a good and fun thing, if that is what he wants and can afford. I have often recommended buying two of everything that LN sells. The reason is that it is a good investment, compared to the stock market. On EBay, LN stuff sells for close to current retail. So if you buy two each of their tools now, and sell one of each in ten years, you will have gotten your remaining set for free (almost). How can you go wrong with an investment strategy that only invests in liquid investments which never decrease in value?Mel
PS I bring up issues that cause me to think, but I do not take myself too seriously. Neither should you. Pay more attention to people who have proven themselves. My advice is free, and worth every penny of it, possibly less. :-) Enjoy.Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
"When they hit the lottery or marry a rich wife, or inherit a bunch of money, they can get all of the candy they want."
My point is that it isn't candy. It's incorrect to think that just because a wooden surface can be carefully smoothed and polished by a rock that a Lie Nielsen (or a Konrad Sauer, or a Karl Holtey) smoother is an expensive extravagance.
Moreover, there's an irony in holding individuals as a pinnacle of reasonableness that get highly polished, formal, and professional furniture done with a minimum of inexpensive tools. The sale of their products, and their livelyhood, absolutely depends on the denial of that exact attitude. No one needs a massachusetts black front chest of drawers, at least from a functional point of view - a 4 drawer dresser from Ikea will hold clothes just as well. Taking this idea a bit further, the decorative nature of a fine 18th century reproduction can be accomplished for a lot less than one of the individual makers that grace the pages of FWW can possibly produce at a profit - Eldred Wheeler proves this point by making such pieces in a semi-assembly line manner.
Fortunately for individuals like Ray Pine and Robert Millard, many of their customers see value in something that has little to do with function, or even something that can be defined physically - they want something hand-made by an individual craftsman, regardless if that aspect can be defined in terms of physical aspects that can be readily identified. Most individuals outside of the woodworking hobby could not possibly identify the difference between a hand-planed and a drum-sanded surface, yet there are such individuals that want a piece of furniture produced without automated equipment.
This is, by the way, why I own 3 plow planes - none of them are capable of producing work that is more efficient than a router, particularly in large batches. But I value them for their use as tools, and I value some of them for not only their function, but also their aesthetic value.
d,
You are a reasonable guy, and you make reasonable points. Sounds like you have your stuff straight! Go get em. Build some masterpieces.
Have fun. Sounds like you have some great tools and you use them knowledgeably and well.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
"My point is that there are plenty of professionals that have made the choice that they will use the best tools that money will buy, and they do it for business reasons. There are also professionals that will not spend anything over what is absolutely necessary to get the job accomplished. Neither of these attitudes is any more "correct" than the other. THe world would indeed be a dreary place if everyone had the Wal-Mart mentality (i.e., cheap at all costs)."
I thought that needs to be repeated.Every word of it is true to life.
Philip Marcou
>Neither of these attitudes is any more "correct" than the other.But I know who is having more fun !>THe world would indeed be a dreary place if everyone had the Wal-Mart mentality (i.e., cheap at all costs)."And lets not forget the other Wal-Mart maxim "Suppliers and workers be damned ! "I suppose it is the same as the first but worth hammering on a bit.
>sour personality plays into this alsoThis is what we love most about you !>Ray, Rob and Richard dont need all of Lataxe's tools to make great furniture, then its the skills that are needed, not the expensive tools.Lets see 'em iroko chairs produced with bevel downs. I defy them to plane and smile at the same time.: )roc
PS: As I tell people who drive too fast. If you want to go fast buy a personal Jet.
Doesn't mean there isn't something to driving a Ferrari through the Ss.
Me I drive the speed limit ALWAYS and NEVER drift a corner. I get the job done with my Vet ( actually Chevett). I get there just the same and there is no difference as compared to the Jet and Ferrari experience.
Yaaahh Right !
roc,
">Ray, Rob and Richard dont need all of Lataxe's tools to make great furniture, then its the skills that are needed, not the expensive tools.Lets see 'em iroko chairs produced with bevel downs. I defy them to plane and smile at the same time."I already pointed that out to Ray, saying that if he sticks with his old tools, his business could suffer. The example I gave was a person commissioning 50 Chippendale highboys made from Jarrah! Both of our minds are in the same gutter. :-)Me, I really like figured maple. I am a simple guy. Talk about taking a corner in a four wheeled drift -- I drive a 1995 Dodge Caravan!MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,>figured mapleThe first wood body plane I made was a big o' smoother from maple ! It is so wide that with the straight/ no camber blade I can hardly push it ! seemed like a good idea at the time. But I like looking at it though. Bevel down naturally. I wasn't into this silly hard stuff then that I am now.I made my first chest of drawers tool chest from rock maple. I love the stuff. I read that Krenov worked every thing exotic but gravitated back to the nice subtle joys of maple. Said it was his favorite of the light colored woods. Fascinating for the cabinetmaker with an eye for subtleties he said.I have not ventured into the good stuff = figured maple. It's really something though.When I get around to making my series of little square candle stands with a drawer, like the cherry one by Michael Dunbar that I posted, I will make one or two from maple for sure.
roc,
I have only made one wood plane - a block plane out of birdseye maple and walnut, but just bought a piece of osage orange to make a Jack plane. I have Finck's book on making hand planes. This is not a "front burner" project for me, but the idea of making a few planes fascinates me. Maybe it is an unconscious wish to be more like my friend Philip. I wonder: why can't we find a good plastic for making planes, and just mold them in a single piece. We should be able to find a plastic that is the right weight, and that is stable and that does not abrade easily. Maybe we could combine that with a ceramic blade for a really high tech plane. My goal is to start a plane making company that sells much better quality than LV and LN and aim at the $1000/plane market. I'll check with Larry and see if L&W are interested in getting into high tech planes. Ever since LV brought out their new block plane that Charles says is shaped like a suppository, and that LV says is waterproof, and thus can be used for underwater woodworking, I have gotten the bug to make some high tech planes. It has been a long time since the woodworking world moved from wood to transitional to metal planes. It is time to make the next leap!!!Whaddyasay? Wanna form a company "R&M HiTech Handplanes"? We can be to hand tools what Festool has become for power tools. We can become to planes what Fein is to the MultiMaster. I am filled with ideas on this. For example. Why sharpen irons on just one end? Why not sharpen both ends? When one end dulls, just switch it around. That means half as many trips to the sharpening station.Why not have a mechanism that with a twist of a knob, releases two fences, one for each side of the board, for perfect jointing every time?Men's razors have moved from a single blade to two to three to four. Why should hand planes be limited to a single blade? Couldn't we reduce time planing by putting a number of blades in line?We have to break out of old ways of thinking!
Mel
PS this is the last time I am going to drink three cups of coffee at breakfast. Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
> plasticLook at fiber reinforced Resin. Carbon fiber, glass fiber etc.>Wanna form a company "R&M HiTech HandplanesNah dude Nah. I am old school. Strictly bronze and silver and cool black painted iron. Thats the stuff. I like messing with the wood planes and wanted a big old wood jointer long before I saw the master piece of Derek Cohen's. Really like the black handle cause I tend to get some lumber crayon on the handle from my fingers and it would not show. I been using a black thing lately that doesn't do that so may not be a big deal but black handle is interesting.On my bicycles I like the steel frames with hand formed and artistically cut all silver brazed and or brass brazed together. My car is a forty year old MG. I mean I am just old school. OK I got an iPhone and a Mac Book Air but don't know how it is possible to live without those. Every thing else old school. We are talking treadle sewing machine here !Mel,
Some years ago they made those nasty laminated steel and plastic planes. I never really looked at them. Just aware they were there. Took razor blades or some such.I wish you all the luck in the world on the new plane design though.>OsageI am not going to look it up so for give if I'm in error but isn't Osage kind of unstable ? Beautiful and tough though.>Sharpen both endsYou are sure on a role but I am picturing severed digits here and bloody lacerations at the very least. Nah one end that bites is all I can keep track of at a time. I tend to carry about five or six blades in a stack from the kitchen to the shop down a flight of stairs. As sharp as my blades are if I ever dropped one it would cut my leg completely off before I realized what happened : ) If I dropped a stack of blades sharpened on both ends they would probably reduce the whole stair way to ruble.>Number of blades in lineYes they just did that relatively recently. Didn't you see one in the magazines ? Of course it takes a little more effort to drive those extra blades so they hooked a five horse power motor to it. I think they call it a Power planer or thicknesser or something. Would like to have one actually but not room for it and no money for it and I work at night in a duplex often while my partner sleeps at night so the time is not yet for that for me.Mr. Cohen,Is that handle ebony, ebonized, or a secret so far unheard of material such as Mel is enthusing. As I understand these big planes it is a good idea to use the closed tote (I forget what it is called but looks like a carpenter's saw handle. What are your thoughts there. Obviously not important for this plane but if used a whole lot is it the way to go ?roc (you guys have been busy while I was at work; sorry if none of this relates to recent threads I am off the back here on post #168 then off to dinner.)PS: Wow I am so negative. I'll be better after dinner.
Edited 12/15/2008 11:26 pm by roc
Is that handle ebony, ebonized, or a secret so far unheard of material such as Mel is enthusing. As I understand these big planes it is a good idea to use the closed tote (I forget what it is called but looks like a carpenter's saw handle. What are your thoughts there. Obviously not important for this plane but if used a whole lot is it the way to go ?
Mr Cohen?!! Good grief, roc .. I'm looking around for my father (who is 94).
The handle is ebolized Jarrah.
The jointer, which a long 30" and in Jarrah, is actually quite light. I went for an open tote and the Jarrah is strong enough. If the plane was heavy and the tote needed extra reinforcing, then I would have built a closed tote.
Regards from Perth
Derek
>Good grief, rocYO , YO , YO D.C. 'ts UP ? !Nah thats not me either.Thanks for info Derek.roc
>Ray, optimistically shovelling, like the little boy in a room full of horse $hit, saying, "There's gotta be a pony around here someplace."I must say again that was fun. I live for prose like that.Looks like I got some reading to do to catch up to this point in your posts. I should be planing but it is cold in the shop ( 11° F outside ) and coffee is soon so I am weak and the desires for the pleasures of the flesh are strong.I will say Philip has communicated privately and sent on an ancient text now written in the Old Greek which is a mere translation of the much older original. As far as I can make out the Aborigines were originally from New Zealand and crossed to Australia for the gold mining and then built massive retirement structures in South American to pursue their Arboreal interests. What ever that is the spelling is a bit in question. Seems to be the origins of the name Aborigines. Not sure about that. Don't take that as science.It is all a bit cloudy since my ancient Greek is poor but he swears this is the way to read it so I am giving my best shot. More later
rocEdited 12/14/2008 1:18 pm by rocEdited 12/14/2008 1:20 pm by roc
Edited 12/14/2008 2:46 pm by roc
Go Roc...!
R.
Mel,
I didn't realise I were so tool-rich and that Marcous & Wenzloffs had increased so much in value. I am off to sell just one so I can buy the state of Kentucky. How many for Californee? (There are some things in that part o' the world that are ..... interesting).
Meanwhile I am thankful for your psychological analysis of me, even though you have got it completely wrong. I am merely up to A&C 104 so could hardly be thinking the tools are going to turn me into Ray Pine overnight - unless there is a genie in one, but if so I will merely ask for a full set of C & W moulding planes instead, so I can begin the 25 year learning process to become Ray. (It's all about the journey).
****
I am hoping you are not going to set up Mel's WW guru school, in which newbies must all sit contemplating their navels until it just occurs to them what to do and that they must do it with tools that do not work. This seems like a poor route to making a cabinet. :-)
Lataxe, all heart.
David,
Your comment about doing meditation before woodworking is very timely. Have you been reading Savage's newsletters? I don't believe I would last long in his class.You have been a bad influence on me. I have purchased two more planes. A skew block with a fence, and a small router plane. Both LNs because that is what Woodcraft sells. If they had a couple of different brands, I'd do a "plane off" to see which I like best. So in one day, I doubled my number of LN planes. I already have the 5 1/2 and the low angle adj mouth block plane. Had you not been bragging about all of your planes, I probably would not have doubled my set of LNs. SO IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT. I am going to hell in a handbasket, which may sink because of the weight of all of these planes. Mel (lighter of wallet, but beaming with joy)Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
I yam glad that I have worked you up into a fit of expensive plane-buying. There is nothing like getting the carping critic addicted to the same drug for shutting the bugger up!
"Why, this plane-buying does not cause blindness or a desire to throw oneself into the sun, after all".
Now.... lie back and fondle your new brassy thangs. Is that not pure pleasure? Just don't start robbing the till so you can buy more!
Lataxe, plane degenerate.
Lataxe,My two new planes together didn't cost me much more than about $200, so I still have money left for peanut butter, jelly and some dog food. :-) I am making a list of the skills that I want to attain in the coming years. I am working backwards from my list of the woodworking skills of Kintaro Yazawa, Ray Pine, Patrick Edwards, Willie Sundqvist, Drew Langsner, Howard Sherpe and Chris Pye. According to my schedule, I will be able to do everything they can do by 2046. Also, having looked over their inventories of tools, I still need 1,674 more tools. BUT ALL OF THOSE TOOLS ARE NECESSARY if I am going be able to make a new style of Chippendale furniture with nice marquetry and chip carving using green wood in the Swedish style. See! I can come up with excuses to buy tools. I can even stretch reason a bit. (actually a long way). :-) This year I bought the Swedish (Gransfors Bruk) carving axe that Willie designed (one side is not bevelled, and it has a nice beard for choking up). I enjoyed using the axe, which I think of as a hatchet, in making bowls. So the word "need" is an interesting word. As you know, I use Bill Clinton's definition of "need". But then again, you can't learn to carve in the Swedish style without a Swedish carving axe, so I really "needed" it.Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
I have a-one of them carving axes from Svedenland, as well as their froe (lataxe) and a gutter adz. What fine tools,eh? :-)
So, you are now but one step from gettin' your first Marcou, as our paths are obviously convergent. (It is mysterious fate). Merely inform your many relatives that Christmas is particularly harsh this year and so you cannot run to the sentimentality of presents, a roast goose and so forth. If there are objections merely bark "humbug" a few times.
Now you will have enough for that first New Zealand witch (or are they wizards). Soon you will join the happy brotherhood of Marcou fetishists (I mean plane users) that contains more Knotters than you might think. It may be that we could meet in a dark wood one midnight to build a small altar at which we may worship the S15A......?
Lataxe, whose S15A is too busy to be worshipped.
>going to make a new style of Chippendale furniture with nice marquetry and chip carving using green wood in the Swedish style.Yahhhh that coffee is not agreeing with you. Might be time to hit the chamomile tea for a day or two. Visit the botanical gardens. Or take a meditation class.Focus and breath . . .focus and breath . . . breath nice and slow.
At the risk of being accused of reading another's mail,
How about a runner with a cleft stick?
Robin,from the Land Downunder
Robin,
I believe them cleft-stick men have to be killed if the message is not to one's liking so we must stick with pidgeons, as at least they go well in a pie. (I have nivver et long pig). If we had cleft-stickers for the Knots messages, they would all be well-dead by now, especially in Memphis!
Lataxe, not a vegetarian.
Why isn't all the discourse of these several threads occuring in the big thread? Me thinks we've hammered these and many other topics several times over the past eightteen months or so, in pursuit of 5000?
Other than that, I will remain an unopinioned by-stander in this and the handsaw thread and any other in which my opinion is worth less than what has already been spewed forth.
T.Z.
Tone,
Shurely all opinions may be heard. We needn't agree with them - in fact the opportunity to have-at one or two is always most welcome!
Lataxe, a sophist-fan.
Hi Mel,
I was intrigued with the accounts of blemish free surfaces on impossible woods produced by those Bevel Uppers. In an attempt to get a little more information, and try to relate how such a tool might be integrated with my goals, it seems I have clumsily failed to do so. Like the bull in the china shop, what I didn't break, I shat upon... I guess my work here is done!
Back under the bridge,
Ray
Mel,
Let us see a picture of the medullary rays on that red oak.Philip Marcou
Philip,
I cant show you the medullary rays on the red oak. They all fell out when I tried to plane them. :-)
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
>medullary rays on that red oakYAH ! LETS SEE A PICTURE !( hey Phil, why do we want to see the picture ? )roc
Edited 12/14/2008 3:12 pm by roc
philip,
Don't mean to barge in but here is some red oak with the rays showing. These pieces came from a plank that was at one time a handrail in a school.
View Image
I rescued several of them from the landfill. The piece in back is tung oiled.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Good Gawd, are we not well this mornink? You asked some questions I answered them, thinking you wanted to make a bevel up version of a high angle plane. If you want to make a "high angle dedicated plane" it is easier to just make a bevel down one , but you won't know if the bevel up is about foreplay rather than the act until you have at least made a bevel up plane.
Edited 12/14/2008 12:01 am by philip
philip,
Oh dear I'm afraid I've gone and hurt your feelings. Sorry about that it was not my intention.
Are you saying the real advantage of the bevel up design is that of having available the potential for several different cutting angles, rather than some improvement in the surface of the wood being planed, due to its cutting geometry/ support of the blade?
Ray
Both.Without hoopla either.Philip Marcou
philip,
Well, if I can shoot for one out of two, maybe I'll press on. That's on par with everything else I try anyways.
Ray
Hi Ray
Derek here. Some believe I am the High Priest of BU Planes. The following is not a misprint.
If you want a high cutting angle and use woodies, then make a low centre of gravity BD plane. I use BD woodies all the time. I love them. I make my own. I also have the classic (not the modern) HNT Gordon woodies (all 60 degree beds).
I wrote in an earlier post to you that high bed angles in a woodie are different to high bed angles in a metal plane (Lataxe supported this observation). My experience with woodies is mainly with the low slung types like HNT Gordon, not the high centre of gravity planes like C&W. I cannot comment on the latter, but I can on the former. And, weight held constant, a low slung woodie with a high cutting angle feels quite different to high angle metal planes like Stanleys-types.
Here is a 30" BD jointer I built with a 60 degree bed. It shaves wood like a hot knife through butta!
View Image
Here are two HNT Gordons, a trying plane and a smoother ..
View Image
See how low slung they all are? That is why I suggested that the reason the BU planes are easy to push comes down to their low centre of gravity along with the low angle of the bed. Second to BU planes for ease of pushing is a low slung BD plane.
So why should you try out a BU plane with your current selection of planes? Only if you want to smooth interlinked/figured woods that defeats what you have. You want a very high cutting angle, 60 degrees and up (even as high as 75 degrees, but 65 is probably as high as you would need with a Veritas BU Smoother).
Note that these numbers are just guidelines. No one will report you to the BU Police if you hone at 48 or 50 or 52 degrees (for a 12 degree bed). You just want to get into that angle range, and to do so in a manner that affords repeatability of the bevel angle for ease of honing. That is the only reason for a honing guide. Personally I do not like using guides, but I do use them for BU plane blades. It's just a fact of life if you want repeatability.
Of course honing is so much easier on BD planes if, like me, you hollow grind and freehand the blades. Then again, it does not make any difference to those that use honing guides all the time.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 12/14/2008 12:46 am ET by derekcohen
"Ray, beginning to wonder if this bevel up stuff isn't more about the foreplay than the actual act".
I admit to Marcou-fondling from time to time (the planes not the maker - do not retain that latter image for too long or you may suffer barf syndrome). This is a perfectly natural act and, as any fule no, foreplay often precedes the best kind of planing, in which the blade and the wood mate so perfectly that they often have a fag (that's a cigarette, not the Noo Yawk kind) together afterwards.
Here's hoping that your desire to merely ravage the plank with any old plane is not symptomatic of your treatment of other entities with whom you have a "close relationship", such as that Injun or an even more beloved person? There is a lot to be said for stroking, as our cat will tell you.
Lataxe, a relationship counsellor.
Lataxe,
We are in agreement on this I hope, that foreplay as an end in itself proves frustrating to those who are intent on getting on towards the grand finale.
Ray
Ray,
"Foreplay as an end in itself" conjurs up a horrific picture that should never be seen outside of a medial textbook! Is it akin to the practice of disappearing up one's own fundamental orifice? I have never seen a bloke do this but heard of it happening, especially on Internet forums.
Incidentally, being as how I am just a boy and still vigorous, it is never the finale for me, although it can be quite grand - reet gradley in fact. Always there are encores.
Lataxe, virile as a cucumber.
> cucumberLataxe,Beware the pi** and vinegar
Roc,
I am pickled from time to time. A wilted cucumber is a sad sight.
Lataxe, whose ladywife is a happily vegetarian.
Lataxe,
Foreplay as an end conjures up images of high school dating, for me.
As for the rest of your post, lucky you, and lucky ladywife. It now takes me all night, just to do what I used to do all night long.
Ray
ps put in a good word for me with philip won't you, there's a good lad. I think we might have had a falling out.
>make a bevel up smoother out of metal- regard it as an after toil relaxationDon't let philip egg you on. That blade bed has got to be quite precisely aligned with the sole on a BU or you get problems. More so than BD. Part of the reason the BU were not common and I believe more expensive back when they first came out.takes the philip touch to make a fine BU.Blast me if I am wrong.
Edited 12/11/2008 3:51 pm by roc
roc,
You've convinced me. I have problems enough without taking more on.
Ray
Lataxe,For a long time I thought that youngn on the tripple bike was you. Must have been your son.Wish I was out trompin the hill and dale; looks like a nice area (s).>One would assume that the 50 degree 2 inch wide blade would cut easier (for a given shaving thickeness) than the 66 degree 2.25 inch blade, would one not? Good Lawd! It is the other way around!! The steeper BU is easier to push (relatively speaking) than the BD! Understand that neither goes swoosh like a 45 degree blade in easy wood.This is what I think; and only really matters with that super hard stuff you and I seem to like to work.The flexy nature of the BD from having more blade protrusion past where the blade is supported and that "chip breaker" helping to push the blade round the bend and down into the work causes the BD blade to flex down WHILE MAKING THE CUT and so cut deeper than set originally. Deeper / thicker shaving = more effort.That is what my gut tells me; I have no proof.Edited 12/11/2008 4:08 pm by roc
Edited 12/11/2008 4:10 pm by roc
"The flexy nature of the BD from having more blade protrusion past where the blade is supported and that "chip breaker" helping to push the blade round the bend and down into the work causes the BD blade to flex down WHILE MAKING THE CUT and so cut deeper than set originally. Deeper / thicker shaving = more effort."
Well I dunno. Because what you say there may be true for thin blades not well bedded but what of a thick blade say 4 to 6mm? Okay there will be a wide bevel no matter what angle is ground (because of the thick blade) but I don't believe there will be flexing at all assuming a flat accurately bedded blade. And what of the thick b/d without a chipbreaker? I am sure there would be no flex there either.
I suspect the reason has more to do with the centre of gravity/high or low profile thing, plus a weight factor.
I too have been aware of this pushing thing ever since making higher angle bevel downs, and then being able to compare them with my bevel ups (15 or 20 degree) . But there is one more area: the length of the toe- and I have tried to maximise this on the 55 degree smoothers I made recently. I also experimented with different tote angles, but noticed no effect.
So I don't know. Who can explain how the cookie crumbles-or the fruits drop?Philip Marcou
Philip,>what of a thick blade I am thinking of just the portion of blade right in the throat from where the blade is unsupported by the body to the cutting edge. I do not include the "chip breaker" as support . Just for discussion lets call it not there or antisuport.Sure it may quiet vibration but it does not make the blade more resistant to flexing down just as a "shock absorber" on a vehicle does not, to any significant degree, help hold the frame off the ground it can only reduce the duration of wheel bounce. But I am getting onto another subject there.Let us consider the portion of blade right in the throat. Just a few millimeters. It only has to flex down ~ .05 mm ( a couple of thou inch ) to cut deeper. Maybe, probably, the bevel on the thicker blade supports it but I think it still flexes here even though way up in the middle of the blade the thickness is damping flex and vibration.But since you brought up the portion of blade just under the "chip breaker" There could be some , very small amount, of flexing and unflexing under the hump in the CB.The thing is a veritable rabbit warren of questionable design ! : )>the length of the toe- I am all for more toe length on the front of the sole of the plane. Just so it starts better when first contacting the wood. I always thought the Japanese planes had an advantage/better design in that respect. Who needs all that length of a metal plane after the blade has left the surface? The time to put a lot of sole on the wood is before the blade starts the cut. But that could open up yet another fresh jar of worms.roc
Edited 12/12/2008 1:00 am by roc
Roc,
"I am thinking of just the portion of blade right in the throat from where the blade is unsupported by the body to the cutting edge."
I know, and I covered that by reference to the grind angle. Draw a 5mm thick blade at a bed angle of 50 degrees, with a grind or bevel angle of 30 degrees and use a sole thickness of 8mm as an example. You will see that the unsupported amount of blade is not significant-and really can't flex.
I have almost finished a small bevel down plane which is a furniture makers sized version of one of those minis which Lataxe pictured. I decided to bed it at 40 degrees rather than 45 . I expect it to cut end grain very nicely but am more interested to see how it does on long grain in hard woods. What would expect it to do, bearing in mind it is about 160mm long, brass sole 18mm thick,40mm wide blade, toe as long as possible, heavy and very low profile?Philip Marcou
>unsupported amount of blade is not significant-and really can't flexSorry I will give up soon. I was talking about the run of the mill planes out there; records, Stanley's, LNs. I know some of the japanese wood body planes will take the wood out the grind/bevel angle but this is of questionable value being wood.You say you have metal from the sole under the grind/bevel ? All my BDs are hanging out in the breeze from before the bevel to the edge some eight mm at least.Do you have pic. ? A bit slow of brain here on my end.here is my pics. First one is LN BD bronze smoother. Second is the LN BU jack. They may or may not look similar in the pics but BU has only about three mm unsupported partly because bed goes right up to throat. BD the frog is back of throat a ways and body does not support; only frog supports blade. Both planes set to cut.Bronze by the way I find to drag more than iron and so it has turned into more of a looker than a user. The guys are right in that the wood soles just fly and hardly have any friction compared to iron but can't use wood for BU as you said. I know you know that I mention for OPs info.Can't you just picture him in his chair with his dog and pipe reading our rantings ?Hello Robin ! Where ever you are.We're all in this togetherrocPS: Robin here is my current sharpening stuff (the rest I almost never use) I took pics to day to show a guy at work so might as well send them on to you as well.pink with grooves to flatten other stones. Used first one, diamond DMT, to flatten pink. Are in order of grit coarse to fine. Little one is stone to clean surface of fine stones.Neoprene is my super simple stone holder; very little water on counter top sticks it to counter then wet stone place on neo and slide sideways capillary action sucks it down and does not move! that's it. Simple (you can see where the stone was sitting right on the edge of the counter. Much easier to polish/touch up back to help hone off wire edge than having several stones all in a row over one troff etc.Here is where people will go bananas if they haven't already from me having too many grits: One cloth to clean up coarse, one for middle grits, the yellow one is only for the 8000 stone clean up. Keeps coarse grits from scratching up final edge. I rinse stone in sink and wipe neo, not stone, with cloth .The result: a blindingly polished surface on blade cuts same on the bare wood. Beautiful even without finish. This pic taken through a TIG welding helmet lens. Other wise all who viewed it would be dead right now. : )
Edited 12/12/2008 6:26 am by roc
Roc,
"You say you have metal from the sole under the grind/bevel ? All my BDs are hanging out in the breeze from before the bevel to the edge some eight mm at least.
The sole needs to be thick enough....a backing piece is required to lengthen the ramp when the sole is thin. If there is a good thickness of sole, say around 8mm, then even at steep bed angles like 55 degrees and more the ramp will be long enough.There is also the blade thickness and grind angle to consider.
The bevel up blade has the advantage of being supported almost to the very tip, but I prefer to see a ramp that does not form a chisel end with the sole-vulnerable to damage-so I leave a small "step" of around 1 mill or so. (And if that is done at the front as well it means that the sole can be ground without affecting the mouth width).You have got way too much honing paraphernalia- get rid of some-send it to a needy cause such as the Stanford Foundation (;).Philip Marcou
Edited 12/13/2008 2:23 am by philip
philip,>unsupported amount of blade is not significant-and really can't flexBut we are supporting that insignificant non flexing portion ? Anyway ? Can't have it both ways. Or I am still not getting it.But we are talking of two things at once you and I. I think we agree more than it is coming across in this exchange.I think there is flex and that your planes/better design of infill/thick sole in general are taking care of that flex. And the second point that is all vague and squishy: whether or not the BD theoretical flex is the culprit of the need for more effort when using a mass produced bevel down compared with same cut taken with BU which would require in theory less effort.> too much honing paraphernalia- get rid of someWhat do you recommend ? Diamondcoarse, 2000, 8000 ?
or something like Diamondcoarse, 2000, 4000 ?
just the Diamondcoarse and 1200?You mentioned 1200 I think my third stone the red brown one is 1000 or 1200 been too long can't remember. Seems closer to 1000 compared with my green one which is 2000. The Red ~ 1200 was my first water stone/decent stone. I found it not adequate by its self.I can't imagine but will try using fewer stones. Again.
I originally was following the Japanese thought that to use a secondary bevel was less than perfection/or was using whole face to act as sharpening guide and so the whole face was polished. Hard to get rid of scratches on that wide face other than many stones.I now coarse grind the bevel on the diamond plate then go one degree steeper with the "sharpening" so perhaps 4000 or 8000 can cut all the way to bottom of scratches from say 2000 if that secondary bevel is not very large in surface area. Causes the fine stone to wear fast then I have to flatten finer stone often. The many stones approach rarely need to be flattened in my experience.My several stones past the coarse only take a few swipes per grit if secondary is narrow so would save hardly any time to eliminate middle stones. It is cutting out the wear from planing to get the wire edge that takes all the time = coarse diamond plate. Perhaps from what you say, and I say this seriously, all I need is a Tormek sharpener = coarse grind, sort of, and then one last grit the strop wheel in this case.Hard to beat the factshttp://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=2793>use of a . . . guide for honing of both plane blades and chisels has in fact saved me time and steel, and see every advantage in its use .Also, those that go into extremes of fine grits(over 1200 in my opinion) are just jigging the cat if they then don't use a guide to hone.How true>Sorry I will give up soon.
I officially here and now give up.. . . disappointed . . . no pics of the things of which ye speak ( proper sharpening stuff and plane throats for me as well as the OP ). . . alas . . .again I think we agree here more than disagree. I am now listening and won't argue with your final response if you can find the time. Thanks !Take care metal man !rocPS: maybe I will just mail my self to Stanford, as a donation you understand, sounds fascinating ! Wonder what they would use me for? Book end? Door stop? Might be worth the candle for all that I would learn as a "fly on the wall".Edited 12/13/2008 6:40 am by roc
Edited 12/13/2008 6:42 am by roc
Hey Roc,
Thanks for posting your polishing routine...Good pics.
I like, in particular, the segregated clean-up philosophy.Results show it works a treat!
Before I go galloping off to the 'oil store' perhaps I should spend a little more time and mental energy playing in the water trough.
Robin.
Roc,
I suppose even the thickest blade might bend in some degree if stressed enough in the right direction - even if there is but a tiny projection of the sharp end beyond the underlying support of the blade. However, when I pushed those two planes (50 degree BD and 66 degree BU) across that iroko wood I adjusted the blades so that the planes took shavings of similar thickness. I didn't attempt to measure the projection of the blade beyond the soles to make them equal.
So, whether the BD blade projected slightly less than that of the BU when not cutting and may have been "bent" down when cutting doesn't seem relevant to the cause of the greater pushing force needed to get the same shaving thickness. Or does it.....
Perhaps another way to consider the effect is to ask where the extra energy goes when the BD requires that extra push for the same shavings as those of the BU? It might be going into blade-flex but perhaps it goes into more wear of the edge or more heat generated within the metal of the cutting edge. Or all three.
Now, I am having vague recollections of my study of mechanics, force vectors and the associated math, 43 years ago at school. The memory is dim but I suspect that if some still competent mathematician did a mechanical analysis of the forces at the blade tip acting through blades held at different angles within a plane and with various bevel-configurations, some significant information might be revealed about what components of the pushing force end up where.
*****
But in the final analysis we don't really need to know. What's important for us as woodworkers is knowing what the effect of these different plane blade configurations have in terms of the required pushing force, cutting abilities, rapidity of blunting and so forth.
Although I've only used planes for a couple of years as an amateur, even that small but accumulating experience is telling me that low bed-angle BU planes (if they are made heavy, rigid and with thick blades) seem to perform the required planing with less work and overall greater success than do a BD planes of similar quality and cutting angle. I still don't know why.
Lataxe, wishing he'd kept au fait with the maths.
Lataxe,
Your point about force vectors is (to me) an excellent one. It does (should?) play a role in the sense that BU and BD plane bodies have somewhat different geometries: The distance between the tote and the cutting edge is typically shorter in a BD (high angle bed) and BU (lower angle bed). The shorter distance accounts for a higher angle of the pushing force (assuming the same tote angles). With the higher angle, the component parallel to the planing surface(that is responsible for cutting) is shorter/smaller. Vectors can be un-fun...
I assume that this does not contradict your empirical evidence.
Best wishes,
Metod
>force vectorsI am thinking it is a question of the location of moments but I am, offically, quite out of my depth.roc
Edited 12/13/2008 7:01 am by roc
roc,
You are right. A moving plane (er, relative to the wood being planed :-) ) has momentum (also a vector) and you need a force to produce it. The momentum of a plane falling onto your toes...
Best wishes,
Metod
I suppose even the thickest blade might bend in some degree if stressed enough in the right direction - even if there is but a tiny projection of the sharp end beyond the underlying support of the blade.
Hi David
I once asked Rob Lee why the LA Smoother was supplied with a 1/8" thick blade and not a 3/16". The LN #164 is supplied with a 3/16" and all other LV BU planes are supplied with blades 3/16" thick. He replied that the public demands a 3/16" and that the extra thickness over a 1/8" is insignificant in terms of performance.
Yo Philip
I think that you are correct about wooden beds being too fragile for BU designs. Nevertheless I did build a successful BU woodie (it has lasted 5 years to date). It has a 15 degree Jarrah bed .. but the design does have a few advantages...
This plane is used for chamfering edges.
View Image
The blade is a tapered Matherson. The butterfly bolt is deliberate. It allows for rapid incremental adjustment of the blade.
Where this design "cheats" is that the bed may be 15 degrees, but the V sole is really quite thick.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Lataxe,>in the final analysis we don't really need to know. What's important for us as woodworkers is knowing what the effect of these different plane blade configurations have in terms of the required pushing force, cutting abilities, rapidity of blunting and so forth.How true !Is nice to have hard science for the nae sayers though, but many nae sayers say nae in the face of the facts. Funny that.roc
Edited 12/13/2008 7:26 am by roc
Roc,
I hereby sponsoryou as Charlie's new bench-boy. You will have to scrub plane stuff with a blunt blue thing and be whipping boy. You may or may not learn something useful from being about the chap - we have nivver seen the bloke's cabinets so how can we know?
Meanwhile he will be getting culturally-assimilated to foreign memes that you will leak into his culture-organ by talk-osmosis Soon there will be a variety of reactions in his brainbox, including spontaneous combustion of some of the more evaporative concepts - those of low molecular weight.
After a month or so he will be posting concerning the virtues of BU planes, biscuits and complex sharpening routines. He will have become a Bridge City customer. (There is often an over-reaction when a major seismic shift occurs in the tectonic plates of heavy-duty idea-fixee).
Meanwhile we will give you a medal for bravery, made from a crushed post-war Record plane.
Lataxe, proposing cruel anthropological experiments.
Lataxe,
Don't forget that Roc, as Charlie's bench boy, will be required to "clean up well," that is, put on a blazer over his work clothes, and drink half a bottle of wine at lunch, which is Charlie's "business strategy."
-Andy, not yet writing fiction
Andy,
Your vivid description makes me almost want to go over to Memphis myself, at least for the lunches. I am dusting off my old school blazer, which doesn't fit as well now but still has a fine Victorian-looking lady with a big shield and one mammary out proclaiming that the wearer is a member of South Shields Grammar-Technical School for Boys.
Now that place was educational!
Lataxe, still a boy of course.
Lunch at the club 'ole boy. Best part of the day.
I'm always fascinated to see pictures of the old bench woodworkers wearing vests and ties and wondered if they wore that garb knowing their picture would be taken that day or if that was everyday attire. My, they do look smart regardless.
I've been known to tuck a tie in a white shirt on Sunday after Mass and scribble a random line or two on a few pieces of wood. Maybe make a crosscut with an old saw. Maybe I'm upholding a tradition from the 'better dressed' days? Dunno.
What say you?
Just for you, I'm going to pack a balogna sandwich, chips, and a Diet Coke for lunch this coming Monday. I'll eat said sandwich in between spittin' tobacco juice and watching part of a Dukes of Hazzard re-run on my self-imposed 45 minute lunch break. Will that make you feel better? Make me more 'legit'? Maybe I'll take a few extra minutes to slap my wife around too.
Edited 12/13/2008 6:52 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
>pictures of the old bench woodworkers wearing vests and tiesSo did the Wright brothers. Imagine that bicycle mechanics dressed like they take what they do seriously.
Charles,What's Diet Coke? I don't think that it is available here in the People's Republic of the Great White North. My cellar is cold enough to brew lager and I've got about 2 weeks left of the secondary fermentation until it's ready to bottle. Until then I'll have to wait to try out your business strategy.Throughout this and countless other threads, you have intimated that you are a professional woodworker, perhaps a chairmaker. How about some pics of your work? I'd like to see what you are capable of doing, since the common thread of most of your posts is "stop talking about it and do it." I have yet to see any evidence that you build anything. In fact, why don't you write an article for FWW; they seem to be hurting for fresh material. You could even write an article about your unique "business strategy." I'm sure that Lataxe and I won't be your only readers.-Andy
I don't build anything. It's a total sham. I've never sold an article of woodworking in my life. But if I did, I think the best way to get work as a custom furnituremaker would be by meeting clients dirty, sweaty, and STANKY. Workmen do have an image to maintain, you know? Maybe shirtless and with tatoos like a Mexican framer. Is that how you'd do it? Charlie, not looking forward to his bologna sandwich today.
Edited 12/15/2008 9:00 am ET by TaunTonMacoute
Hah,
When we went to WIA a few weeks ago, my wife really wanted me to wear, uh, nicer clothes. I did concede to wearing a newish pair of bibs for when I spoke at one of the sessions. Else it was a (washed) pair of grubby bibs.
It's how I dress, for better or worse. But alas, no tats.
Take care, Mike
I've always envied the guys who have to sell only the steak and not any of the sizzle.
I Yam What I Yam, said one of my boyhood hereos. I took it to heart.
Though sometimes I feel kin to Wiley Coyote.
Take care, Mike
Do you have any photographs of your work that you can share? Most pro cabinetmakers and chairmakers do, right? And at any rate they would not be afraid to share images of their work with the public. Whenever it has come up, you are quite consistent in avoiding the topic. Come on, please post something to the gallery, something to which beginners and amateurs can aspire!
-Andy
Nope, I don't have anything.I told you in a previous post I've never sold an article of woodworking in my life. I don't have a professional portfolio.Congratulations, you've exposed me as the fraud that I am.Anything else?
Edited 12/15/2008 10:08 am ET by TaunTonMacoute
So no hot coeds at Stanford ? ? ? ?I mean er . . . harumph . . cough . . . er planes and vectors yah sounds er . . . resonable er . . .I think.Smashed toes and new bench-boy cruel anthropological experiments . .where am i ? What site am I on? W h a t i s h a p p e n i n g?I just woke up!Need coffee yah thats it.its going to be ok old boy . . . just a dream just a baaad dream. |: |
> over-reaction when a major seismic shift occurs in the tectonic plates of heavy-duty idea-fixee).: )nice oneyou guys are more full of "stuff" than I am !roc
Edited 12/13/2008 10:25 am by roc
Roc,
That caused me no small amusement as well. The exchange of ideas has been quite interesting!
Thanks for linking the article of Newmans, a clear, and for me, easy to follow progression of events. Bein' by nature somewhat relaxed in the brainbox department, this helps!
As you said in your original [44467.75] post,the use of scrub planes is not ruled out.I have a Russian sort of #5-ish that I use for rough work. Bought it for fun & fiddling,and it is providing both, plus instruction,oddly enough!
Robin
Lataxe,I am impressed that you could use BU planes and biscuits in the same sentence. I am sure I could not have pulled that off. Of course you may mean biscuits as in biscuits and gravy ! I had to give that stuff up.Here is how my old roommate, even more grumpy and crotchety than i am made buiscuits. If you dare see Peter Blue Cloud's books: Coyote stories. I was living with Coyote Man ! Forestgirl you may be less than impressed so be careful.Any way this was his technique for biscuits: ( Cardiac specialists and cholesterol experts may want to step out of the room at this point )Stamp out the biscuits, pore about an eighth of an inch of cheep cooking oil ( comes in plastic gallon jugs ) in an iron skillet/baking dish thing, Place the biscuits in the oil, now sop them all over and over in the oil and bake. The biscuits were made with crisco or butter to the max of course !To put on 'em we made what he called " Missouri Corn Bread Spread ". Take a stick or two of butter ( or a pound ), let soften, put in a big bowl and scoop a big jar of peanut butter out into the bowl, pore in at least a cup or two of maple syrup or honey or other syrup. Mix all together and put back in the huge peanut butter jars.When hungry spread and eat. We were always hungry back in them days. He was a marathon runner, I was running ten milers. I was working in a concrete casting plant and ridding my bike to work eight miles one way.Yah we needed the calories. Them was the good old days ! Can't eat like that now : (roc ( the old chow houn' )Edited 12/13/2008 9:57 pm by roc
Edited 12/13/2008 9:59 pm by roc
In regards to your comment about the flexibility of the BD orientation during the cut. Bullseye! I have been planing the faces of endgrain cuttingboards with my hand-me-down Millers Falls smoother (which I have tuned to a very satisfactory degree) and ANY depth of cut, even when I can force it through and with a heavey camber too often results in exaggerated, low frequency chatter. So the tip of the blade must flex down into the board until the plane and or plane operator can no longer stay in the cut, the plane slows and jumps out of the cut but my weight is still on it so the process starts again and again. Also the depth adjustment seems to wander down in general under these extreme conditions. If dig-in happens alot when planing end grain, why wouldn't it happen at least a little in long grain? I do not get this phenomena with the block plane (not a jack), which is not even a low angle block, but the little thing has no mass, is hard to get two hands on, and hard to adjust. So I agree with you because of this and my gut that BD is harder to push at the the same 'included angle', and I'm looking to buy a LN low angle jack as soon as possible, for all kinds of smoothing and whatever else it may be good for. I am not strictly a hand tool user by any means, so a multifunction, 'go to' quality plane would be a valuable addition. I wanted the LN BD smoother until I got into doing these cutting boards for X-mas gifts; now I think it's just too specialized for me to enjoy right now. Anyway good call on the physics with this one. Looks like I'm a hand tool poster now.Brian
Brian,
Not withstanding the talk on flexing your comment caught my eye:
"block plane (not a jack), which is not even a low angle block, but the little thing has no mass, is hard to get two hands on, and hard to adjust. "
That is a problem with that plane format and I am not surprised that people drop them. I also suspect that prolonged use would cause all kinds of ailments such as CTS, W Cramp and Burstringpiece.
By coincidence I have just completed a small block type and ended up making it a "double knob" . Looks strange, but is very convenient to use compared to ye olde Stanley 91/2 and similar hordes....Philip Marcou
Sorry, huge picture, here is reduced versionPhilip Marcou
Grief Philip, that is one wierdo plane!
How on earth did you come up with knobs like those?
Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek,
Ah but them knobs look like just the thing to save my poor wee finger ends from yet another geet spelk.
When I use the ordinary blockplane (I try to avoid doing so these days) my fingers often slip out of the indents on the side (it's a veritas) so they are rubbing on the side of the wood being planed, which is usually a plank edge. Inevitably the finger hits an edge-corner spelk which then drives itself into my flesh.
Sometimes a smaller standard angle plane like the block is needed (e.g. for them narrower plank edges) and that one o' Philip's would certainly suit me. No more spelked finger ends. Huzzah! I can also imagine the knobs giving more control overall.
At the moment I will use either the LN 140 skew or the large shoulder plane, rather than the block, for these narrow edges. Those planes both offer a better grip than the standard block plane does. But they are no good if the timber has awkward grain because their low cutting angle tears out the wood. I suppose I could hone a steep microbevel on a spare blade......
I'm spent up on Marcous just now. He is designing and making the bluddy things too fast! Make him stopppppp!
Lataxe spelkyhands, who also has flabberpurse.
Hi David
I am with you here. I certainly would not criticise the use of a small high angle smoother for this type of work. I have my small infill (ex-Stanley #3) and I am putting together one of Ron Brese's small smoothers. I have used (and reviewed) the HNT Gordon block plane. That is excellent for these tasks. It has a 55 degree bed. Another is the LV LA Block Plane (the original model) as this may be converted intio a #3 size BU smoother with the accessory tote and knob.
My only query lies with Philip's choice of tote. It is different.
This plane buying frenzy you are into - there is no cure you know .. except going cold turkey... !
Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek and Philip,Speaking of #3s I bought, just before the low angle LN block, a LN BD #3. I loved that little plane for small stuff.ButI kept hitting my damn wrist on the edge of the work when starting each pass. Right between my palm and wrist. The down most thing when gripping a plane tote. Bonk right on the bone.It was so bad I returned the plane. Thank you Woodcraft ! Your return policy is much appreciated. I traded it for my LN #4 Bronze guy.I bet Philip could have made a tote for me that could have prevented the problem.Philip do you make a BD #3 plane in a fairly standard configuration http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=3#I know you don't like adjustable frogs. Doesn't have to have that.Who knows this could be my first Marcou !Yah I said BD
Edited 12/16/2008 3:20 pm by roc
Roc,
I don't understand what you are saying about hitting your wrist-which side left or right? Explain in words of two syllables or less.....Philip Marcou
>don't understand what you are saying about hitting your wrist-which side left or right? Explain in words of two syllables or less.....Philip,Sorry to put off photos. Had to go to work. Boss says work is not supposed to be fun other wise we would say " I am going to fun" .These photos are a bit skued and do not show exactly the problem because I could not get my wrist at orientation that I take while planing and still take the picture.First pic (Grip fo #3) is the way I gripped the #3 because tote too small. I took that plane back; pic is of #4Pic called Grip fo #4 Shows how I grip #4 because I have more room. I have no problem hitting while using this planeTo the bone shows how it hits while pushing small plane.Wherizat is point of pain.
Edited 12/18/2008 1:23 am by roc
I see the problem Roc.
That is the problem with #3's and #2's -too small to have a full on tote. Even the #4 is on the small side for those with a big bunch of fives.
I am still dillydallying with that double knobbed item-Derek and Mike both seem not to have seen what the problem is.
I made a shorter front knob and a wider more squat rear knob- still not that pleased with it. See some pictures. I think I'll leave it for a bit, or might just convert it to an Unidentified Non Flying Object.Philip Marcou
Philip,
I saw the photos you posted to Roc.
Absolutely gorgeous.
The hand plane equivalent of Sofia Loren!
They would be very easy to hold.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
>When I use the ordinary blockplane (I try to avoid doing so these days) my fingers often slip out of the indents on the side (it's a veritas) so they are rubbing on the side of the wood being planed, which is usually a plank edge. Inevitably the finger hits an edge-corner spelk which then drives itself into my flesh.<?1?!? Perhaps you need adult supervision?!?!?!? Hope you haven't made yourself sick with that exotic that you were having a reaction to. Seriously, those sensitization and allergic reaction problems tend to go off exponentially with repeated exposure - you'd best be careful."Yes, but what's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weak-minded." - Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove
Ed,
I avoid adults - they are usually miserable gits in grey suits with a mindset to match. :-) I will just have to take my scraped knees and other damage to the ladywife, for her to kiss better.
That iroko is unpleasant. I have taken to wearing the mask even though it does frighten horses and old gannies that are passing by. I'll be glad when I've turned all the iroko into this or that. There's tons of the stuff choking up my woodstore.
Next is a memorial bench, which the ladywife has volunteered me to make for her allotment crew, as one of the more ancient diggers down there upped-and-died. He was 167. Well, he looked it - probably drank far too much tea whilst gassing-on to the other allotment holders instead of turning that soil over.
There'll still be 1/2 a ton of iroko left though.
Lataxe, aged 15 and 3/4.
>That iroko is unpleasant. I have taken to wearing the mask<It could develop into a problem very quickly if you're not careful. I had a nasty encounter with some redwood about seven years ago. It was actually a kind of microscopic mold spore that grows on redwood when left outside. It shocked me because back in the 1980s I used to make just about everything I made out of redwood. I went from sniffles and runny nose to walking pneumonia in no time flat. I was really healthy then, too - running 20-30 miles a week, all of that - but it just "tomahawked me" before I knew what was going on.Best to be careful - I like to have someone to argue with occasionally - will be hard to do if you have to continually pick up the albuterol inhaler while you're trying to type.
ED,
I see from your message to Lataxe that You want do have an argument.
OK. LET's have at it.
Pick a topic. - Tails first or pins first? Naw. Too dull.
- Dozuki or Western dovetail saw? Naw, even duller.
- Could FWW increase its readership with more articles on sharpening?
- Who is the better woodworker - Charlesworth or Schwartz?
- Who is the greatest woman woodworker who has ever lived?
- Can Irishmen be trained as woodworkers? If you are Irish, then substitute the word "Italians" for "Irishmen".
- Should everyone on Knots be required to use multiple names?
- Can people who frequent the Cafe be rehabilitated?Are there any good topics for an argument in there? Do you have another topic that you would enjoy? LETS GET IT ON!!!!!!
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Well the answer to No. 5 is easy for me - she's a sweet, sweet friend of mine who used to read FWW but doesn't even take an interest in it any more.But as for the others,.....
I've already made a ruling on all of those questions, Mel. I only check into knots to observe with detached interest the struggle of the rest of you guys to achieve the state of enlightenment that I already enjoy.There aren't many open questions in the world of woodworking left for me. The question: Does the smooth plane have a more important function as an tool for actual use in the woodworking workshop or as a marketing device for transferring funds away from folks like Lataxe to other folks? is perhaps an open question, of mild interest to both woodworkers and businessmen. I can argue both sides of that one, but I put myself on a posting diet of only one bench plane post per annum and I've already used it up for this year.BTW, Mel (extracting tongue from cheek), you mentioned that when you were in Australia you went to an Italian community,...when I lived in Australia in the early 1990's, I lived next door to the most wonderful immigrant Italian couple you could imagine. Jerry and Laura, both in their late 70's, were just the greatest folk ever. They were from the north of Italy - closer to Trieste than any other big city. Laura used to bring me food whenever she would see me out working in the yard - some of the best food I've ever eaten. It was a while before I realized that it was a reward system for keeping the yard mowed and fairly neat. After I figured out the system, my yard always looked like the part of a golf course near the clubhouse.Happy holidays, Ed"Yes, but what's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weak-minded." - Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove
Ed,
I have long known that you are a wise man. Your response confirms that. I have known for a while that there are no really interesting topics in woodworking left for deep thought. I have seen some very interesting psychological aspects of woodworking. In other words, there are topics that get many here on Knots up-tight. For example, why does anyone need overly-expensive hand planes when there are many who generate masterpieces with much "lesser" tools? I believe that most here on Knots are looking for reasons to convince themselves that they need yet another expensive plane. When they hear my "question", it gets them very nervous. Some folks here are hooked on them, just like others are hooked on drugs. I know others from my 10 hours a week at Woodcraft, who are hooked on Festool. I watched one of them yesterday, plunk down $1000 for a complete Domino system. Can you believe that? $1000 for a device to insert floating tenons!!!!!!! Another psychological issue that I bring up occassionally, just to stir up the troops, is: The main purpose of the well known woodworking schools, and the well known woodworking gurus, is not to teach you how to do woodworking, but to convince you that you could not possibly learn how to use a handplane or to sharpen or to chop a mortise without taking a one week, one thousand dollar course from them. AND taking the course means you gotta get to the school, stay in a hotel for a week, and eat at restaurants for a week, and take a week off of work to do that. Total cost -- Maybe around $5000. And the end result is a lowering of your self confidence.This "psychology of woodworking" stuff is fun once in a while, but it too gets old. And it upsets the old rich woodworker wannabees who are looking for reasons to part with their money. Why upset the economy even more? Let em spend. To me, the best approach to learning to make msterpieces, is not to build junk, but to try to build masterpieces. After a while, your "masterpiece wannabees" will become masterpieces, as you work out the bugs in the comfort of your own shop. Woodworkers are, by nature, loners, except when they come out to the web to speak electronically and behind the web-mask to other woodworkers.By the way, are you really Ed Harrison, or are you another name for Charles Stanford? About the Italian couple you knew - That was a great story. Rings true to me. Any time you are near Burke, Virginia, you are invited over to my place for some good food and some woodworking lies. And that will not be in exchange for keeping your lawn mowed. I have mine taken care of by a guy who calls himself "Mow-More Kaddafi". His lawn care company is called "Toro Toro Toro". Have fun. Happy Holidays to you and yours. If you come up with any really good woodworking topics for discussion, let me know.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Am I Charles? No. I'm still working on completing my coursework for an Associates Degree at the University of the Curmudgeon - a place where an entire wing of the library is dedicated to Dr. Stanford, often called the "Father of Modern Curmudgeonliness." When Dr. Stanford visits the campus, classes are cancelled for half a day and graduate students are allowed to follow him around with notebooks and take notes on the things he says and does. Later he facilitates seminars with titles like, "Agente Provacatuer Extraordinaire - Why Does Society Pigeonhole Him?," and "The Fine Art of Damning with Faint Praise - Will It Return to Prominence This Century?" Once there was one titled: "Multiple Names - What Don't They Understand?" Again, only graduate students are allowed to attend so I have never met Dr. Stanford, I've only seen him at a distance. To tell the truth, it's both kind of flattering and embarrassing to be compared to Dr. Stanford.Now I've got to go prepare for one of my practical laboratories at the U of C. I had a choice between biting the head off a live chicken, kicking a small puppy, or ripping the bell out of the hand of one of those Salvation Army bell ringers, pulling the clapper/ringer out of the bell, and then handing it back to him. Under the influence of my animal-rights girlfriend, I chose the latter exercise. I hope I get a good grade on it.By the way, if you want to start a debate, why not go over to the forum next door and start a topic; "Fine Homebuilding? Is there really such a thing or is it just homebuilding-that-isn't-screwed-up?" If you come back blood-spattered and limping and with your arm in a sling, we've got some doctors around here that can help you."Yes, but what's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weak-minded." - Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove
Or go next door and simply point out that a bunch of nailed butt joints, which is all modern carpentry is, is not and never will be "fine" anything.
In 220 replies this is the best one.....
Charlie,
Is that you congratulating yourself agin? How many Nom de Plumes have you got, lad?
Lataxe, who wonders why you bother coming here. (Oh yes, to sneer. I forgot).
Hey BU jack plane users: a couple more questions. First I was sure I was going to buy the LN (yes, Mel, to make a MASTERPIECE!), but after reading much, but not all (!), of this thread and researching the two sites, I'm seriously considering the LV. The LV just seems to have so many more features, but are these features really better than the tried and true LN design? I guess I'm talking specifically about the 'radically' set back mouth, lateral adjustment and mouth adjustment. Also the larger size and weight. The weight appeals to me, but maybe not the size. The LV is almost six pounds, I can't find the weight of the LN. Is LN's steel somewhere in between the two options that LV offers in hardness?Thanks,Brian
I went back to catch up. And having had lots of coffee and feeling particullary low on the self restraint scale:>When they hear my "question", it gets them very nervous. Some folks here are hooked on them [ shiny, precisely made, nonflexy planes that don't bang your wrists 'till they blead] , just like others are hooked on drugsYah and when a Chevett owner says to a Ferrari owner see I got here just the same as you the stallion owner gets very nervous and starts looking for a used car lot to make a trade.Nnnnnoooootttttt Ggggooooonnnnnaaa happen.but this is getting a bit painful to repeat.>taking the course [ wood working school with a master ] . . . get to the school, stay in a hotel for a week, and eat at restaurants for a week, and take a week off of work to do that. Well considering I have never done this it sounds like heaven ! Don't have the bucks or I would be there right now. I have a list of people I would like to hang out with in just such a sicheation. My great sorrow is some are old or retired and I will never get the chance ! ! !>the end result is a lowering of your self confidence.nah, dude, nah I am like a Chihuahua in that respect.: )rocoops; not to Brian ment to change to post to "All"
Edited 12/18/2008 4:41 pm by roc
The LN iron is A2 the same basic steel as the LV A2. It takes a good edge and keeps it. I think the A2 vs 01 steel argument is overdone. I have blades of each type and they all work well. Try calling or emailing LN about the weight of the 62, but it is lighter than the LV. If I had an appropriate scale I would weigh the LN 62 for you.
Thanks for the response, Joel.Brian
Brian,You are worse than I am when scoping out a new tool ! Just kidding. I am the worst hands down. I have actually had an employee at Woodcraft come up and say " Well? " "Are you going to buy anything ? " just before they tossed me out on the street, locked the door and shut off the lights. A personal record but I don't like to brag.: )I would get the LV for the adjuster improvement alone. But the mouth adjustment is way easier on the LV as well. Heck you can always sell it if you don't like it. It is a very desirable plane.The only reason to get the LN in my view is the view. It is a prettier plane. Mel says looks is not worth anything if you are a REAL wood worker so let us discuss visual appeal no more else we be labeled heretics.Here is some thing your partner (person in charge of the purse) is not going to like:If you like the look of the LN better get the LV to use and the LN to look at.Come to that you could get several and have a different blade angle in each.LN shipping weight on amazon is 4-1/2 lb !?!?Call Lie-Neilsen at 800-327-2520 to get the real skinnyGlue on some fishing sinkers or tire weights if plane is not heavy enough for you.>blade hardness
LN and LV are the same for all practical purposes, = A2 tempered to around 60 or 62. In use and sharpening I notice no dif. What wood and what the tree snorked up as far as minerals or what ever makes much more diff and you can't control that.The Other LV blade O 1 is less hard, is easier to sharpen, takes a finer edge but for most people is imperceptible in performance cutting wood. and may dull quicker on the more mineral rich woods such as teak.The only significantly harder blades are the Japanese laminated blades and don't get me started there. Love them but $. won't fit in planes in question.roc
Edited 12/18/2008 11:20 pm by roc
Brian,
I read your message about which Jack to get, and I read the responses. Roc is one smart dude. I pay attention to what he says, because he talks from experience and he really tries to help. You could do well with either the LV or the LN. I have the LN 5 1/2 and I use it as a Jack, a jointer, a smoother and at the shooting board. I love it. Sooner or later, I'll get the 4 1/2 too. Like Roc, I like the adjusting mechanism. I adjust depth with one finger as I am planing. I don't have experience with the LV but they make good equipment too. I don't think you can go wrong either way. Please let me know which way you go, and whether you like it or not. You may want to call LN. I have heard that they will give you your full purchase price back on one of their planes if you ask within the first year. That would be worth checking out. Have fun.
Mel
PS I think Roc wants you to make your own wood Jack plane. I have already bought the wood to make one, but am in no hurry. It is fun to stop woodworking every once in a while and make a tool.Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
>one smart dudeHardly. Some times I wonder what has been happening while my brain was off and I was out and about.I just noticed and deleted a comment after I thought about what I wrote:I wrote that I found a note saying I ordered my LN on 10-2006. I actually bought that plane around 2001. I bought the toothed blade in 2006. That was what I dated in the catalog. Daaahhhh time sure flies when you have good planes.To be clear I like the adjusting mechanism on my Veritas (LV) low angle.I find the adjuster on my Lie-Neilson (LN) low angle sometimes to be just usable and others to be possessed of its own will.The Lie-Neilson bevel down (BD) is able to advance the blade very smoothly and gradually but there is a ton of slop in the mechanism that can wear me out spinning the wheely trying to get to zero for lack of better term. To the point I pull the mech. apart on new planes and improve the fit up to reduce play.I HAVE spent a lot of time with these planes. We have a saying at our house: I been planing and planing and planing and planing and planing and . . .
Edited 12/18/2008 11:12 pm by roc
I certainly respect your experience in these matters and your right either would be a good plane and best would be to own them both, but I'm leaning toward the LV--I'm happy to hear the adjustments have such a good review. One recent thought is I wonder if the wider blade of the LV is actually a disadvantage when smoothing endgrain (like I plan on doing) and a lot of force is required. Is the LV still a 'blockplane'? Rhetorical question . . . Brian
Hi Ho Brian
It depends on the work you do.
You can get an idea of size/mass differences from this picture of the LV LAJ and the Stanley #62 ..
View Image
I would like the light feel of the LN if I am planing thin edges, such as the top/bottom edge of a box or drawer. It is more manuevrable. I use a Stanley #62 (fore runner to the LN), a block plane or a small smoother. The length of a LA Jack is helpful well planing around the corners of the top/bottom of a box/drawer to keep it level and flat.
For a shooting board, where greater heft adds to the momentum, or where you want to smoother a large surface of gnarly hardwood, then I would rather use the LV.
For adjustability, the LV wins hands down. It is not just the Norris-type adjuster (frankly this is not altogether vital - I use my fingers on the blade), it is the set screws that maintain a setting, and it is the quality of the adjuster. And then there is the ease of adjusting the mouth - far, far, far easier on the LV than on the LN. The LV just requires a twist of a knob, while the LN uses the Stanley adjuster, which tends to stick. And wait .. there is more! The LV has a mouth stop! This is enough on its own to score over other planes. Set the minimum mouth size and return to it at any time. Plus no fear of damaging the blade's edge when installing it.
I prefer the comfort of the LN tote, but the upright of the LV is correct since one is pushing from low down, not really pushing the plane down as you would with a BD plane. So I modify my LV totes - well, some of them.
LV LA Jack with replaced tote on shooting board.
View Image
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 12/19/2008 1:18 am ET by derekcohen
Derek,
Having read your message to Brian about the LN and LV, my suggestion is that he get both, as each has its advantages in different situations.
Life is too short not to go all out. This is not practice for another show. This is the real thing. One has to go for the gusto! Mel.
PS - See! I have been converted. :-) I just bought two more LN planes and am having a blast. To hell with that conservative approach that I used to take. Now I am going to save the economies of the world! (in other words, I have two more that I am considering, plus a set of mortising chisels and a nice tenon saw). But then again, Tage Frid is going to roll over in his grave if I retire my router's Frid-type U-shaped mortising jig. And my ancient Delta 35 pound tenoning jig, and my shop-made tenoning jig are going to get lonely.Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Thanks for all the input, guys. Now I have a 'feel' for both of the planes without ever having handled them, and am pretty comfortable making a decision. Good call on wetting the endgrain, that trick slipped my mind.Brian
> one to three degrees ala Lataxe> converted having a blast ala 9619Well I just started a savings account to get a BD MarcouDoes that mean I should take over arguing for the BD and you, Mel, can take over for me in the BU. Come on guys we gotta coordiante this. Its like WWF (pro wrestling) on TV>tenoning jigs, going to get lonely.
That's a cinch. If just a few to cut then have fun with handsaw.
Enough tenons to cut that it turnes into drudgery? Then, well, you know what to do. Bus' out the 35 pounder !
Isn't it great to have a choice ? I have the home made but lust after the Delta or similar.
"I have the home made but lust after the Delta or similar."
I take it you talk of a home made tenoning machine. Let us see a picture of it......Philip Marcou
Philip,>alleged tenoning "machine".A home made jig that slides along the fence of my cheepy table saw. I do use the infamous double blade set up though . . . cue mad scientist laboratory music.
The jig is a basic old example from Bob Moran's book Woodworking the Right Technique.
I can post it if you like but it looks just like the one on the front cover of the book.http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Right-Technique/Bob-Moran/p/9780762102280I think I even bought the book at Barney's back when my partner worked there for a bit.> Habilis
There is another one for ya Habilis.)You know me Phillip; low production, mostly hand tools sorta guy. I made this while I was still enthused with owning a table saw. These days I might just try my nice bandsaw if I had a thousand or so to do for a big run.: )roc
Edited 12/20/2008 8:11 am by roc
Rocky,
I thought you had some sort of machine, not that attachment.If I have more than one to do I use my shaper and sliding table (;). Never got around to getting the right cutter block which would be a rebating head with nicker, but that set up has been fine.Philip Marcou
Looks like a nice machine ! Not too much room here. If I were to invest in another major power tool for my self it would be a Bridgeport mill or similar.http://69.43.61.114/FMPro?-db=wi&-format=results2.htm&-lay=web2&Machine_Type===Vert.%20Mill&-SortField=Main_Size&-max=10-Findmaybe a bit smaller than this one. No CNC but power feed would be nice. Cheep these days this one less than $3000. Of coarse gotta truck it to my house. Thats got to cost a pretty bit of coin !Hey maybe I should get one of these instead of one of your planes ? Just kidding.PS: re Ray's question. Not trying to horn in on questions to you; just trying my understanding to see if I am getting the BU theory straightroc
Edited 12/21/2008 12:19 am by roc
philip,
Thinking as I am of a homemade BU smoother, dedicated to a high attack angle, I'm to the point of wondering if there are performance advantages of a lower bed angle coupled with a steeper bevel angle vs higher bed angle plus shallower bevel angle. That is, is a steeper blade bevel better performing than a steeper clearance angle? Or is this moot, given that the blade is supported to its edge?
Just wondering,
Ray
Hi Ray
No doubt Philip will provide his own views. My observation is that there are two advantages to a higher BU bed in a dedicated smoother (I built a BU infill with a 25 degree bed. As you are aware, the standard bed is 12 degrees),
Firstly, the higher bed should experience a smaller wear bevel on the back of the blade. However I must add that this has not been an issue for me on standard BU planes as I strop as I work, which likely removes or minimises the wear bevel.
Secondly, the lower bed requires a high secondary bevel (about 50 degrees) to create a high cutting angle. This necessitates using a honing guide. I prefer honing freehand, and a 25 degree bed makes this viable. A 35 degree primary bevel (taking the cutting angle to 60 degrees) can be hollow ground and it is doable to freehand it with a slight camber.
If you use a honing guide routinely, the a low bed will not cause any difficulties and is not an issue.
My own preference is to reserve BU planes for the low- and high cutting angles, and use BD planes in the mid range.
Regards from Perth
Derek
derek,
Thanks for your insights. Please elaborate on the need for a secondary bevel for a low bed angle- plus-high bevel angle blade. Why not just hollow grind to the higher angle and hone as I usually do?
Ray
Hi Ray
The advantage of a BD plane is that the angles of the primary/seconadry bevel don't affect the cutting angle, and therefore one has much leeway when grinding and honing. I generally hollow grind between 25-30 degrees.
With the BU plane, the cutting angle (as you know) comes from the combinatioon of the bed and bevel angles. The primary/secondary bevel therefore takes on more significance. This is where one really needs a sharpening strategy.
If you are going to use a BU plane with a cutting angle around 45 degrees, as if it were a BD #4, then there is no issue to deal with. The secondary bevel would be around 33 degrees. However - and this is THE issue, if you are going to set it up as with a high cutting angle, say 62 degrees (a secondary bevel of 50 degrees on top of the 12 degree bed) using a 50 degree hollow grind, then you are going to struggle to camber it as the amount of steel to remove is high.
The sharpening strategy is that you create a primary bevel of 25 degrees (either via hollow grinding or flat grinding), and then add the balance via a 50 degree secondary bevel. Now the amount of steel to remove is small and it can be done as easily as with a BD blade.
Using this stategy you can even create a radical camber ala a jack/fore plane.
If you are not planning on cambering the blade, then go ahead and hollow grind at 50 degrees (but even that is a lot of work). Lee Valley sell 38- and 50 degree bevelled blades. These are a response to public demand and not a recommendation. I advise only buying gthe 25 degree blades.
I outlined all the details in an article, The Secret to Cambering BU Blades.
It is recommended that high angles on BU blades are created on a honing guide. It is not that one needs obsessional accuracy for the "perfect bevel". It is simply that a repeatable honing requires less work than one that is recreated each time.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 12/21/2008 11:14 am ET by derekcohen
Derek,
Everything you say is correct. I have a 50 degree bevel LV blade and just use it straight since a camber is, as you say, too difficult to make. However.......
One can round the corners of the blade very slightly to eliminate or hide plane-tracks. It doesn't need much rounding, as a plane being used with a 60+ cutting angle really needs to take only very fine shavings. Whilst heavier cuts can be taken, this means the plane becomes very hard to push and also that the tear-out one is trying to prevent with that high cutting angle becomes more likely.
Even without the rounded corners on the blade, taking very thin shavings means that any plane tracks are very very shallow and can be scraped or sanded away in no time.
So, there isn't really an issue with using a blade having a 50 degree bevel as there is no real need to camber it.
****
I was also reading an article by David Charlesworth the other day concerning an issue with cambered blades in smoothing planes, where the piece is to be finished wth something that needs rubbing down between coats. The rubbing-down hits the high areas between the shallow grooves left by a cambered blade, taking off the finish altogether on those areas........
I wonder if Ray has this problem with a cambered smoothing blade if , say, a shellac or a varnish finish is to be used? I use oil finishes myself and never rub down between coats, except with a lint-free cloth, so the problem never manifested to me personally.
Lataxe
Edited 12/21/2008 11:43 am ET by Lataxe
L,
"I wonder if Ray has this problem with a cambered smoothing blade if , say, a shellac or a varnish finish is to be used? I use oil finishes myself and never rub down between coats, except with a lint-free cloth, so the problem never manifested to me personally.
I never have any problems with any aspect of woodworking or finishing, as I am a Very Special Craftsman, and as long as I can keep my dues current in the VSC ####'n, (where I am ####'t ####'n ####) I'm alright. That, and the very slight amt of camber I have on my olde fashioned smoother, and the scraping (where needed) and sanding I typically do before finishing show surfaces, keeps my chances of cutting thru the finish on them pretty low.
Ray
derek,
Well, I guess I am just thick as a brick.
I get it that the degree of camber must be greater, as the the bed angle gets lower, to present the same curved edge to the wood.
What I don't understand is your assertion that with a higher grind angle, more metal must be removed to hone.
With a 30 degree bevel, the width of the bevel is two times the blade's thickness. As the bevel gets steeper, the amount of metal you are removing, by grinding or honing, seems to me to be less, not more, as you approach 90 degrees, or one times the thickness.
I can't get my head wrapped around the apparent difficulty of grinding sufficient curve into the primary bevel of a high bevel angle, or of honing it riding on the hollow grind. I guess it will make itself apparent to me when I am giving it a try.
Thanks,
Ray
Ray,Until Philip comes along and gives us the skinny let me see if I got this right and he can correct me:>Refering to BU smoother, various configurations to produce a high attack angle,
>lower bed angle coupled with a steeper bevel angle
Should be a tiny bit stiffer. The edge area gets thick sooner so is stiffer. As I under stand it from what I have learned here recently and an article I will post and have posted many times (which is quite excellent in my actual experience ) the clearance under the blade is plenty to make cuts in wood even on a 12° bed. Stiff is good because when making that final finishing pass tends to prevent chatter in the very hard woods when the blade is less than perfectly sharp.http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=2091>higher bed angle plus shallower bevel angle.
Advantage here is can use more radius to blade and makes a better plane for taking deeper cuts for flattening the work. Less stiffness not big deal because will plane out any chatter with subsequent smoothing planes.> is a steeper blade bevel better performing than a steeper clearance angle? Or is this moot, given that the blade is supported to its edge?Not mute but subtle. I found in the LN little block plane that the steeper bed angle, ~20° was easier to grip and has better balance. I think Philip was saying there are problems of clearance between tote and end of blade that causes him to use one bed angle over another but I am getting to the limits of my understanding/experience here.roc
Edited 12/20/2008 8:53 pm by roc
Thanks roc,
Ray
Roc,
You are on a roll.I am learning. YOu are just a long way in front of me when it comes to using hand tools.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,>a long way in front of me when it comes to using hand tools.well if that is true you must be a long way in front of me when it comes to using power tools. I have not made much using PTs.>on a rollyah must be the effects of all the chocolate I been shooting up the last month or so. Jabber, jabber, jabber. Actually not that much but high grade, high octane Bissinger'shttp://www.bissingers.com/category/detail/1458.htmlhttp://www.bissingers.com/category/detail/2575.htmlMy partner got them for me. My big splurge for the holidays. In the past I bought expensive cognac etc. Am cutting back this year. And I feel better.Some times I think I am doing wood working just so I can make jigs and tune the metal tools because I really get into that !It was a huge mile stone for me when I actually sharpened a hand saw so it cut straight down and not curving to one side or the other !Ok I enjoy the wood working a lot also but tuning those saws was a big deal for me.Now if I can just learn to type less and use the saws more I will be ok.Balance. I need balance. But I am stuck in Wild Wild West USA and have no one to talk to about this stuff. Mostly power tools people here and not into the classic furniture. I would do better living in the East for this but my partner will not move back there and I enjoy the place I live quite a lot other wise. I am quite blessed all in all.Glad you knot heads put up with me though !roc
Edited 12/21/2008 12:17 am by roc
>smoothing endgrainMy experience smoothing end grain, and I did this a lot on my purple heart work bench, is to wet the end grain. That makes a huge difference in easy of planing, the blade does not dull nearly as fast and the results are professional looking (no chatter marks).Chatter marks happen when the blade is approaching dull and you take that last swipe to make it perfect and it chatters and it is worse than before that last cut. It isn't so much the blade chattering in the plane as it is the whole plane bouncing over the surface.People here are telling me denatured alcohol is the way to go rather than water. I have read paint thinner works also. I used water because I did not know any better. I am not a fan of fumes and my shop is a no windows shop. Dumb situation but ideal otherwise. Yep I got all the lights on during the day same as at midnight. Can't wait to get a shop with lots of windows but no time soon.If blade too wide on end grain then radius the blade. I was thinking the other day that in an extreme situation if a huge amount of radius was needed it is possible to grind the outer edges back a lot leaving a section of blade say 1-1/4 " wide and radius that to like four inch radius and then you have a blade nearly as aggressive as a scrub plane. I said it was extreme.Have a good time with which ever plane you decide on.roc
Roc,
You mention your pain because: "....but there is a ton of slop in the mechanism". There is only one answer. You must look to new Zealand, where planes are made with just a degree or three 'tween the back and forth modes of the adjuster. What joy to also be able to make adjustments that are so precise.
Go on, go on, go on; you know you want one (Mrs Doyle of Craggy Island).
Lataxe the addict.
Some weeks back I started this thread with the same questions you have about LN vs LV BU Jack plane.
I purchased the LV Low Angle Jack and having used it the last few days, I am delighted with it. I get smoother cuts with the LV BU Jack than I can with the LN No 4 bevel down smoother.
The LV does not have the finish or build quality of the LN, but in my shop how it cuts wins over pretty every time.
If you have other specific question about the LV BU Jack, I will be happy to try and answer.
Thanks, I've pretty much decided to make the same decision you, so don't think I'll have too many more questions. Maybe let me know what you're using yours for would be fun as time goes by, might open my mind up to the range of possibilities . . . I wanted to get one after getting real frustrated smoothing endgrain cuttingboards with a BD, but I want to use it as an all around workhorse. What made you decide to get one? Here I go with the questions again . . .Brian
Brian, I use mine primarily to smooth the faces of curly cherry boards. Nothing I tried with the LN No 4 smoother worked for me. But this LV BU Jack with a 38 degree blade produced surfaces as smooth at glass in these difficult grained curly cherry boards. To say the least I am absolutely elated with mine. I also plan to use mine to smooth the end grain on cherry boards, but will do that with a 25 degree blade in it. My understanding from all I have read is that the 25 degree blade is the one to use on end grain and the 38 and 50 degree blades are for smoothing work. My thoughts so far is if the 38 degree blade works this good in smoothing, the 50 degree blade must be absolutely awesome.
I also like the totes on the LV much better than the LN. The front tote puts the fingers in just the right grip for lifting the plane at the end of the cut and the rear tote is for me much more comfortable to use with the straighter incline. If the LV had the fit and finish of the LN, one would have the best of both worlds.
Lastly, the weight of the LV and its wider stance and great balance, as compared to the LN, gives it a real solid, just right feel. I personally believe that the LN is too light and so they do not give its weight......the only one of their planes not to have a disclosed weight.
Open for addt'l questions.
Nope no Charlie here
Still you have to admit that was a funny reply
Mel,
How can I be expected to think up posts to get Ed spitting and hooting if I'm busy winding you up to make you tock and tick? Do I have to do everything? (A phrase I have nicked from the daughters, who when young thought I was a most unreasonable fellow for suggesting they might wash a dish or two).
Anyway, Ed is in one of his calm periods so we had best let him rest so he can summon up the energy for a swipe at one of us lesser mortals concerning some unapproved-by-Ed thing we do (the list is very long). I am thinking of buying a Festool domino to play with. Perhaps this will provide Ed an opportunity to at least curl a lip?
And don't forget, Mel: that domino will immediately make me a better woodworker. I think your new President should make a gift of one to every citizen, at taxpayers expense. They can then all become Great Woodworkers overnight. Huzzah!
Lataxe
PS When are you getting your new Blighty-like National Health Sevice? And when are the railways to be nationalised? Free travel for healthy folk at last!
Lataxe,
when you get the Festool Domino, let me know. Heck, if it will make me a better woodworker, I might buy one too. But for that price, I'd rather have half of a Marcou plane. I don't pay a lot of attention to the political promises of presidential candidates. Barack is a nice guy, but the treasury is not filled with money to set up a lot of new programs. I guess we will have to add more printers at the treasury so the paper money can flow faster.Mel (who would not make it in politics)Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Derek,
The knobs were easy -they just came off my Wadkin.
The thing does look like a shocker but it grew on me: far preferable in use to a #91/2 format.
Can you suggest any way to improve the appearance but still retain function? (No room at front for a bun thing-which still is not that great to hold, no room at rear for a normal tote.Tried a Krenovular lump at rear- not good for heavy planes. Too low for side handles a la Harley Davidson-and I draw the line at those anyway (;))
Philip Marcou
Not that you asked me...
Can you suggest any way to improve the appearance but still retain function? (No room at front for a bun thing-which still is not that great to hold, no room at rear for a normal tote...)
Reduce the thickness of the lever cap.
Reduce the thickness of the adjuster block.
Use a bun--the cove provides a good place for the forefinger to press against one-handed.
The rear infill could emulate the bump of a 9 1/2 cap. You could use a larger diameter "wheel" adjuster that the top portion is above the iron and the bottom inlet into the infill. However, that would probably mean you would need to have a removable lever cap.
The rear knob if kept could be a lower profile and a bit broader to nestle in the palm if retained. This, in conunction with a coved area of a bun could be comfy to use.
Use the lightest stable wood for an infill you can.
And...use the thinnest iron possible. Between the bedding and the lever cap, there ain't gonna be flex on the iron.
Take care, Mike
Hi Philip
Mike got in before me, so all I can say is that I echo his ideas.
Here are a few visual comparisons ..
View Image
The HNT Gordon ...
View Image
View Image
The Brese infill I am building (this one off Ron's website. Mine is all steel) ..
View Image
Here is a higher sided version ..
View Image
and Gary Blum's block plane ...
View Image
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 12/17/2008 7:09 am ET by derekcohen
Derek & Mike,
Call me a Marcou fan-boy but I like the knobby job, inclusive of its thick iron and chunk-cap. Them others you picture certainly look nice but they lack the full gripper-set and also the proper adjuster. (I know, hammer practice will make me an expert at bang-adjustment in only 38 tries).
Perhaps that back knob might be a bit more squat and wide.
But - how does it feel in use? The Marcou needs to send that item to me for a comprehensive test of its ergonomicals. The charge for this service is co-incidentally exactly equivalent to the price of the plane.
Lataxe
Mike ,
If I did most of those suggestions it would have the characteristics of a 91/2 which I don't like, but thanks for your input.
Looking at it in detail:the cap is removable and is only thick at the back where the screw is- I could scale it down .
I toyed with a bun and may re-visit it, but there is a problem with space at the mouth end-and shaping buns means hand work.I still like the fact that a knob gives a positive grip.If I made it much shorter it might be better ...
The diameter of the rear knob is just under the width of the plane-if I made it wider it would mean that that the plane could not be used on its side-no major failing for sure, but as it is the shape does fit the palm of a medium hand well if grasped from the top-but I found it better to use between thumb and first finger with the flat of the palm against the rear of the sole, especially if used one handed.The second version I made had a larger diameter knob- looked outrageous.
The wood I used there is Afzelia Qaunzensis- one of the most stable timbers in the world , going on figures I have seen in books.The "infill" is only 10mm thick and just a spacer really and not fixed to the sides.
The iron comes from 3mm thick stock and ends up at about 2.8mm .
The reason for the thickness of the adjuster block is that it is the same piece as the bed and extends right to the end of the sole at the mouth and I wanted it to be thick enough to capture the adjuster nut when screwed in . I have read about planes where the lip on the nut galls in that groove on the blade because the nut has enough play to move out of alignment. I could well reduce it to 10mm thickness and this would support that nut on two sides rather than three and still be fine.Philip Marcou
PHILIP, how about the fatter/flatter rear knob for us blokes with bigger than medium size meat hooks that has 1/4 of it's perimeter cut to a flat that does not exceed the side width. In normal vertical use the flat faces forward, but to lay over for shooting just loosen the knob bolt, rotate the flat to the bottom side, re-tighten and bob's yer uncle. Thought of my Millers Falls corner brace with a ratchet arm and a flat on the rear knob so as to allow holes very close to a joist or header. Paddy
Paddy,
Thanks, that is one I haven't tried and will do so. (Imagine a small plane overshadowed by a huge mushroom (;))Philip Marcou
Philp,
That seems a very good idea that Paddy's had - a rear knob that is perhaps elliptical, which not only allows it to be twisted so it's inbord of the sides but also gives a better control than a round knob, as an ellipse cannot turn in one's grip so easily as can a round thang.
Perhaps boltholes with blanking bolts could also be made in the sides, so that knob could be mounted there for shooting purposes - a mini M20! If the knob were elliptical, it could act something like one o' them hotdogs that Derek likes on a shooting plane.
Lataxe
Phillip,
Is the majority of the sole wood? If you want to try something a bit different, do you want to experiment with a wood impregnated with a plastic resin? Ping me off list if interested and might also be something Philly may be interested in.
Tony
Looks very useful Philip. That lever cap is " strong like bull " !When I bought my first LN little block it was the low angle adjustable. I could hardly use it. Fingers all cramped up, weird weight balance. Had to use both hands. Coarse I was trying to do stuff it wasn't really designed for like flattening on a small chunk of wood. That was many years ago and a long story.I even sketched a way to put a strap on it over the top of my hand to relieve the weird grip.Then I bought the same plane in the higher angle. Much better for grip/balance.Depends on what one is using it for. Pick up and bevel an edge and put it down no problem and lack of big knobs easier to use at many varied sitchyations. But if going to hold it a while and go to town for a lot of cuts then Philip plane just the thing to have.If it is weird but works I say weird is good. Like tight bicycle shorts. After about thirty miles you don't think how weird they look you just wish you had some on cause that saddle sore is not fun and you got twenty more miles to get home!Philip,
I tried to work in the word ludicrous into that post but could not. I'll keep trying.
I "launched" my first L-N low angle block plane across the shop while planing with it when I first purchased it. It flew straight and level for a few feet but then rapidly lost altitude, rolled uncontrollably left and adopted a steep, unrecoverable nose-down attitude just before impact with the concrete floor. I'm happy to report that close examination of the mishap plane and the crash site revealed that the mishap was 100 percent non-catastrophic. The mishap plane was overhauled and placed into full-mission-capable (FMC) availabilty status within a mere few hours.I've had that plane for about eight years now, I believe, maybe nine. I think we worked out the ergonomic issues within the first 3 days."Yes, but what's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weak-minded." - Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove
Dear Lonesome,Nice description of "event" ! I never dropped mine; knock on wood. I worked out the grip issue as well. Bought one o' these.http://www.veritastools.com/Products/Page.aspx?p=392still use the LN but only with a big stick on velcro strip on my palm.Nah I'm kindin'PS: I appreciate your Augustus McCrae quote the more I see it.roc
>I appreciate your Augustus McCrae quote<Well it is sort of an anti-herd-instinct quote, roc,....but,...your opinions are important to the management,...yada, yada, yada,..."Yes, but what's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weak-minded." - Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove
"I've had that plane for about eight years now, I believe, maybe nine."
It will be AFH expired by now.
As for the prang: you should have been court marshalled for irresponsible flying and misuse of equipment.Philip Marcou
Roc,
I don't look weird in tight bicycle shorts. Oh no - I look quite alluring. Despite the hoots of laughter from small boys, I know it is so. Yes it is.
Lataxe, who's glutemus is definitely maximus.
>hoots of laughterWell you bring mirth and joy to a fellow human being. AndTHEN you get someone to chase down on your mountain bike.Who says God didn't make a perfect world !Yah the old energy rises when there is something down the road I think I can catch and pass. Don't tell me you aint the same way.roc whose habit it is when a dog tries to chase me on my bike to stop and then chase the dog all the way back into his yard and around and around the house. Hey dog I thought you wanted to play.One that was a frequent repeat offender I chased up the stairs (on foot) to the door of his master's apartment on the third floor.ha ha ha ah ha ha that was a hoot. Dumb $hit: )PPPS: I just noticed somethiing odd: the time stamp on the edit bellow shows after 4 pm and the time stamp on the origin of mypost is 2:11 pm . It is 2:30pm where I am (wild wild west USA) ? ? ?Edited 12/16/2008 4:25 pm by roc
Edited 12/16/2008 4:39 pm by roc
Roc,
If I were doing a lot of woodwork now I would keep that one for myself.
I had a lot of trouble with it because I thought that it would be a simple matter to merely upscale from those minis- it is not the case.
You should see pictures I took of the first and second versions...
As it happens that was the third version and when complete I told myself that no matter how well it worked or convenient to use it was, if it still looked okay in the morning it would survive- it just made it.
I also think that typical block planes (eg Stanley 91/2) are over used / used for things not suited. I can't think of anything they do that can't be more easily done by a #2 or #3 size which also has the type of tote which is hard to beat.
At age 12 I informed Father Christmas that I needed a plane. He delivered a #130 double ended item because he was told that this was suitable for beginners. Very bad advice. I took it back and bought the British Stanley #41/2 which I still have today.Philip Marcou
pharmachippe,Some day I will learn to just shut up and read posts especially when they are not directed to me but today is not that day. I keep sending people to this FWW article because it is a good one and my empirical planing has born it out for me:http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=2091Doesn't mean I don't use an old nasty scrub plane with a sole that isn't flat and a back bevel when I have to though.
j,
Your question sounds straightforward, but I believe is is the wrong way to approach woodworking. There are a lot of problems with it.
One problem is: How would you evaluate the answers that you receive? How do you know if any of your respondents are associated with LV or LN? ((I am dead serious about this.))
Suppose that a respondent said that he liked the LN better than the LV or vice versa, how do you know that he is competent enough to give you useful information? Suppose he is a hack? We have some of them on Knots.
Suppose you were a golfer and asked the question: Should I buy Brand A or Brand B clubs. I would advise you do an analysis of Tiger Woods. You would realize that what makes Tiger good, is not his choice of clubs, but the fact that he practices more than anyone else, and he stays focusses on THE REAL GOAL -- getting the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible, and not irrelevancies such as what color shirt to wear, ....
Get back to basics: think about the GREAT woodworkers of past centuries. Think about the Goddards and the Townsends. They didn't have anything as good as we have today, and the furniture they put out was VERY VERY GOOD. If they could build that furniture without LNs or LVs, what makes you think that LNs or LVs will allow you to make great furniture. BELIEVE ME. THEY WON'T. Practice will.
There was a great thread a few years ago in which someone asked which dovetail saw they should use. One of the greats here on Knots said he uses a Gents saw. He is a professional. Tage Frid used a bowsaw. A lot of great woodworkers use Dozukis. The idea that an Adria or a Lie Nielsen or any other brand of dovetail saw will make you competent is sheer idiocy. PRACTICE WILL INCREASE YOUR SKILLS. YET ANOTHER EXPENSIVE TOOL WILL MERELY LIGHTEN YOUR POCKETBOOK.
Why do some woodworkers make phenomenal furniture without using metal planes? The answer is that wood planes work just fine.
If a competent woodworker made two pieces of furniture, one using only LN planes and one using only LV planes, do you think anyone could tell which was which? Do you think that the woodworker himself could tell? I doubt it.
I took a lesson from Rob Cosman last Saturday. It was given in the local Woodcraft store. Rob had some of his tools, but had to rely on the bench and the vices and other tools that were available. He did just fine with what was available. Do you think that he could have done that if he wasn't extremely competent.
The more I learn about woodworking, the less important I find that tools are. I have had a long discussion with Derek Cohen. He finds my ideas close to those of professional woodworkers. They don't worry about keeping up with the latest tools. They focus on making good furniture as effectively and efficiently as possible. It is the hobbyists who focus on chasing the latest changes in hand tools.
I have listened to people fall on the LV or the LN side of things. Derek favors LV. Rob Cosman favors LN. So I ask you. SO WHAT? The best woodworker I know doesn't use either of those brands. Instead, he uses old planes.
Do some thinking.
Don't worry about who likes what brand of planes. Taking advice from people on Knots can be VERY VERY tricky. Averaging the responses of a bunch of people that you don't know is not a way to make a proper decision.
Why not think about getting some nice planes from Larry Williams (lwilliams). Go to his website:
http://www.planemaker.com/products.html
You might be better off with some of these than what you are thinking of. I don't know how much money you have. Why not check into the planes of Philip Marcou or Karl Holtey?
OR, (and here is my real recommendation) just make great furniture with whatever planes and other tools are close by. Take some courses, read some books, try out ideas in your shop. Focus on making a MASTERPIECE of furniture every three months. When you get good at that, then make a masterpiece every month. After you do that for a few years, check and see which tools you used, and publish a list. Everyone who is hoping that buying a "magic set of tools" to increase their competency will buy every every tool on your list.
Hope you enjoy reading my message as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please understand that my advice is worth exactly what you paid for it. If you ever want to see shallow thinking, ask the question "Should I buy Brand A or Brand B. If you want some deeper thinking, talk (in person) to a few professionals.
Have fun.
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel, not to argue, but if your thesis holds, I can't trust what you say either. My approach to life and woodworking is to take what others offer based on their experience and see if I can benefit from their experience....while at the same time evaluating what they offer to see if it makes sense.
No one has a monopoly on brains.....so I try to learn from every post I read. I see too many posts that are made with condesending attitudes that turn me and others off immediately. I see most of these on Knots......much more than on other forums.
I appreciate your thoughts and the time you spent in responding to my post.
Mr. Phelps,
I agree with your message. Why should you trust me? You really shouldn't. Others gave you an answer to your question.
I asked you to think about whether you asked the right question.
I gave you some interesting questions to ask yourself. I didn't give you one interesting piece of information because I have said it so often on Knots. Here it is. On EBay, used LN planes generally go for very close to current full retail price. LV planes do not. So the life cycle cost of a LN plane is zero. They are "free" in a life cycle sense. If you could buy two different brands of automobiles, but you knew you could always sell one brand for the current retail, and both were about equivalent in "goodness", why not buy the one that is a liquid investment. The most important point I brought up was that the great furniture makers of the past and the current professionals don't use Low Angle Jack planes. THey don't and didn't need to. If that is the case, why would anyone consider a Low Angle Jack? I know. I know. I have heard all of the talk that is designed to get people to buy the things, but ......What about Krenov? When he needed a plane, he made one. I have started that too. He was a pretty good furniture maker, don't you think? IF you make your own planes (and it is not very difficult) you can make them to fit your hand. Besides they are cheap. Use the extra money to vacation in Hawaii. I highly recommend a book "Making and mastering wood planes" by David Fink. He is a student of Krenov.Have fun in your search for the perfect answer to which plane to buy. I think the answer lies in "Pyramid Power" which the Egyptians knew of long ago. If you work under a pyramid shaped object, your power is greatly increased. There is no need to study or to practice. Just make a pyramid out of wood or cardboard and hang it over your workbench. WATCH YOUR CAPABILITY INCREASE. I will bet that it will increase your capability as much as buying a low angle jack.Have fun. Hope I made you think. As long as you really think about what you are going to do, I don't care what decision you make.MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
>current professionals don't use Low Angle Jack planesAs Lataxe said "What . . . are ya h i i i i i i i i g h ?"http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/Workshop/WorkshopPDF.aspx?id=2759http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ProjectsAndDesign/ProjectsAndDesignPDF.aspx?id=2764If nothing else Low Angle planes are easier to sharpen and change blades, the throat opening is way, way, way, did I mention way, faster and easier to change to adapt to a situation.I know you know all this already I mention it only for the OPs info. 9619 I bet you are a closet low angle user. You like to keep up conservative appearances but when at home and the doors are locked and the drapes are drawn I bet you like to party with the 12°s ! Out comes the Jack. OOOOHHHH YAAAAAHHH ! ! !The low angle is there and it is just too easy to pick it up and take a swipe. Or two. And then the bedrocks are gathering dust and you got a stack of blades and you are hogging off wood and then finishing . . . all with the one jack . . . click, slide and go.
Come on . . . you're not foolin" any one !I have never understood why one would want to dink with the chip breaker and put up with that sloppy blade adjuster on the bedrock style except that we got duped into buying that silliness before we knew any better and now got to justify it.Sorry I just had to . . .But you know if you need to talk . . . if you need a support group we are here for you. We have all gone down that "easy road" at least once . . . it is not easy to recover your old life with the back bevels and fussy chip breakers ( oh ****** I dropped that *******big short screw in the shavings again ) and the disassembling and "where did I put that screw driver that fit those big screw slots to change the throat" but if you are "dedicated" and "disciplined" it is possible to get that old life back ! ! ! The right life. The respectable life. A life with bevel downs that you can be proud of.signed
counselor by day / jack 12° er by night.Edited 12/9/2008 8:33 am by roc
Edited 12/9/2008 8:35 am by roc
Christopher Schwarz on smoothers ..
All that said, the bevel-up planes are extraordinary tools for eliminating tear-out. Because the bevel faces up, you only have to hone the cutter to a higher angle to raise the cutting pitch of the plane. This is a tremendous game-changing advantage and is the reason that I really like the bevel-up tools and keep one handy that's set with a high cutting angle (I like 62°).If you work with exotics or curly woods, I wouldn't even bother with the traditional bevel-down tools. Sorry, but that's how I feel. I'd go straight to the bevel-up models. You'll be happy.
... and on BU Jacks ...
One of the most common questions I get here at the magazine goes something like this: "I'm a beginner. I want to buy one premium handplane, and I want it to do the most tasks possible because I cannot afford a whole set of tools. Which tool should I buy?"The answer is to buy one of the bevel-up jack planes. Yes, there are trade-offs (see the section above on the bevel-up smoothing planes), but these bevel-up tools are extraordinarily useful, versatile, adaptable and easy to use.If you buy a couple extra irons, you can have a longish smoothing plane with a high cutting angle. You can have a shortish jointer plane that is good for jointing edges up to 36" long. And you can put a straight iron in the tool and use it for shooting the ends of boards. No other plane that I own can do all three things like the bevel-up jack planes.The one thing the tool doesn't do very well is to work as a fore plane. I haven't had much luck putting a heavily cambered iron in the tool and taking a super-thick shaving. Perhaps there's some geometry at work there. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
(re the last paragraph, Christopher had not read my article on cambering BU blades. Still, I agree, horses for courses - I prefer a BD blade as a foreplane)
Regards from Perth
Derek
roc,
I don't know if I'd call myself a current professional. Not au courant, for sure, maybe passe` at the most, more likely really over the hill. Has-been, that's it.
But, 'deed and be hammed, I cannot for the life of me understand the fol-de-rol over the latest and greatest offerings from the two big plane houses, whatever they be this month. It reminds me frankly of the gun industry's endless outpouring of either the most lethal personal defense handgun, or load, or flattest shooting varmint caliber, or longest range big game cartridge. Everyone knows that there are two or three calibers that are sufficient for the needs of personal defense, large and small game hunting, and yet the search for the latest, the biggest, and bestest goes on, and on, and on. First it was magnum this or that, then belted bigger magnums then super short magnums. Why? The manufacturers need something to sell that will entice not only a new buyer, but convince the past customer to return yet again..
Now of course I understand that different folks have different wants and needs. Thus the popularity of horseraces and elections. And folks pottering around the garden shed making whatever takes their fancy have a certain leeway that those of us building for a livelihood do not. Even so, I don't understand the agonizing over the decision, the soul-searching that buying a new plane apparently engenders. Like the looks of that new LN BU #5 7/64? Go ahead and get one. No doubt they are all good. Get one of each, and give away or sell the ones you don't like. Just because Derek, Mel, or roc likes this one, does not improve the odds that it will fit my paw (I'm left handed), or suit my cack-handed technique, or the circumstances I work in.
Me, I like wooden planes. The adjuster in my smoother has no slop at all (neener-neener-nee-ner). I adjust it by whacking it with a mallet. I don't mind the cap iron, I've been told they dampen any tendency to chatter by putting pressure on the blade near the edge, and like many older workers have grown comfortable with what I have been using lo these many years. I've cracked at least three metal bodied planes by dropping them on the concrete floor of my shop, or out the window (I said I was left handed) where I was fitting trim. Wooden planes don't crack open when you drop them. I find them less tiring to use for long periods of time- they push easier, and are lighter in weight. Others will like the greater mass of a bulky steel and brass behemoth. Maybe they are needed for those pesky aussie hardwoods, that waterfall bubinga, but I don't work that stuff. Maybe you do. Maybe plane makers send stuff to you gratis. Crotch walnut, rowed mahogany, or curly maple is as exotic as I get on anything like a regular basis.
Whew I feel better now. What was in that coffee anyway?
Ray
Ray,
Now that is a proper curmudgeon post - a bloke snurkled up in the dustiest corner o' his shed wittering on about new fangled thangs and how these young folk are just so, well, fol de rolly!
Mel is trying to be curmudgeon as some sort of new hobby. However, he cannot get the details right and merely comes over as one of those strident pantomime dames who is confused about who said what and the meaning of it all. Please go over there and give him a lesson. Mind, he seems to lack the curmudegeon gene so I fear your tips and examples will go for nothing and he will continue to speak only "schoolboy" curmudgeon at best.
****
Gad! Folks trying to get a sraight answer here these days always seem to have to wade through a field of barking old fusspots. I yam going to write a piece of software to strain out the fusspotting and nattering. Of course, this may mean I filter out myself!
Lataxe, who also has no jack plane but is looking about for one.
Lataxe,
'Druther be a curmudgeon than a popinjay.
Ray
I may have to go shopping soon... gasp.... for some wooden planes. My shoulder is screwed-up and literally hot to the touch and puffy with fluid. Bursitis or something. Hurts. A lot.Running a No. 7 is like having a fireplace poker inside the joint.Maybe there's a Felder in my future. Hell, that oughta do it.
Dear Chap,
"I may have to go shopping soon... gasp.... for some wooden planes. My shoulder is screwed-up and literally hot to the touch and puffy with fluid. Bursitis or something. Hurts. A lot."
I feel no pain, myself, but I suggest that your condition would improve if you stayed out of the shower and or used a smaller plane such as the one pictured.
Felder?? These are expensive, you know.Take an aspirin and the thought will go away.Get in the shop and do some work.
Happy Christmas.
Philip Marcou
philip,
You rogue!
Miniatures. That's the ticket. I've always enjoyed making miniature furniture. How much more fun to have a mini plane to work 'em with.
Ray
edit, ooh, that mini chest came out a little pixillated didn't it?
Edited 12/10/2008 9:06 am ET by joinerswork
Philip and joinerswork,Mini plane and Mini block front.I don't care what all the guys say over on the other woodworker's chat room. You two CAN make cool stuff !: )
roc
Philip,
Hoy there, ye rascal! That is my wee item you are offering to Charlie, who eschews proper tools in favour of blunt blue ones, so would only throw that little gem into his bin with a hiss of mudgeon; or perhaps thrust a stick into it and use it as a hammer to adjust his new wooden plane, made of an old tree root he has been gnawing on, with a slice of tin can for the blade.
******
Any road up, let us return to jack planes. As I have become obsessed with state-of-the-art planes I hereby demand a 15 inch BU Marcou with a 12 - 15 degree bed and an adjustable gob. Let it weight 1 metric ton and laugh in the face of bubinga or even lignum vitae burrs. (I have never seen a lignum vitae burr but you never know what you'll come across when rooting here and there for free wood).
Of course, an LV or an LN will no doubt perform very well on nearly everything. But since I don't want to hear about that (fingers in ears - lah lah lah) and would never get used to their light weight, please consider that Marcou jack. My lust will be satiated (for a bit) and Charlie will have another opportunity to sneer whilst secretly wondering if he really ought to treat his flabby old shoulder right and buy it a proper plane to wield; or even a sharpening jig.
Lataxe, completely addicted to super-planes.
Sire,
Fear not , it was merely offered as a placebo and see- a magical calming effect was brought about, the patient now being stabilised.
Yours was the real one that followed, vastly improved by lengthening and fitting an adjuster.As for The Working Man's Jack Plane-this has virtually left the drawing boards-see picture, and it will come to life in due course.You specifications are most practical and I would confirm that a 15 degree bed is superior from a technical point of view when compared with a 12 degree bed.Naturally it will stop at nothing, be painless in operation , leave the smoothest of surfaces and be most versatile and useful in the hands of the Knowledgeable. You might consider sending one of your early ones to Brother Ray in his dotage so that his clicking shoulders get some relief. (But I suspect that the real cause of his shoulder ailment is that Indian Motorsickle- the handle bars are too far apart).
Mention of sharpening jigs has prompted me to show my very own Grinding Fixture which enables the rapid surface grinding of any angle ending in either zero or five within the range 20 to 50 degrees since it has positive stops. Philip Marcou
Philip,
It is always a relief to know that one's supplier has not run short of commodity and may even have an exciting new drug, I mean plane, to profer. Also, there is that sharpening jig, which will shurely excite a certain fellow lurking about, in one way or another. I believe I can hear grinding now (of large yellow fangs not yet drawn) rather than of a plane blade............
However, I must point out that you have failed to reach a proper standard of sartorial elegance at the top end of your apparel. Whilst a workshop in which engineering is done might allow a certain degree of lattitude, one's headgear should nevertheless avoid the pointy-headed look, in case some wag should happen by and affix a propeller to it's crown, as a jape.
Here are some suggestions concerning a more elegant style, although those shown are most appropriate when wandering the countryside. However, you could merely pull down the flaps or the brim and they would be quite secure even as you engineer them gubbins.
Lataxe, a poppinjay, especially in the hat department.
Lataxe,
Whilst your striking resemblance toView Image is quite becoming to you, might I suggest that you refrain from wearin the ladywifes trewsers.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 12/11/2008 8:52 am ET by KiddervilleAcres
Philip,
I double checked your figures in that sketchbook. I'm pretty sure the figure near the bottom, on the left ought to read thirty-nine and forty-eleven 'steents. Believe me when I tell you, it'll make all the difference in L's latest order.
'Taint the handlebars on that sickle that cause the joint difficulties. The kick-starter has been known to take revenge on a knee tho, from time to time.
Ray
TTM,
Oh sure, blame the tools, gotta buy something new....
Continuing to lean against the wood burning stove in your chair as it changes from summer to winter can give you the same symptoms in your shoulder. :)I was over at Plymouth Plantation a couple of months ago and spent most of the day in the workshop. The guys making chairs split the logs into 40" long pieces, shaped with axe and then rounded with a 24" wood jointer. Just a stop was used on the bench with a small 'V' for the other end. Very little force was required to plane it smooth and then onto the lathe. He said it took him 6 months to acquire the stop only skill.
B,
What timber do those chairmakers use, and is it still wet?Philip Marcou
philip,"What timber do those chairmakers use, and is it still wet?"They were using white oak, still wet, quarter sawn...that gets purchased in log form at $.60 cents a board foot. He says it's pretty much going to dry as is so why wait and it's a lot easier to work. They make all the furniture for the 1620's ish village...his jointer is from a 1540's design.If you have a chance.."Peter and the Box" episode, http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/schedule/video.html
Edited 12/11/2008 6:08 am ET by BG
TTM,
My shoulders go "clickety-click" when I push a plane. Usually, no pain, but every once in a while I get a catch in the left one that hurts like the mischief for a couple days. Splitting firewood with that 8# maul will usually make it act up too. He11 getting old ain't it?
Ray
Yowza, it is hell...
Roc,
Enjoyed your post. Sounds like you had a good time writing it. I spent a day and a half with Rob Cosman last weekend. You should have heard him rail against low angle Jacks and low angle jointers. It was fun to hear. He likes the extra heft of the 4 1/2, 5 1/2, and 8. Why do people need planes anyway? All you need is a chisel attached to an inclined stick. :-)
Have fun. Don't take my, yourself or these posts too seriously. It's bad for the heart.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
>Rob Cosman rail against low angle Jacks and low angle jointersThe boy doesn't work bubinga and purple heart ! !yah I know you guys are tired of hearing bubinga and purple heart. I can't stand it my self.I am looking forward to moving on to them cherry tables and walnut chests of drawers ! ! ! !Can't say enough good about Rob Cosman dovetailing DVDs I really enjoy and learn a bunch from those.later
Roc,
I also thought the Rob Cosman DVDs on dovetails were great. He has a good way with people.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Derek, I have read your review of the LV BU Jack a couple of times and thank you for your time and info contained in it and for your current response. About 95% of the wood I use is cherry, with poplar for unseen internals and a very occasional use of hard maple. I am interested in using this plane for a heavy BU smoother so was excited to see you nail down that which would cause you to opt for the LV.
I have limited experience using hand planes tho I have been working wood for about 35 years using power jointers, thickness planers, orbital sanders, sandpaper and scrapers for smoothing. Then I purchased LN's small adjustable mouth block plane and its use has me looking at quieter more dust free ways to work Cherry lumber into beautiful furniture. I am retired and spend many hours in my woodshop and I think hand planes will raise the level of my enjoyment.
Thanks again for your encouraging way of sharing your experience and expertise.
Mel
I know I'm just a hack, but I use my LN low angle jack all the time. In fact, the only plane I use more frequently is a block plane.
Jeff
Jeff,
If the low angle Jack works for you, AND YOU ACTUALLY USE IT, then you are all set. Nothing else counts.Important thing is to have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
Are you bored in retirement? Perhaps you are on some of those weird "meds" you have over there and it has changed your personality due to the hallucinogenic components? It is one thing to pester the likes of me or Charlie with your warbling (I for one take great pleasure in Mel-warbles) but why are you buzzing lads who just want some straightforward information on a straightforward question?
Do I have to come over there and give you detention? (I may send matron with a purge instead).
Headmaster Lataxe, drawing his eyebrows together at the naughty boy.
Lataxe,You always seem to like curmudgeons. What is the matter? Are you getting weaker? Now that Charles has been defanged, the only two curmudgeons left around are Napie and myself.Given the ideas that you espouse, I can not imagine your trying to rein me in. David, I want everyone to be just like you -- a believer that tools make the real difference, not the skills. I have seen the furniture of the Great Makers of past centuries, and I have seen some of yours. I have seen mine. Well, the Goddards and the Townsends made much better furniture with much poorer tools. What does that tell you? It tells you that your focus on tools rather than skills is highly misplaced. IF you could emulate great furniture makers, or a bunch of rich old hobbyist yahoos with lots of LN and LV planes, which would you prefer?I prefer to refer woodworkers to the websites of people like Rob Millard, Ray Pine, Richard Jones, etc and to museums which house some of the great furniture of past great furniture makers, and to ask them to think about what it took to make that stuff. Believe me, the answer does not lie in buying a LV or a LN Low Angle Jack.Sic transit gloria,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
mel ,
That is a bitter post not becoming of you, not true to character and it also contains two errors: one of them being your assumption that Charles has been "defanged" (assuming he had teeth)-just because he wished someone here "Happy Christmas" does not mean he is now benign.(;)
I also feel that Lataxe, along with most others here, has ####well balanced focus on both his woodworking hobby and his tools and machines.Whilst you may be fractionally correct in believing that some professionals, masters, Great Tradesmen and other legends in their own time don't have sophisticated tools or machines, if you look you will find that they certainly do have high standards on the "way things should be".
I suspect that either the 5000 marathon has addled your brains , or you are suffering from Bowl Turners Syndrome-an affliction which originated in Australia I am told (by locals).
Philip Marcou
Lataxe,
Oh lawd, that was a gem!
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Lighten up Mel. No one likes being preached to.
As somebody who has only recently discovered that hand tools are actually usable, can be productive and enable a level of accuracy that is rather difficult to achieve wih hand held power tools I'd like to chip in with my 2 cents worth.One asks questions knowing full well that there will be a range of answers which you cannot "average". However when people state WHY they have a preference it opens my eyes to aspects I may not have even been aware of.You should always listen to advice. You don't have to accept it. I haven't asked any plane questions on this forum but I've learned a lot. Just bought a block plane (Groz) and discovered that planing end grain can become comparatively easy.The point I am rambling towards is that for somebody like me, buying the "wrong" tool is a tremendous expense - in time rather than money. Being 50 Euros out of pocket is unpleasant but hardly disastrous. Wasting a couple of evenings finding out that the new tool is a lemon is baaaaaaad. The OP has probably read a lot about LV and LN on this forum and, justifiably, wants advice on which one to go for to optimise not only his financial but also his temporal investment. For me the answer is irrelevant as neither brand is available here.However the technical points raised are very valuable as they point me in the right direction for when I buy my next plane (this month, a 14" one :-) )So, thanks for the advice!
"For me the answer is irrelevant as neither brand is available here."
Interesting - I wasn't aware that Lie-Nielsens or Lee Valley's offerings were unavailable anywhere on the planet Earth, short of Antarctica (and maybe there once UPS decides to put in a shipping terminal).
Sometimes one's preference, particularly for some technical aspects, is easy to explain. When I was upgrading to 'better' planes, my choice between LV and LN (both received ample praise from practicing users on their technical merits)) was decided on the visual appeal (which I can detail, but not explain).
You can make a good quality wooden plane with very little material cost. There is enough info on the web to help you along.
Best wishes,
Metod
"For me the answer is irrelevant as neither brand is available here."Where is "here"BB
Either Somalia or Zimbabwe?Philip Marcou
Ted,
Thank you. You are right, as always.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
I admire you. You took ted's preaching very well. Of course, it was a short sermon, the best kind.
Ray
Rev. Ray,
Love your sermons too.
Mel (a sinner)Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Hi jphelps7,
I have both.
I find the Veritas soles to be more accurate and the mechanisms more useful and refined.
e.g., the Veritas bevel up jack has a Norris style adjuster that works infinitely better than the disc in slot that the LN bevel up jack uses and a little better than the stanley bedrock style the LN smoother and miter plane use.
I prefer the Veritas in use as a working plane because of the Norris style adjuster. The Lie Nielsen plane is prettier but the disc on the adjust knob can push the blade to one side because it acts like a gear and grabs in the slot in the blade. I have doctored all my LNs and it helps but does not eliminate the problem. Like was said earlier "Veritas works out of the box".
Advantage of Veritas bevel up jack:
• has a stop so when you close the throat after reinstalling the blade you don't risk banging the blade edge with the iron throat part when you re-close the throat. To be fair on occasion this screw has got in the way of the shaving and caused it to jam in the throat. I just removed the screw for that plank and put it back in latter. Does not require tools and is easy to put back in. It is just a knurled fingers adjustable stop screw. Handy to have most of the time.
• Flatter sole than my LN. Yes I find it is enough to make a tangible difference when getting on the smoothing end of the spectrum. Invariably the toe and tail are higher ( plane upside down with a straight edge lengthwise on the plane's sole ) than the area in front of the blade which must also touch the same plane as it were. This can result in a slightly convex surface and misinformation between the plane and the user about the surface. See Toshio Odate's book Japanese Woodworking tools for the particulars and also:
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=2091
Veritas also has side blade stop screws so blade is repositioned in the slot more quickly and accurately. Questionable value but I like them.
I have many LNs and like them very much. Also hard to beat the aesthetic of the brass, black iron and cherry wood. Oooolala ! Yah I'm a tool turkey. Buy 'em and look at 'em. I admit I have a problem.
I do a lot of hand planing from scrub to final finish using no sand paper or scrapers so I am very experienced with my planes though I admit to being narrowly focused to only a few areas of wood working and am not a pro. I am a better metal worker than wood worker so I feel that is why I can spout off so much about the metal planes ( I understand how they are made and how to sharpen the blades and feel comfortable modifying them where needed ).
Sand paper and scrapers are of coarse the only answer for some types of woodworking and some species of wood. I have carefully steered my coarse to avoid these types of woodworking and species of wood for now.
Disc in slot adjuster that the LN bevel up jack and others use that causes "tilt problem" :
After smoothing the edges of the slot and disc and lubing I still find the blade can be accidentally "tilted" causing one side of blade to cut deeper when turning the blade advance adjust knob (has the disk on this knob). Some times I get frustrated with it and just tap the blade with a plane adjusting hammer with the knob backed off then turn the nob in to keep blade from slipping back.
When do I need to do this you ask? Seems to have to do with the position of the planets or the humidity or something. Just kidding but you get what I mean.
My only complaint about Veritas is they don't have a T-shirt so it cramps my fan boy style.
To the shop me Hardies !
roc
Edited 12/9/2008 12:43 am by roc
Edited 12/9/2008 8:56 am by roc
Cherry is the wood I use about 95% of the time. Some flat sawn, some qtr sawn, some curly.
Have you used the LV BU Jack to smooth any Cherry? If it works well on Cherry, seems that my choice is LV.
Thanks,
To everyone:I am not ignoring your replies. Gotta glue up today so will write later. Also am working on an orthographic projection drawing to study the cross section of the interface of both blade configurations with the wood.Will post a photo of sketch at least but takes a while for me to get the post right.If anybody has a cad that can crank this out I would appreciate it. I use a pencil and drafting table with evenly spaced dots around radius and a line from each dot for the projection. Takes for ever to project a highly accurate interface of the two cylinders ( arc of radius and arc of curved face of the sharpened surface of the blade) where they intersect the blade and then cut the plane of the wood through the blade.Yah I know that doesn't make a damn bit of sense as I wrote it but best I can do for now.To jphelps:I don't work cherry. Plan to make a series of square tables out cherry like this little master piece by Mike Dunbar:http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ProjectsAndDesign/ProjectsAndDesignPDF.aspx?id=2646This style table has always fascinated me even before I got into wood working and I still have not made one ! Priorities Priorities.Let me say this about that: Bevel up best for very hard wood. My personal opinion is you would be very happy with BU on cherry. As was mentioned you may not get that last ultimate bit of depth of cut if scrubbing with the BU because of blade configuration. I say if you are in a hurry to scrub get a 12" power jointer and a 15" power thickness planer.oops just reread your post. Smooth cherry:
No problem should work great ! Use a blade with almost no radius. Yah gets expensive buying blades at forty dollars a pop and can use more than one of each radius so you don't grind them down to nothing changing back and forth.Ian Kirby said in an article he had about twenty of the same size blade that fit his jointer and smoother.A dedicated smoother will give absolute best results ( I still would use my BU Veritas smoother) but jack with straight blade should be great. Be sure it is sharpened right. I say use the veritas sharpening jig with cambered roller (you will want CR for cambered blades so might as well buy at one whack).to the shop !PS: sorry if you got a half done post it just disappeared I think I hit cancel by mistake cause don't see it here any where.
Drooled at that same Hepplewhite table on FWW site couple of nights ago. Got a couple of other projects in line so will be a while before I can even consider one......but it is awesomely beautiful.
Thanks for your reply.
JP
"Have you used the LV BU Jack to smooth any Cherry? If it works well on Cherry, seems that my choice is LV."
I've not used a BU jack to smooth cherry, but I have used both the LN and LV BU smoothers to work it. Both perform very well - as well as anyone might expect iron planes to perform. In my opinion, there is little or no difference between the performance of either. So choose whichever one you like the looks of best, and potentially factor in re-sale value, the presence/absence of an adjuster, free shipping from Fine Tool Journal, whatever.
In regards to working cherry, though, I'll say that I most often reach for a bevel-down Stanley or Lie-Nielsen. With the exception of some "show boards" with wildly figured grain, I don't find that I need a high planing angle, and they're quite a bit more work to push.
I will, however, disagree with one comment in this thread - neither Lee Valley nor Lie-Nielsens offerings are expensive, period. In fact, they're dirt cheap. The only comparison where they may at first glance appear so is to compare them with an antique on the used market. Generally, such comparisons are simply not valid. For one, L-V and L-N planes are manufactured to a much tighter tolerance than Stanley planes ever were, the castings are heavier, the adjustments are smoother, the irons are much thicker, and they're made of a material that didn't exist in Stanley's heydey of the early 20th century - ductile iron. Old stanleys are fragile - if you drop them on a concrete floor, there's an excellent chance the cast iron will break. Ductile iron doesn't have this property.
Moreover, Stanleys on the used market sell for way, way below the cost of production, principally because almost every craftsman and carpenter of the day had several planes, now it's a small subset of the woodworking population. It is occasionally possible to get a well-tuned, well-cared for Stanley for next to nothing, but this is the exception - most will require several hours of tuning, and you need to know what you're doing to get it right. So unless you consider your time free and have the expertise to correctly tune (and perhaps repair) an iron plane, an antique Stanley's price to bring it up to the same performance level as a Lie-Nielsen or a Lee Valley is going to be considerably higher than the purchase price.
Moreover, Stanley BU planes are not terribly common on the secondary market, and because of this, sell for quite a bit more than their BD cousins - there's a bit of collector's value factored into their price.
To all who are full of patience or like to look at pictures of dirty wood shops:
Lots of pictures . . .
Well the original post was "what planes do I use and why" so . . .
LV in the hand;
when I first got my LV BU jack I was always feeling a knot in my palm. Something about that beautiful cherry handle did not fit my hand.
When I got the Veritas BUs I was disappointed that the handle did not have all the swoop and curves of the LV. But you know what ? It did not bite my palm. Go figure.
After all the planing I been doing I am tuffined up and nither bothers me. The handles on the other LVs are not as tall/long as the jack and they did not bite my hand even when I was just starting out. I had the LV BD smoother and LV BD jointer almost from the beginning and did not bite my palm.
I began to pull the blades out of the planes I had been using for a sharpening session and then got an idea:
Take a look at all these pictures. Going left to right. Notice that the bevel down planes are put away in their bins or boxes in the other room. These include a bronze LN BD, a scraper plane, a four hundred dollar japanese smoothing plane with a back bevel now (which I really like for smoothing softer wood) and . . ., for Mr. joinerswork (aka Ray), a lignin vitae soled wooden Primis.
Note which planes are on the bench or on the white shelf right next to the bench.
They cut all that on the floor and that white trash bag (packed tite) is the second one like it from this table. So BUs can cut a little dab before they go all to peices !
I had all the bevel downs and the scraper plane before the bevel ups were purchased. I got decent results in the the harder woods if I put on back bevels. But the bevel ups are so much easier to use and better results.
One would think I would be using the bevel downs and not even be looking for any thing else if they are so great. Or that I would have gave up on the BU and went back to BD if the BUs are such a bad plane design. Mr. Cosmon.
That plank is all hand flattened from rough scrub to near finished. There are five more just like it. All bubinga. Edge jointed by hand to.
The close up with face mark shows grain. Not gnarly but gnarly has not been a problem as I and others said with 60° BU.
Close up shows worst "tear out " on all the planks. See pic with dark horses, see small half moon shaped dullness between black line and middle horse (there are three horses in this pic). It is just a bit duller there around the knot / reversing grain. The light colored dot is just that; not a pop out. No tear out at all. Finish plane will smooth dull area out nice.
I should have circled it but didn't sorry.
OK I threw in an extra shot that shows the Krenov style saw horses. Pic. file named "s. horses" They are bubinga. What looks like a dome head screw is a brass pin pushed all the way through to hold top rail to stiles of horses. I got into this wood because I wanted to see how strong the strongest wood that I could find is. I looked up to see what were the strongest woods, chose bubinga and made those poor little spindly saw horses. They been doing fine for years now. They are quite low so I can cross cut with my knee on the plank. They are tiny and nest so they take up very little space. I got tired of the 2x4 horses with the metal joint. Take up too much space in storage and in use.
Problem is I fell in love with the way bubinga looks.
Oh yah I almost forgot that scribble is the study of the blade configurations. I think I got it simplified even further on another version not shown. May be able to eliminate the projection for the curved sharpened face for all practical purposes. See "?" at radius dimension.
Next step is to use drafting tools and blow it up three or four times actual size and make a highly accurate scale layout to actually compare the shape of the cut ( furrow ) taken from the surface of the wood. I understand BU should be shallower / and wider but I have fun drawing stuff like this. I mean the scale drawing not the crap drawing.
See projection techniques for tubular sheet metal intersections. Allows one to make a templet to layout flat to cut shapes so tubular metal parts will " fish mouth " into a joint. Should be able to use similar technique to draw accurate cross section of plane blade cut.
Will be a while until I get to it though.
Thank you for visiting rocco's show-and-tell ! Come back again soon!
Edited 12/10/2008 6:26 am by roc
Edited 12/11/2008 2:19 pm by roc
roc,
Draw 1/8" radius circles (in your drawings) centered at the edges of BU and BD configurations. What difference do you see?
Best wishes,
Metod
LV. Blade interchageability with the LV Bevel-up Smoother and Bevel-up Jointer.
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