I’ve just begun using a Japanese smoothing plane and am surprised how difficult it is to avoid snipe at the end of the board. What is the technique for using one of these? I’m not asking about set up … I’m more or less confident in my ability there.
Is snipe really just part of using one of these planes?
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Hello
First tip is to join http://www.ibiblio.org/japanwood/phpBB2/index.php?sid=ca351c88ad9a17043905b89d4ca81bc2
How is the sole of your dai? Is it flat or do you have a slight hollow inbetween the contact points? Perhaps you are letting the back of the plane drop towards the end of your cut. My first thought is to make sure your dai is tuned.
Dale
The dai is fine, tuned as a smoother with contact points at back (nearest the woodworker) and just before the blade, and the front (behind the blade) raised a few thousands, no wind, blah, blah .....
The questions is TECHNIQUE, and the forum you suggest does not offer one post on this. Sure, I'll join and post my questions there, but the question here remains: How do you hold it, how much pressure, how do you take it off the end of the board when there is, in the last inch, virtually no support for the plan body without tipping it back, which also creates snipe.
In other words, assuming the plane is tuned (I know, a big assumption!), how do you use it on wood?
Thuthur,
The technique is very similar to that used with a Western plane: when starting the planing stroke, most of the pressure is on the toe/knob of the plane; as the plane body moves onto the wood, pressure is shifted so that it is evenly distributed between the knob and the tote, and as the end of the board/planing stroke is reached, most of the pressure shifts back to the tote.
Since you're using a Japanese plane, there is obviously no knob or tote, but the principle is the same: pressure mostly on the toe to begin, evenly distributed during most of the stroke, and then to the heel at the end of the board. As you bring the front of the plane off the end of the board, make a motion with the plane similar to an airplane taking off from the runway or a jet being catapult-launched off an aircraft carrier.
How much pressure? Enough to keep the plane under control and on the board cutting, but not so much as to bog the plane down. Sorry that's kinda vague, but it's the best way I can think of to describe it.
It's been my experience that a moderate to slow speed planing stroke works best for most of the woods I normally use (walnut, red oak, mahogany, cherry, maple, etc.).
Hope that this is of some use to you.
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"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that...."
--A.C. Clarke
For smoothing it is better not to have a contact point in front of the blade, however I doubt this is why you are getting snipe. To me it sounds like you are not transfering pressure to the blade contact point when the back of the dai leaves the edge of the surface. Or perhaps you are using to much downward pressure at the end of the cut. What does the underside of you dai look like? Are the only shiney (sp?) areas the contact points? How deep of a cut are you taking and how tight is the mouth?
I tend to plane with moderate pressure and back off a bit at the end of the cut. The pictue shows a 70mm I use for rough stock and deep cuts so it has a larger mouth. This I also use with moderate pressure and have not had any issue with snipe, contact points are near the blade and back of plane and relief in front of the blade.
It's possible you have to much relief between contact points and you are falling into that area at the end of your cut. try to ease of the downward pressure and see what happens.
http://www.timberwerksstudio.com
How's the snipe situation? Have you given your dai a tune up or tried different technique? Keep us posted.
Dale
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