I have recently discovered the joys of handplaning and all handtool woodworking in general(yes, I am young and a former victim of the push button, dial in a size, machine woodworking mentality).
I haven’t been able to find any good books on planing at the library and I don’t have anyone to show me the finer points of using a handplane(I have an old but sharp and true #4 stanley smoothing plane).
My question is what sort of finish should I be aiming for after planing an edge jointed table top of reasonable size, say 12″ x 24″? I have no trouble getting it flat but I have trouble with very shallow gouge lines left by the outer edges of my plane iron. My plane is sharp and I have the blade as parallel to the sole as I can make it, I routinely can make shavings so thin they barely exist. I find though I have to lightly sand the table top to get a completely smooth gouge free surface ready for finishing. Is this normal to have to sand after planing or do I need much more practice or a better technique with my plane?
Thanks for any replies, or if this is such an elementary question any pointers on where I can find a good source of beginner information would also be appreciated.
Replies
MrChippy,
You might want to hand scrape after planing with the #4....but the 150 sandpaper is okay too... there are things you can do with the blade of the 4 to eliminate the slight ridge...slight bow on the blade...
It is a great question. I have often heard reference to antique furniture being special in part because one can feel that it was hand planed. I have always assumed that feel is precisely what you have noticed. As mentioned in the first reply, you can slightly round off the corners of the plane blade, leaving the blade essentially flat, and the edges of a pass will blend into the rest of the surface rather than end in shallow ledges or steps.
Garrett Hack has written a great book on hand planes, but I can't remember how much he addresses using planes and the expected results. Your local library system may have a circulating copy. You can find the exact title at the Fine Woodworking home page.
Don,
"I have often heard reference to antique furniture being special in part because one can feel that it was hand planed"
In the 'Old' lobby of the Children's Hospital here in Boston there is an 8' round table with one inch wide scallops from the center to the edge...maybe a hundred rows, straight as an arrow....they are hard to feel, easy to see.. that is the only piece I have seen that featured planing skills. Most planing marks are on the back side or inside the case.
I can't imagine ever being good enough to feature my planing skills...
Garrett Hack's book is The Handplane Book, and it does cover flattening. Dubbing over the corners will reduce the ridges greatly; honing a very slight arc will eliminate them, but leave small scallops. Both prove that the wood was worked by hand, but if you want a truly flat surface free from either of these, you will have to go further with scrapers and possibly sandpaper. He wrote an article for FWW on this within the past year or two--might try the index.
/jvs
Order Plane Basics by Sam Allen from Amazon. In the meantime, you need to dub over the corners of your plane iron on a medium stone.
Mr. Chippy,
With cooperative wood, it is impossible to it achieve a finish better than that left by a sharp hand plane. I sand my planed surfaces very lightly with 320 grit paper to remove handling marks just prior to finishing. A planed surface, I think has more brilliance than one that was heavily sanded. I think of it as Plexiglas, as it comes from the factory it is clear, but if you sand it, it of course becomes opaque.
Rounding the corners is an often quoted way to eliminate the tracks that hand planes leaves, but it is not very effective. The best way is to have your iron honed to a very shallow curve. This process is quite easy and after a few tries it will become second nature. Everyone has their own way of sharpening, and you obviously found one that works for you. I first get a dead flat edge with an oil stone, and then switch to sandpaper (800-2000). When honing on the sandpaper, I apply more pressure to the outside edges, which creates the curve I’m after. When finished the curve is so small that a straightedge held to it will show just a tiny crack of light at each edge. You’ll know if you did a good job, when your plane can take a nearly full width shaving without tearing at the edges.
A plane sharpened like this will leave a series of slight scallops, that are not readily seen, but can be felt. Because I make reproductions, the slight tracks left by the plane are highly desirable. When possible I take parallel and slightly overlapping strokes with the plane from end to end of the board. This especially important with tops that will receive a high gloss finish.
Another thing you may want to try is to put a very small bevel on the back of your iron, of approximately 5 degrees.( you’ll have to regrind your primary bevel to 5 degrees less than it is now). This small back bevel, will in effect raise your bed angle of the plane and give a better cut in reversing grain. This one step can dramatically increase the surface quality , when planing hardwoods.
Rob Millard
Thanks for all the replies. I think I will order Plane Basics, I need a good text on technique and a guide as to what to strive for.
It looks like I'm doing a little better than I thought, I guess I have to come to terms with the `witness marks' that are left from hand working of wood.
Thanks again.
Plane tracks are bad, gentle undulations are good.
MrChippy,
What Rob said. He has it exactly right.
It's interesting, at least to me, that some high-end cabinet and furniture makers hand plane the stock that has already been through the planers, jointers and wide sanders, just to put on those gentle undulations. It is indeed a sign of hand work.
Machines make things perfectly flat. I neither desire nor aspire my work to be indistinguishable from that made by machines.
Alan
There is a second and more likely reason that many woodworkers lightly hand plane stock that has been surfaced by machine. Hand planing eliminates the closely spaced ripple pattern that cutterheads leave behind. This pattern is hard to see on unfinished wood and won't be eliminated by light sanding, but will often become very obvious once the finish is applied.
John W.
John,
Machine planers and jointers do indeed leave a series of scallops across the stock, but I don't think that's why some manufacturers sometimes hand plane the surface. Big drum sanders are now pretty standard equipment in production shops (or so I'm told) and when they're used for final dimensioning, or even final sanding, they would remove the planer marks. I don't know for sure, but I doubt any manufacturer hand planes all their products; this is a treatment for "high end" cabinets and furniture only. Also, hand planing production wood work is a very recent development, machine planing is not. I've also read an interview, and saw one on This Old House, where manufacturers said that they hand plane only to create the "hand planed" surface. This is simply a sort of woodworking legerdemain to give their customers the illusion that they're buying hand made products.
Alan
Edited 10/28/2003 1:33:58 AM ET by Alan
legerdemain
Excellent word.
Jeff,
Thanks. Now if I only knew what it means.
Alan
I was thinking of furniture made one at a time in a small shop, not production work, when I made the case for hand planing after running the stock through the machinery. It does seem a little dishonest to create "pretend" hand plane marks on a mass produced piece of furniture.
A few years ago, I saw an ad for a hand held power plane, made in Germany, for finishing beams for post and beam construction. In addition to the straight blades you could order curved blades for it that reproduced the look of adze work. That kind of bothered me too.
John W.
It should. The only way to build a piece that looks hand made is to, well, make it by hand with hand powered tools. Ersatz plane work at the tail end is a crock. Ask any reputable antique dealer, conservator, or expert of your choice.
Somebody else said it - hand made furniture has an imperfect perfection that cannot be matched.
And yet another sombody else said - If you can't tell the difference, there is no difference.
First off, if you hand plane it the final step, that makes it no different than if it were dimensioned with hand planes and elbow grease, or with machines. If you flatten and dimension your stock by hand, with scrub planes and such, then send it through the thickness sander, you will get the same results as if you had done everything by machine. The look is what is important, not the steps you take to acheive it. Hand planed surfaces do have a _different_ look than machined surfaces.
The scallops are really not as noticable to me as everyone here seems to be making. I hone a slight camber in my irons so that the edges of the iron doesn't quite take off a shaving. The center will take a whisper thin one. I also use a 4 1/2 or a 6 to finish plane my surfaces, so the iron is wider making the scallops not as noticable. It seems that by overlapping your plane stroked just slightly you take off the high spot of the last scallop anyway.
Well, its just getting argumentive at this point, anyway...more like religion than science, so to each his own, and I will not preach my way more than another's.
Tom
John W and Big Country,
Maybe I missed something, but I don't think we're disagreeing.
I was trying to say that swiping a hand plane over planed (and perhaps sanded) stock a few times is "in" right now. The big-production manufacturers have learned that less sophisticated buyers will believe the piece is high quality if it has those gentle undulations. Those buyers then make the non- sequitur leap of thinking 'hand planed' means 'made by hand'--as BC pointed out--they already have the belief that 'hand made' means 'high quality.' The manufacturers can then make a sale for more money, but with the customers convinced they have paid for a better made item.
Small shops are obviously less likely to have a big drum sander. A piece from a small shop could very well be made with quite a bit of hand tool work. They can decide, for whatever reasons, whether or not they sand or scrape the piece flat.
With a hand power planer that has curved knives, this practice is about at its apex. The only difficulty is that clerks will have to learn how to lead the customer to the same conclusion without saying it has been hand planed. The next improvement in machinery will be a planer with curved knives.
The big production companies are naively helped by the mystique surrounding antiques. I've been in antique stores, you probably have too, where the clerks will have customers glide a hand across the top of a hand-planed bureau or table, tell them what they're feeling, and say something like: "Do you feel that? That means it's all been planed by hand. You just can't get quality like that these days..." The rest falls easily into place.
Alan
You're right, I misunderstood your comment. Just because someones uses a handplane doesn't mean the entire piece is of a high quality, or even skillfully made. I agree wholeheartedly.
But now I misunderstood your comment:
With a hand power planer that has curved knives, this practice is about at its apex. The only difficulty is that clerks will have to learn how to lead the customer to the same conclusion without saying it has been hand planed. The next improvement in machinery will be a planer with curved knives.
Is a hand power planer something different than a handplane? A thickness planer can fit the whole piece under one knife, so curving that blade would actually produce a worse surface. Unless you're just talking about mimicking a handplane...
Tom
Big Country,
A hand power planer is a plug in, motor driven tool that's basically a miniature jointer with handles thats used like a hand plane to surface stock. It's surprising that more woodworkers don't know about them since they're very useful. Smaller ones have a 3 1/4 in.cut but bigger machines for cleaning up beams are available. The smaller ones use disposable carbide blades.
John W.
Yeah, I've used my cousin's, they are okay, but I seem to hog off about as much material with my old jack plane. Less work though. I misread your statement. I thought you meant a "hand powered" planer, not a hand "power planer".
Its like a contest to see how many times I can misinterpret your possts.
Tom
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