OK, I thought it was time to post an actual question about an actual situation I have.
About 11 years ago I purchased a UK-made Stanley #7. I was poor, it was cheap, so there you go. I sharpened the iron, made a halfhearted attempt to flatten the sole, and played with it a bit. Then life changed and I haven’t had much of a chance to put it to work since.
Back in March I took it off its shelf and decided to make a go if it again. I knew I never properly flattened it, so I started out with that. I marked some reference lines on the bottom and started away on 80-grit sandpaper. After an hour, only the very oustide edges were cleaned up-the center of the plane still has the reference lines, albeit more faintly than before. I got tired, gave up, and haven’t had a chance to go back to it.
So, the question is-how flat does it really need to be? In some cases, I read that it only needs to be really flat at the toe, heel, and around the mouth. Some will say that it needs to be deadflat the whole way through.
And either way, is there a better way to do this short of taking it to a machine shop?
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it’s like he’s stuck between stations.
Replies
Have you tried it as is?
It really just needs to be coplanar toe-mouth-heel. Inbetween is unimportant.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Hey Derek-thanks for checking in. I guess I asked the wrong question-if I were to put it to use now, how would I know that it's "working as intended", so to speak?
As you may be able to tell, I'm sort of flying blind here.
John
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
It is really disapointing how poorly made some tools are! I'm still annoyed that we have to finish making a plane or chisel when we get it.
Back to your problem, have you been "nasty" and tried the belt sander or a 10" disc sander to get you started? It does take awhile.
I am convinced the reason "modern" planemakers have done so well is because their wares require no such fiddling beyond a good honing. I purchased 3 of those Stanley planes back in those days, and all were significantly not flat.
Anyway, the only belt sander I have is a PC portable, and I am afraid I would wind up with a fixed compass plane if I took that approach. Good idea though.
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
I would guess the question you should ask of the plane: Does it do to the wood what I want it to do? Does it flatten or smooth, or whatever, consistently and can I count on it? If so great. If not, then is it worth my time to true it up or is it more productive relative to making furniture to by a better one? I would also be concerned about what happens to the sole if you have to take off too much metal to get it flat.
Find yourself a home center/hardware store thaqt has some ceramic sanding belts (alumina zirconia???). Usually blue or green in color, and get one at least 3" wide X 24" long in 80 grit and also 150 grit. Cut the belt to and afix to the cast iron bed of your jointer or tablesaw. Mark "X" pattern on bottom of plane and work it on the belt until the hollows (if any)ahead and behind the mouth are gone. You don't need to get to anal about this, but after the 150 grit, you may want to work the plane on some 320 or 400 grit silicon carbide paper to "pretty" it up.
That is pretty much what I did. An article in FWW by David Charlesworth showed him drawing lines from side to side on the heel, toe, around the mouth, and a few other spots on the body, so I tried that, and it looks as though the whole center of the plane is cupped. I'll have to go back and take another look at to make sure my recollection is correct.
Thanks for the tip.
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
It is highly likely that the sole is hollow.
It won't work well till it is reasonably flat.
60 grit or even 40 may be the place to start, and the paper goes blunt quite quickly, so needs changing often.
I'm sure that article is available on the FW site or archive.
best wishes,
David Charlesworth
Good morning (or afternoon) David. Thanks for checking in.
The article was actually open on my bench as I sanded away. I went through quite a lot of sandpaper, though I did start at 100 grit.
When I get some extra time, I'll pick up a coarser grit and start there. In the meantime I have to do some rust control. We had some "weather" this weekend and all cast ioron and tool steel in my garage rusted. I guess it's been a while since I treated everything.
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
What kind of sandpaper did you use? Maybe emery cloth would be a good thing to use, since it's made specifically for metal.I have two #7 Stanleys- one has a sole that's ridiculously flat and has the original surfacing marks from when it was made on the bottom and sides. I have no idea why the previous owner(s) used it so little. The other one is another story. Hollow behind the mouth, so it's pretty useless for jointing edges but it was my first and didn't set me back that much. It does work well for planing the face, even in figured woods.I also have a British #4 and while it's not as flat as a new Marcou, L-N, Veritas, Holtey or any of those, it is a lot flatter than when I bought it and still does a great job with figured maple, cherry and oak using the original iron. Don't give up, it'll be very useful, soon enough.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Edited 10/29/2007 10:42 pm by highfigh
I was using good old Porter-Cable stick on sandpaper (the kind that comes in 10-yd rolls).
Emery cloth is a good idea. Where could I get wider rolls than the stuff they sell in the plumbing aisles? Welding supply houses?
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
I got mine in the paint department at Menard's, but HD or Lowe's should have it, too. 3M sheets in a three pack is what I bought. I usually don't do this dry because of the dust and even with a mask, the dust still gets everywhere. WD-40 has cutting oil in it, so that will speed things up a bit. I also use silicon carbide for the other grits, also wet and I use a 16" square granite tile, laying on a flat surface..
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
OK, I'll look around for it. Thanks!
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
JJ, I am going to repeat a post I recently made in a different Stanely #7 thread, since I'm not seeing Bob Smalser hangin' out to make the point himself. Here's my post, which is from this thread:
"I just got my first Stanley #7 this week. Our own Bob Smalser cautioned me at another forum to be careful when flattening the sole, and posted the picture below to show me which areas actually need to be (in) flat. The danger in overdoing the flattening, he explained, is that one can inadvertently widen the mouth, rendering the plane sorely handicapped."
CREDIT: Bob Smalser in this thread <click>
View Image
Spot on ~;-)#
David
Hi David,
I've seen this many times and my thinking tells me that to flatten just the sweet spots would be more difficult to keep them coplaner to each other than it would be to flatten the entire sole. Can you shed some light on this?
I do understand the risk of making the mouth too big in my quest for a flat sole.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 10/29/2007 8:29 am ET by KiddervilleAcres
I've had three Stanley No. 7s and every single one of them had a convex (not concave) bow from end to end. This defect is hard to lap out since you are trying to remove a hump in the middle and the plane wants to rock on the high spot(s). Concavity is much easier to lap out since the plane will sit on its toe and heel.
If your plane's sole is convex, has bumps in the middle, you will need to spot sand them down or use an engineer's scraper to take the humps down before you go to full sole lapping.
Hey FG-
I've seen something along those lines over the years as well, but it was always on smaller planes-not a #7. I guess I was thinking that the greater length required greater flatness.
Thanks for that link!
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
"I guess I was thinking that the greater length required greater flatness." Evidently that's a common misconception. I was just having a "live" conversation with a couple of friends on Saturday, at lunch, relevant to this. They were mentioning how our focus on woodworking with power tools influences the way we approach working with handtools, often not in such good ways. This might be another example. We expect our table saw tops to be "dead flat" with no more than 0.00x deviation. Such a deviation in a hand plane may be totally irrelevant. I'm all ears on this.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I always took to heart Patrick Leach's sentiment on the subject:
There are a lot of folks out there who believe that these longer planes - the #6, #7 and #8 - have to be perfectly flat in order for them to work. Good luck finding one that's perfectly flat, as they don't exist, all of which is proof enough that the old timers, who depended upon these tools for their livelihood, could make effective use of them in a non-perfect state. Thing is, you can, too.
From: http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan1.htm<!----><!----><!---->
Yeah, I was going to link that and decided not to confusicate things too much right at the beginning there. I don't know much about Patrick, but I use his Blood and Gore alot!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I think a plane with a concave sole is usable as-is. I think one with a convex sole will give erratic results, especially when edge jointing. You can nip, tuck, and adjust your way to a good joint but the tool will be fighting you all the way. At least this has been my experience and I'm not freakish about these things being dead flat.
Just read your message and the following two. Enlightening stuff, and happily practical, too. I get what you are saying-all the machinery tests seem to demand that table surfaces and runout are nil, otherwise you are doomed to make nothing but crap, whereas we all know wood moves and flat one day isn't necessarily flat the next.
Still, even though I know this, I start worrying that everything is less than perfect. It's a foolish hangup.
And I am proud to say that I started a hand plane thread that did not turn nasty or accusatory. :-)
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
Just Three points;
Long Planes flex more than you might think.
Patrick Leach sells old tools, some of which were not made flat enough to work really well with very fine shavings. However many were not designed to, in the rough to ready scheme of things. This is absolutely not a criticism of Patrick, who is an excellent source of old, usable and collectable tools, as well as the priceless Blood & Gore.
If you believe that hollow soled planes work well, please try the Edge Planing Experiment, which you will find at the bottom of the techniques page of my Blog.
In order to find this you have to click Techniques in a box at the top right corner of the blog page, and then scroll down.
http://www.davidcharlesworth.co.uk/blog/
Best wishes,
David
Patrick Leach sells old tools, some of which were not made flat enough to work really well with very fine shavings. However many were not designed to, in the rough to ready scheme of things.
Didn't you cover that in the fourth chapter of your third book? ;-)
Seriously, just because people sell things, does not automatically make them insincere.
I take your point about very fine shavings. I suppose it depends upon how one intends to use their 7.
Cheers
I was taught to plane a hollow first and then plane through until the plane takes one full length shaving and then stop. For me, that's been a very reliable procedure through the years.
Edited 10/30/2007 10:11 am ET by GregDaCosta
Bob,
The point about the critical areas of the sole, is that residual hollows between them do not matter. You can't work on them individually.
Greg,
That is precisely the same technique I use and as far as I know it is the only method that will produce a straight edge. That's what the edge planing experiment is about.
If done with a very fine shaving and a plane sole which is significantly hollow in its length, it will be impossible to plane a straight edge, on a shortish edge, approx 15" long.
(Richard Jones is an exception because he bends the hollow out of the sole with his muscular hands).
Hence the need for flat or minutely convex plane soles!!!!!
I really am hoping to hear from hollow plane owners who try this experiment.
best wishes,
David
david,
Totally understand about the areas in between the sweet spots, if you'll allow that. What I'm having a tough time understanding is that given a convex sole how do you get/make those sweet spots and not work on them individually?
I may have a big DUH coming my way but the little mind isn't seing it.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I believe the idea is that you flatten the sole until the sweet spots are coplanar. Then you stop. If there are hollows in the plane's sole that are deeper than those sweet spots, you now have a plane that isn't flat but is usable.
That said, I went through this exercise (a couple hours of flattening using lots of sandpaper) on a Stanley #5 a few years ago. It instantly made all the difference between a nearly unusable plane and one that is still my regular user.
That said, I started noticing recently that every piece of wood I flatten with that plane now has a slight curve to it unless I'm extra careful to only work the high spots. The plane seems to want to produce an arc instead of a plane. So I checked the sole. Those sweet spots are no longer coplanar.
I have not dropped the plane in the meantime; just used it a bunch.
Is this a common occurence (the iron warping AFTER flattening) with cheap planes?
MikeTo the man with a hammer, all the world is a nail.
The sole of a plane can flex considerably as you tighten the cap iron. This is why you're always supposed to flatten the sole with the blade in place, just withdrawn slightly so that you don't grind it while you're grinding the sole.
This may be what happened to you.
-Steve
Thanks Steve. You're correct that I flattened the sole before I'd heard you were supposed to do it with the blade still on, so that may be what happened.
Still doesn't explain why that plane seemed to work so well for so many years before I started noticing a problem, but perhaps I'm just getting pickier in my measurements...To the man with a hammer, all the world is a nail.
So, the long and short of it all is that you're better off flattening the entire sole (what I do no matter which plane), but it is not necessary; just get the sweet spots flat and co-planer and it should work.
May be a lot more work, but I'll stick to an all flat sole. By the way, I called a local machine shop and they told me they would surface grind any of my planes up to 24" long for $25. Cheap enough for me.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob,
Is the shop that you spoke to, familiar with iron hand planes? Further, there is a school of thought that the plane, in order to be ground properly, must have the frog and blade intact and in tension that you would use for planing.
I have a machine shop in my manufacturing plant with a number of different grinders, including several surface grinders. I would still be very wary of surface grinding unless the machinist was thoroughly knowledgeable of not only what he is doing, but what he is also machining.
Several years ago I owned part of a huge machining and stamping operation that had several "blanchard" grinders. These are what Lee Valley is using to flatten their plane blades and I believe also some of their hand planes. If you have access to a shop that has a "blanchard" grinder, that would be the way to go.
Personally, even with ownership of a machine shop that can do this kind of work, I did not do any of it (I flatten on ceramic sanding belts, clamped to my table saw). I've made (rather had one of my guys) do quite a bit of other blade making and heat treating and also complete the English Stanley #90 kit I bought several years ago (made the sole square to the sides, the nose co-planar to the main casting and the plane bed slope even to the main casting). I figure I spent about $200.00 worth of machinist time on that $85.00 plane!
T.Z.
Now, now David. You've seen my hands, and they're not particularly muscular-- I'm no gorilla anyway, ha, ha. But it's not hard to bend and twist a long plane like a no. 7 plane a bit and it's possible to use that ability to advantage every now and then.
But to the original question about flattening plane soles. A flat sole all over is nice. Flat around the rim and a spot just in front of and behind the mouth I find perfectly workable. This forms a figure eight high spot all on the same plane with hollows in the middle of the two O's that make up the figure of 8 look.
I can even manage pretty well with a plane that's slightly convex heel to toe and side to side, but concave planes I've never really been able to get to work very well except for rough jobs.
For flattening the sole I like to to use those rolls of heavy paper weight green abrasive rolls available from places like B&Q and Homebase in the UK, and from Home Desperate or Lowe's in the US. 6" wide stuff and 40' or 50' long 120 grit costing about £7- £10 a pop.
Take a strip off about 3' to 5' long and spray mount it to a flat surface like a table saw, surface planer (jointer) spindle moulder (shaper), etc. Then get to work. Within a couple of minutes you'll know if the paper is coarse enough. If it looks like it's going to take ages to do the job with 120 grit switch over 100, 80, 60 or even 40 grit if you can find that coarse and go for it.
I reckon it shouldn't take more than 10 to 20 minutes to get the initial flattening done to at least that figure of 8 flatness I mentioned earlier, even if the striations are very deep because you've used 40 or 60 grit.
At that point a plane's perfectly serviceable as far as I'm concerned. Any further flattening I think isn't required for the plane to function as it should, but it certainly doesn't hurt to get the sole flat all over and mirror shiny if that's what pleases the person doing the job.
I'm not much interested in that level of tuning up a plane. I just want tools that work, and I don't much care if they're pretty. If anyone ever got a look at the sorry looking specimens in my tool cabinets they'd know what I mean. A pretty looking Clifton and a handsome looking Lie-Neilsen along with a few infill planes. The rest are a sad looking bunch, but they work and that's more than good enough for me. Hell, one or two of my decent users have even got, er, well, plastic knobs and handles. How sad is that, ha, ha? Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
I have been there and spent hours! and lots! of grits trying to flatten an iron sole on a plane. May I suggest that instead you spend some $$ instead of your valuable hours on a quality wood sole plane? I finally did this (stopped beating my head against a wall) and, not surprisingly, should the sole start to loose a flat it is readily corrected. Unless, of course, you have access to a good metal surface planer. The historic interest in old, 'natural' planes is nice for those with nothing else to do and I agree that they should be perserved for posterity sake. But do they have to be flat while sitting in a museum? Please don't get me wrong; I am not implying that wood planes are not 'historic,' just that they are more easily maintained for use in a shop. This is my distillation from James Krenov's opinion, not Tom Silva's.
forrestb
JJV
I haven't read all the responses, but I'll give you my practical experience. It sounds like you have hollows in the plane sole. I'll guarantee you that the greater level of flatness that you achieve, the better the plane will function. So, keep at it, and use a lower grit sandpaper to achieve flatness. Once you've gotten the sole in a consistant plane (pardon the pun) of flatness, how much you "polish" you wish to put on the plane sole is your choice. At that point, I think you'll not receive much benefit from further grits below, say, 220, on a jointer plane. A smoothing plane is a different story.
UK Stanley planes were very poorly made, and although very cheap, require a large amount of tuning in order to achieve what I consider to be an acceptable level of performance. The other areas of concern will be the mating surface of the frog and its bed, as well as the chipbreaker mated to the iron.
I wasted a bunch of time tuning several #4's (UK Stanley version) that I purchased for use by students in my shop, so I know how bad they can be. In the future, if I need more classroom user's, I'll buy something else.
Jeff
Thanks Jeff. I also have a #4 and #5 1/5 of the same "vintage", and I spend a lot of time tuning up the #4. Works pretty well now, with the addition of a Hock iron and chipbreaker. Still (and this may be solely my perception based on the respective quality of each plane), it doesn't seem as nice a user as my LN 4 1/2. I'm not enough of a hand plane pro to know if there is a real difference. I just know I like the feel of the LN better, so in my mind it works better. There's probably no difference.
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
JJV
I believe there is a huge amount of difference between a well made quality plane like LN and the Stanley stuff. I always spend my money on quality tools, and I can always tell the difference between a LN plane and the few Stanley planes that I still have in the shop, even though I've tuned them up.
Jeff
Forget whatever has been said.. Use Emery paper! Of different grits......
Yeah someone back there mentioned emery cloth. Sounds like a better idea either way.
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
Richard,
Scrum or threequarter?........
No gorilla like paws implied, but I have noticed that the professional who has worked with his hands for many years generally has a much stronger grip than the average executive....
Badly seasoned castings were quite common on UK planes and they can move after flattening, sometimes after as little as six months. Some seem to go on moving forever.
Bruce Luckhurst developed a cyclical routine of freezing and gently heating (in a domestic oven) to deal with this problem. i.e. to relieve the stresses in the casting, which occur on cooling.
best wishes,
David
David, once a donkey in the forwards, always, at heart, a gentleman thug.
I did, from time to time, play out there with the fairies that made up the nancy boys in the backs, but I've always preferred the dark, evil arts and low cunning of forward play where referees fear to tread, ha, ha.
Anyway, who would you want on your side in a bust up, either on the pitch or at about 2 am on Sunday morning after a night of mild drinking and debauchery? One of the pretty boy backs with the blonde highlights in his hair, or the no-neck, 50" chest, shaven headed, troglodyte that plays tighthead prop? Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Having spent some time in both of the special isles on business, I still do not understand the terms "mild drinking and debauchery." With the emphasis on the term mild. :>)
Mild drinking I suppose might equal still standing and still using a consonant every now and then in a sentence. Mild debauchery equals perhaps having the idea to get up to some hanky-panky, but neither the will nor the inclination to bother. Slainte. Richard Jones Furniture
Mild drinking is when you still can make a fool of yourself but never do anything really stupid or harmful!
Hey, who you callin' a Troglodyte?? ha ha
Jeff
Why bother?
I spent days flattening a #6 some years ago. And then I had to buy a better Hock iron, and to replace the plastic handles.
This adds up close to a Lie-N.
We're into woodworking, right? Not planeflattening.
Heh heh...that's part of my thinking too. Add up all the time I spend on it and replacement parts and then you're pretty close to something better anyway.
Expensive though!
Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.
Expensive though!My wife was a great Lady,, The kids were expensive!
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