Replies

1. 
   SteveSchoene | May 02, 2006 08:59pm | #1

   I just looked it up.  Merbau will be a very difficult wood to learn hand tool skills on.  It may have interlocked grain, making it difficult to follow the rule to always plane "downhill" with the grain.  It is 18% harder than hard maple, which means very hard.  The source I read also says it gums saw blades and dulls tools, so that carbide was recommended.  I suspect it would make very good floors and trim. 

   But, if your whole house is merbau, I think the best thing to do is to find woods that contrast and complement the merbau, rather than continuing on the same note.  The U.S. domestic hardwoods--walnut, cherry, maple, or oak will all be easier to work.  Find one or two woods that you like with the merbau and concentrate you furniture making on those. 

2. 
   pzgren | May 02, 2006 09:47pm | #2

   Howdy!

     Based on what I have read about Merbau -- I have no practical experience with this wood -- it is likely a combination of both your technique and the wood.

     Tropical exotics tend to be difficult to plane without tear-out. Merbau has straight to interlocking grain. Interlocking grain (of any species) is notorious for tearing out.

     Some possible solutions/helpful techniques:

        Keep your plane irons sharp; this may mean that you have to re-sharpen frequently;

        Pay close attention to the grain; you may have to change your planing direction several times on a particular section of your board;

        Consider using a plane with a higher pitch; I assume that you are using a standard 45º Stanley-type plane (or wooden equivalent); a 50º (York Pitch) plane may give you better results (Lie-Nielsen sells planes with York pitch frogs); if not, then you may have to go to a 55º or 60º plane (Japan Woodworker sells four different sizes of Singapore-style 60º rosewood smoothing planes for pretty reasonable prices, or you could go for the Full Monty with the HNT Gordon planes -- very, very nice, but a bit pricey; no affiliation to any of these companies);

        Close the mouth of your plane up very tight (if you have a plane where you can adjust the depth of the mouth);

        Use very light, thin cuts; something that results in .001" to .003" shavings;

        Skewing your plane at a 25º to 45º angle as you move it across the wood may help;

        Use a (properly set-up) hand scraper for the really difficult areas;

     Take a look at these sites for a bunch of generally useful information on both hand planes/planing and hand tools in general:

   http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan0a.html

   http://www.norsewoodsmith.com/

   http://www.amgron.clara.net/planingpoints/planeindex.htm

   http://www.ilovewood.com/Alburnam.htm

   http://www.thegaloot.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php

   http://www.cianperez.com/Wood/WoodDocs/Wood_How_To/INDEX_How_To.htm

   http://homepage.mac.com/galoot_9/galtprog.html

   http://www.traditionaltools.us/

   http://www.handplane.com/

   http://www.geoffswoodwork.co.uk/page%20two.htm

   Sites for good hand tool & hand woodworking books and videos:

   http://www.lie-nielsen.com/

   http://www.japanwoodworker.com/page.asp?content_id=2896

   http://www.leevalley.com/home.aspx

   http://www.astragalpress.com/

   http://www.cambiumbooks.com/

   http://www.woodworkerslibrary.com/

   http://www.blackburnbooks.com/Product/TWT.html

   http://www.amazon.com

     If you don't already know this, you might find the following article useful:

   _____

   Hand planing (rough) lumber to dimension is not hard:

   Ideally, you need 5 planes: a scrub plane, a #5, a #7 or #8, a #4 or #4-1/2, and a low angle block plane, but you can get away with a #5 and a low angle block plane -- it's just a little harder. (Or you can use wooden equivalents.)

   You'll also need a good straight edge, an accurate try or combination square, a marking/panel gauge, and a pair of winding sticks (you can make these yourself). A card scraper is also handy.

   Select a board face for the reference face. Use a pair of winding sticks and a straight edge to determine the high and low spots. Mark the high spots and use the scrub plane to reduce them to the approximate level of the rest of the board. Check for twist with the winding sticks. Correct with the scrub, as necessary. By this time, you should have a roughly flat (length and width) board with no twist and with a lot of troughs in it. Use the #5 to remove the troughs from the scrub plane. (Planing diagonally or straight across the grain in both directions with the scrub plane and the #5 to remove the scrub troughs will significantly reduce tearout in most woods. Then follow up with the #5 by planing with the grain.) Once the troughs are mostly gone, use the #7 or #8 with the grain to plane the face flat. Once you get full length and full width shavings, you board is very, very close to FLAT. Check with the straight edge and winding sticks. Correct as necessary. Finish up with the smoothing plane (#4 or # 4-1/2). Use the scraper on gnarly grain that gives your smoother a hard time, but be careful not to scrape a dip into the wood. Part 1 of 6, complete.

   Mark this face as your reference face. All other measurements of square, etc., will come from this face.

   Select one long edge, and use the #5 to roughly flatten/smooth it, and then use the #7/#8 to make it straight and square to the reference face. Mark this edge as your reference edge. Part 2 of 6, complete.

   Use the reference edge and the try/combination square to mark one of the short edges square. You can use the #5 to plane to rough plane it flat and square to both the reference face and edge -- if the short edge is 4 to 6 or more inches wide; if not, then start with the LA block plane. (Chamfering the edges down to your cutting line will reduce tear out on the corner edges; alternative methods are to clamp a sacrificial piece of wood to the edge and let it tear out instead of your board, or to plane in from each outside edge.) Use the LA block plane to clean it up. Mark the other short edge to the desired length (saw it to rough length, if necessary) and do the same thing to the other short edge. Parts 3 and 4 of 6, complete.

   Use your combination square or a marking/panel gauge to mark the other (unplaned) long edge to the desired finished width. As you did for the reference long edge, use the #5 to roughly smooth it down almost to the cutting line, and then use the #7/#8 to make it straight and square to the reference face. Check for straight and square to the reference face and to the 2 short edges. All 4 edges should now be square to the reference face and square to each other. Part 5 of 6, complete.

   Use your marking gauge, basing off the reference face, to mark the thickness of your board around all 4 edges. Flip the board over to the unplaned face and use the scrub plane to plane down almost to the marked reference lines (The bottoms of the troughs should be about 1/16 inch above the cutting line). Use the #5, and the #7 or #8, as before on the reference face to make this face flat and square. Finish up with the smoothing plane and, as necessary, the scraper. Part 6 of 6, complete.

   At this time, you should have a board with 2 flat, smooth, and parallel faces, 4 flat and square edges (long edges parallel to each other, as well as short edges parallel to each other, and all 4 edges square to the two faces and to each other), and of the required thickness, length, and width, ready for whatever needs to be done next.

   The first board you do by hand will take what seems like an inordinately long time, but with just a little bit of practice, it becomes nearly as fast as -- and often faster than -- putting a board through a jointer, thickness planer, and sanding sequence.

   If you have a shooting board, you can use it to assist with steps 2, 3, 4, and 5.

   A couple of things to keep in mind:

   Keep your plane irons SHARP!!

   If you have only a couple of planes, open the mouth up for the initial rougher planing, and close the mouth for the finer, finish planing.

   Let the plane do the work -- don't force it.

   Skewing the plane often helps to reduce tear out and makes planing easier.

   Try to keep the amount of wood removed from each face roughly equal; otherwise any internal stresses present may cause the board to warp or cup again, after you have put all that work and effort into making it flat.

   Expect to get a good upper body work out!

   The listed sequence is not the only sequence that this can be done in, but it works quite well.

   Good luck, and have fun! There's nothing quite like the sense of accomplishment you get when you have taken a piece of rough lumber and turned it into a nicely finished, dimensioned board using only hand-powered tools.

   _____

     You might also try a little less challenging wood until you get your techniques down: walnut, cherry, mahogany are all relatively easy to plane and not too expensive.

     Hope that this is of some use to you.

   James

3. 
   pita | May 02, 2006 10:50pm | #3

   Tony,

   The first thing I would do is finetune my hand tools.  I will assume we are dealing with some type of plane.  The first thing will be to remove any oil/wax that might be on the plane. Second, on a flat surface place wet and dry sandpaper and take a couple of passes.  Now, it is my opinion the whole bottom has to be perfectly flat, it will takes days.  The areas which need to be flat (on the same plane) are along the long axes on the plane body, the ends, and around the mouth of the plane.  If the area not mentioned is slightly concave don't panic because this area reduces friction.

   Now lets move onto the plane blade.  First remove any oils then flatten the back of the blade.  The only area which has to be flat is the very edge of the blade where the two planes will intersect.  Second, sharpen the bevel, and lastly reassemble your plane and go to town.  If you are still having tear out problems you might want to look into a scraper plane.

   Good Luck!

4. 
   Patto | May 03, 2006 09:14am | #4

   Top,

   Merbu is not usually too difficult to plane for about 2 minutes. Thats how long it takes for the resins in the wood to dull your irons unless you have lashed out on really good tools.

   I'm exagerating a (little) bit, but I did a large kitchen bench top (7meters - the sink hole) with this stuff and it took some attention, lots of skewed angles, and lots of sharpening.

   No idea where you are, but you might like to start with something like radiata - another construction timber but softwood - which is pretty well matched to standard bench planes such as Stanley / Record

   david

5. 
   WillGeorge | May 03, 2006 05:47pm | #5

   DO NOT DO WHAT I TYPE HERE.... BUT!

   I use Purpleheart, American Hickory and Ash all the time.. I 'LOOK' for boards with 'funny' grains.. I do the best I can with a Low Angle pane and SAND from there... On some 'sticks' no matter how hard you try.. IT WILL TEAR OUT!.. (s others have posted) SHARP blade!!!

   I do not have extra sharpened blades for my planes. When I notice something 'funny'.. I STOP! and re-sharpen.. Just a honing usually..
   Works fer' me..

   By the way.. Difficult also includes Softwoods!

   Edit again:
   In fact I think a tree do it on purpose for us cutting it down!

   Edited 5/3/2006 10:48 am by WillGeorge

   
   

   ---

   Edited 5/3/2006 10:49 am by WillGeorge

6. 
   Bobro | Feb 11, 2008 04:08pm | #6

   This one is from a long time ago- the original poster decided not to go the distance handplaning Merbau, as far as I can tell. A wise decision. I, being more enthusiastic than wise, am plugging away at some Merbau furniture and have some comments on the wood.

   As far as I know, Merbau is another name for Kwila.

   First of all it is very hard indeed, with a nice gooey gum in it, but neither as hard nor as nearly as gummy as cocobolo. Its feature strength seems to be shock resistance- hammering a chisel is brutal work. But the two-handed whole-body-powered chiselling method I use works very well, using controlled "sweeps" and stepping around the work to continually change angles according to the grain. My only power tool is a hand drill, for roughing out mortises.

   There are "golden" streaks in it, just as people say. According to a book I read, the mysterious "ideal" wood of ancient Chinese furniture, probably some kind of extremely dark rosewood, would sometimes have golden streaks in it. It's a subtle and noble characteristic, have to experiment with finishes in order not to hide it.

   The smell is strongly reminiscent of another wood I worked long ago but I can't remember which one- padouk? It'll come to me some day.

   The dust isn't irritating, and sawing doesn't make a fine cloud. The other wood I'm using at the moment has strong-smelling fine dust. It's marketed as "pao oro" but I've never heard of pao oro and can't find any references to it on the internet. This "pao oro" is suspiciously similar to the kinds of woods that get marketed (used to get marketed?) as "greenheart"- nice and strong, pretty heavy, and sometimes downright green in color, but mostly olive-brown and and brown-yellow. Pretty stringy and dry (it's not ipe, but not terribly different), I'm guessing there's a couple of very similar species in the shipment I'm buying from, and found a picture of "Tatajuba" that looks exactly like a piece I'm using.

   I guess "pao oro" has a more enchanting ring to it than "cow wood"
   which is another name for Tatajuba, haha.

   Unlike Merbau/Kwila this "pao oro" isn't an ideal "joinery" wood, more for panels and surfaces. The Merbau shrugs off any attack, even tiny thin cutoffs can't be broken by hand, so I'll use it for some locking Chinese-style joinery of small dimensions, too.

   By the way I'm rescuing these woods from a fate as machine-textured and uniformly-stained outdoor decking. Our balcony will have a pao oro floor but without the unecessary surfacing.

   Anyway just thought I'd comment on the woods and maybe someone has an idea what "pao oro" might actually be. Take care,

   -Cameron Bobro

1. 
   seajai | Feb 11, 2008 05:43pm | #7

   Bobro, I suspect the "greenwood" you are referring to is Lignum Vitae (also called Palo Santo). It is a dark, heavy wood with an incense type of smell when cut.  Verawood is a type of lignum called Argentine Lignum Vitae, it is more light green/tan color and can have some darker grain streaks in it.

   check out http://www.lignumvitae.com