So I bought this nifty LN #5 and decided to try my hand at planing for the first time the other day. I went to the lumber yard and bought a 7′ length of 4/4 quartersawn red oak to “learn” on. ($15) I think I might have made the wrong choice. The shavings are not exactly of the quality I saw coming off the instructional video I sent off for. The red oak renders a very grainy, very thick shaving at the minimum plane setting the board will accept. My idea was to bring the board down to 3/4″ thickness with a good face side and edge. Can someone suggest a good choice of lumber for me to practice on? Thanks..
bill
Replies
Mahogany....so forgiving...and beautiful curls. You'll have plenty of time to wrestle with the hard woods...start out with something that makes you feel good first...and shows the slight adjustments you'll make as you learn about your fine tool.
Quarter-sawn oak can be kind of tough for a beginner because of the way the fibres lie to the blade, although if your blade is sharp and the plane well set up you should be able to produce long, transparent, curly shavings from just abouit anything.
Mahogany may be a good alternative, but only if plain-sawn. Some species are really awkward.
My suggestion: Try a softwood. Don't know what's available in your local yards, but here in New Zealand a pinus species like radiata, or macrocarpa, or oregon, will keep the sweat ratio down, and provide a good test of sharpness. See if you can produce shavings as wide as the plane iron, thin enough to see through, and longer than 150mm. If you can, the plane is set up well. If you can't, tinker with the settings some more. It's not the wood, mate!
Bill,
So what happened? Did you get it all straightened out? Hope so.
Alan
Alan,
Im the talented good looking one....bill is the one with the new Ln...lol
BG,
Ooops... Sorry.
Alan
Bill,
I'll go against the flow--as usual. Before I went looking for the perfect practice wood I'd double check how well the plane is tuned.
You say that the thinnest shaving you can get is rather thick at "the minimum plane setting the board will accept": that doesn't sound right at all. A properly tuned plane with a sharp iron will take shavings thin enough to read through--especially a quality plane like a Lie-Nielsen--from almost any wood. Also, your description of "grainy" shavings sounds like you're using a dull iron.
I am assuming that your plane is not set up as a scrub plane: i.e., the iron doesn't have a severe arc honed into it; if it is honed into an arc at all it is very gentle, no more than one thirty-seconds of an inch or less. I also assume you have done all the basic tuning, flattened the sole, flattened the back of the iron, etc. With those things in mind, some other things to check: be sure the mouth is tight. About twice the thickness of the shaving you want to take is a good place to begin; more experience will help you fine tune it.
Be sure the back iron is set close to the edge, no more than one-sixteenth inch is a good place to begin. Curling and breaking the shaving close to the edge of the iron helps the plane take thin shavings. Also make sure the back iron meets the iron solidly all along its front edge.
Finally, make sure the iron is truly sharp. (I suspect this is the majority of the trouble.) I have heard stories of irons that are sharp and ready to use right out of the box. I've never seen one--and I have two Lie-Nielsens (planes about which that story is told quite often). A sharp iron will solve lots of troubles. Remember that an iron can shave hair but still not be as sharp as it should.
Again, a properly tuned plane with a sharp iron should make short work of oak. If your plane isn't working right I don't think it's particularly useful to shop for a wood on which it will work. Better, I think, even for a beginner, to get the tool working the way it should.
Alan
FWIW, I agree with Alan. What you've described is a poorly set-up plane, not a problem with the wood.
Is your plane iron installed bezel down? The "minimum" setting on the plane should produce the thinnest whisp of a shaving.
Edited 12/31/2002 7:13:14 AM ET by CHASSTANFORD
Thanks for your replies and suggestions. I'm fairly confident my plane is set up correctly and that the iron is sharp. I'm going to try narrowing the mouth as suggested and I'm giong to buy a mahogany board to practice on to make sure I'm not set up wrong. I have the back iron about a sixteenth off the cap iron and I have a mirrored back and bevel from the progression of adhesive papers on glass using a veritas honing guide. I am pulling fairly long shavings from the red oak but they are not paper thin or even paper like. I think I should have avoided buying a quarter sawn board. Thanks again to all.
bill
Bill,
I hate to sound like a broken record about this, but I really am trying to help. So here goes--again.
That your plane isn't performing properly is not the wood's fault. Quarter-sawn oak or not, your plane should be able to take wispy thin shavings. I'd bet dollars to donuts the plane needs a bit more work, after which it will cut the oak beautifully. You might be able to find some wood that the plane will cut in its present condition, but that will avail you nothing--unless you want to make all your projects out of that one wood. Much better, I think, to put the plane right in the first place--then it won't matter what kind of wood you have (some woods excepted, of course).
Be especially critical when assessing the edge. DAMHIKT, but with "scary sharp" it's very easy to dub the edge without knowing it. IME shaving hair is not the best way to check for sharpness: often an iron too dull to use will shave hair. The best way is the "Newton" test (it goes by various other names as well). That involves looking closely at the edge with a light behind you. A truly sharp edge will appear as an extremely thin BLACK line; if the edge shows any white at all it is not sharp. Because of my failing eyes I have to use a fairly powerful magnifying glass to check my edges: if I recall correctly it's a fifteen or twenty power field glass I got when I took a couple geology courses (many, many moons ago). But those with reasonably good eyesight probably won't have to resort to that.
Again (the broken record) I'd concentrate on the plane, not on the wood.
Alan
DAMHIKT ???
Jazzdog,
Don't Ask Me How I Know This.
It's very convenient--especially because I've made nearly every mistake at least twice--some more often that that.
Alan
Alan.. here's the thing. The first time I sharpened the iron I really overdid it. It was so sharp that about a 32nd broke off when I tightend the cap iron. I should have know this was going to happen when it turned red hot and melted the glass under the sandpaper.. but I wanted to be sure I had a proper edge on it.
Okay, enough sarcasm. I'll give it another shot tomorrow. Thanks, Alan.
bill
Bill,
I have to agree with Alan too. I bought several LN planes, and thought they were properly tuned. I tried on an nice soft wood (Walnut ;-0 ), and had a horrible time. I bought "the hand plane book", and tuned my plane according to the author, and still had no success. I am usually pretty good about reading and following instructions, but just couldn't get the plane to work correctly. I then spent a couple of bucks and went to a school for a day, and really got to learn how to tune my plane. When we were done, my #4 cut a 20 year old piece of english walnut burl with no problem. After that we tried some rosewood, and then some pine. All produced shavings thin enough to read through. The only problem is that after cutting all of these shavings, i had to re-sharpen my plane.
From what you describe, my only suggestion, if you think the plane is really sharp is to start with the blade so no shaving is made, and keep adjusting the blade out 1/32 of a turn at a time until a shaving starts to come out out. It really sounds like you are trying to take too much wood at once.
Just a suggestion.
- lee -
I, too, thought I was trying to take too much wood.. but I couldn't take any wood at all until I was out further than seemed right. BTW.. when I bought my LN #5 from The Cutting Edge.. the owner took it straight out of the box and curled some paper thin shavings from a piece of wood he had on his bench. I took it home and didn't open the box except to look at it for two months. I still want to try another piece of wood to make sure the plane is well tuned. I might even take it back to the store to have the guy walk me through the paces. Thanks, my friend.
bill
Bill,
Whatever you do...please don't stop disagreeing with Alan. He's providing some pearls of information that are really valuable.
I was always under the impression that when you buy an LN its so good right out of the box you can kick the thing with your foot and get long wispy curls. With my old Stanley's, I'll hit the board 15-20 times and nothing...and then all of a sudden it starts cutting...and before long the full curls are appearing. God forbid I should have to hone/sharpen the blade, back to ground zero. I put the blade back in..and I'm only getting cuts in the center.
The only true answer may be taking a day course or two. There has got to be more skill (technique) involved around which you can modify the mechanical variables. I'm ony guessing....but without the skill all the rest is a crap shoot...
Bill,
Everyone can laugh at me and will probably give me a lot of corrections but as a beginner with hand tools not much further along the learning curve than you, I will tell you that I think a good wood to practice with is Douglas Fir. The reasons are thus: 1) It's cheap, 2) You have to be right up on the step in terms of blade sharpness because it has very hard grain lines combined with very soft wood in between the grain lines. The soft wood will tear out if your chisels or plane irons are not very sharp, 3) It has a pleasant smell (to me) when working it, 4) You can find heavy pieces with close, quartersawn grain and no knots, and 5) It finishes predictably with shellac. I might add, 6) It doesn't necessarily warp and contort at the last possible minute in terms of a project like the comparable Southern Yellow Pine in my area, but that could just be me and my novice techniques.
I buy 8 foot douglas fir 4 x 4 beams at Home Depot. for about $10 each. I will go through their whole stack of beams to find the two or three pieces that I want (straight, tight grain, heavy, knot-free). While I'm looking, two or three dozen associates will come up to me and ask if I need help but I just wave them off and am careful to stack their lumber back the way I found it. I am finishing a workbench built out of this douglas fir and am happy with it. When I needed to resize this lumber, I have used a bandsaw, jointer and thickness planer. But I have spent a considerable amount of time on it with bench planes, including my favorite, a WWII Stanley No. 6 with a Hock Blade that seems to have an almost mystical ability to always produce nice shavings and leave a nice surface.
As for the bench plane/ sharpening questions - the other folks know a lot more about it than I do. I will say that I started with Japanese water stones and the veritas honing guide and moved on to the sandpaper on glass - mainly because the water stones made such a mess. With the waterstones, I found that when I dreamed about my ultimate dream shop that I'm going to build someday, now I needed to add a sink, running water and a shower to clean up from sharpening. Yikes, what next? Anyway, keep at it and good luck. Jim Kingshott's Bench planes video is good. Ed
Ed.. thanks for all the information and suggestions. I, too, ordered Kingschotts bench plane video and learned a great deal from watching it. I also ordered Dunbar's sandpaper sharpening video and the ordered a piece of 3/8" glass and all the adhesive paper recommended in the video. But the real lesson came this week when Richard Jones, aka Sgian Dubh, invited me to his shop for a bench plane lesson. I took my LN #5 and he showed me the proper technique for tuning the plane and for planing wood. He used a length of poplar and demonstrated the techniques.. then let me try.. correcting my technique when needed. Richard makes it look easy, which, of course, it isn't. But I now have a general idea of how to proceed. I'm intrigued by your efforts in building a workbench.. because that's something I also want to do. Are you following any particular plan? I hope you will post pictures as you proceed. I am very tempted to just go buy one.. but I would really like to have one I crafted myself. Thanks, Ed.
bill
Bill,
Congrats on your success. Sounds like you have a good mentor. People that have a lot of experience with hand tools and can work fast, easily, and accurately with them are my heroes.
I predict that the L-N No. 5 will become one of your favorite tools.
Yes, you will want a good workbench.
Here's a good website: http://www.terraclavis.com/bws/benches.htm
My bench that I'm building now and the first one I built are like Bob's beginner's bench, more or less. The difference is that the first one is made out of Southern Yellow Pine, is about 8 feet long and stays in my basement shop. The one I'm building now is Douglas Fir, about five feet long, and the base assembly is made with mortise and tenons plus "bed-bolt" type hardware. It is designed to be knock-down. The idea is that I would move it onto my screen porch in the spring and summer and into my study in the winter. I have finished flattening both sides of the top and attached the vise exactly like a FWW article of a few months ago described. There is no tail vise, but room for future growth. The top assembly is HEAVY and hard to move around. I really need one of those hand trucks to move it - oh well I've been meaning to buy one of those for a couple years.
As for posting a photo of it when I'm done - I'd have to work up the courage for that. There's probably people here who have built some pretty fancy workbenches. Maybe I will when I'm done - I'm pretty happy with it so far.
Good luck building yours. I think any workbench, as long as it's not too high or too low, or too flimsy, is a good one. I've got this memory imprinted from the dark days of my woodworking experieince of working out of a San Diego apartment garage with a Black and Decker Workmate and underpowered battery-operated Makita tools. (shudder) Ed
bill,
What can you share about training lesson with RJ. Was your plane poperly tuned..or had you misinterrupted something? Was it stance or pressure related or something like that? I'm asking because your in the best position to fill in the blanks between what we read and what it takes to be successful with a plane. thanks
BG.. The plane seemed to be sharp enough, although RJ did run the iron over his stone a few times. What I learned was that I had too much of the blade projected beyond the sole. He taught me how to "sight" the blade.. and project it a little at a time, as needed, on the work. My technique left plenty to be desired as well. I had watched the Jim Kingschott video, but there is no substitute for having a master standing right there demonstrating and then saying, "Okay, now you give it a go", and then having your posture, grip, etc. corrected on the spot. I now feel acquainted with the tool.. whereas before it was an intimidating and mysterious apparatus. I've been practicing and improving my "feel" as I attempt to get a good face side and end to my 4/4 piece of red oak. Meanwhile, I've been toying with the idea of picking up the Ridgid planer at HD after reading so many favorable comments about it on this thread and in FW's annual tool issue.
bill
Bill,
Thanks...it helps to know it's all majic....lol.
The Rigid planer has gotten good reviews. Altough, at least one of those people who spoke so highly of it bought the Delta Two Speed when it came to putting the money down....hmmm...
I saw the Delta two speed planer for a few bucks less at Woodcraft this weekend and was tempted.. but the FW review says you can change the blades on the Ridgid in five minutes.. and that two speeds are essentially useless. I think I'll go for the quick blade change, thank you.
bill
Bill,
I don't think you'll be disappointed with the Ridgid. However, with all these portables you need infeed and outfeed support for long/large stock...you probably know that.
I made a rolling cabinet that supports and stores both my planer and CMS, using the support wings for both tools. good luck
BG.. I've seen those tables you built.. with wings to support the CMS and Planer. In fact, I have the plans for one from NY Workshop. But it looks complicated as all get out to build. I was thinking of using those roller stands you get at Sears. I have one with three rollers that I use for side/out feed for my TS. Also, my "shop" is my garage.. which is oversize..but also about tapped out for room after the SUVs go to bed at night. LOL
bill
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