Scraper plane leaves surface rougher than smoothing plane
bogdanx
| Posted in Hand Tools on
Hi friends 👋
Long time reader, first time caller. I’m hoping someone can shed some light into what I’m doing wrong with my large scraper plane. I’m cleaning up a mahogany tabletop that has a bunch of gnarly grain. The smoothing plane (Woodriver #3) leaves the surface glass smooth except for some severe tearout where the grain switches directions. So I got a large scraper plane (Lie Nielsen #112) but this guy just scuffs the surface leaving it looking pilled. They’re both sharp as far as I can tell. What am I doing wrong?
I attached one close-up photo of each result.
Thanks so much!
Bogdan
Replies
My bet would be the 112 is not as sharp enough. I have one from about 12 years or so ago. Back then they shipped it with a 60 degree bevel and promoted not raising a burr. I think now they use a 45 degree. From what I have read, most have success adding a burr. Mine works well once honed as you would any other plane blade. Bottom line, you should see a shaving, not dust.
Regarding planes and tear out, check out this article in FWW. https://www.finewoodworking.com/2020/03/26/watch-this-how-to-stop-tearout
Cheers,
Scrapers do leave a different surface than a plane.
If that tear out is being produced by the scraper, it needs to be re-prepped.
I turn to a scraper when tearout is a problem with other methods. If your plane leaves no tearout and your scraper does, a good sharpening should take care of that. Same goes if your plane and scraper both leave tearout.
The scraper will leave a different surface that the plane. It will generally not be as smooth a a surface that a plane works well on. Grain direction comes into play as always although the scraper will tolerate odd encounters well. Different tools for different purposes but, the surface should be quite smooth if the tool is properly setup and used.
This is a fairly aggressive cut but, these are the types of shavings I try for. This is a Veritas Cabinet Scraper and the Veritas scraper-plane-insert in a Millers Falls No 14.
Thank you, very helpful. I'm definitely not getting shavings - mostly dust or or a pileup of fibers. I'll explore putting a burr on the scraper plane (it's a 45 degree bevel), and play with the angles.
William Ng has one of the best videos on prepping a scraper.
Try a 5 degree back bevel on your number 4 . Cheers
There is a description on how to raise a burr here. https://www.lie-nielsen.com/products/large-scraping-plane
A tip to hone the blade if you don’t have a jig is to mount the blade backwards in the 112 and put the front on a flat surface, i.e your bench, raise the back up and let the blade slide down onto your stone, glass and paper etc. until you match the 45 degree angle. You can use the adjustment screws to create a sharp secondary bevel. Keep the nose on the bench and work the blade on the stone.
Sometimes everything is right except the angle of the blade. One trick I use is to remove the blade from your scraping plane. Use it to scrape by hand. You will quickly find the best angle for the wood grain you have. Replace the blade in the plane at that angle. It's easy to make adjustments of a few degrees once you are close. A frustrating plane can be singing through difficult wood in a matter of minutes. Certainly worth a try before manipulating the edge that may not need it.
Went to several LieNielsen had tool events and have asked about scrapers vs. smoothing planes and finishes. They said the same that RobertEJr mentioned above that smoother and scrapers leave a different finish. I asked more than one person at different events.
I have a stanley 112 that I had trouble with until I bought a #80 that was far easier to learn to use. It taught me what a scaper could do. I still go to it first. The 112 is a little too big sometimes and carries the blade over the small areas I am trýing to clean up.
What the others said. But ....
I'd add that a wider/longer scraper plane seems a better tool than all the smaller ones for dealing with minor tear out on larger flat surfaces that are getting their final smoothing. It's so, so easy to put a dip or five into a flat surface when getting the tear-out areas smoothed with a smaller scraper. The smaller scraper applied to just the tear out areas is obviously faster but at the risk of those dips.
I do my utmost to avoid tearing out with the plane. Higher angle plane blades that are very sharp and set fine are my preferred way to avoid tear out. If it still occurs (the roiling grain of woolly sapele is a rascal) I hope to keep it to an absolute minimum so that a scraping or sanding can treat the whole surface, not just the tear out areas, as the tear out is only a teeny fraction of an inch/millimeter deep.
Lataxe
I have a long history of using scrapers, from the hard maple floor loom I did as a first major project 45 years ago, to a recent crotch mahogany coffee table.
1) Planes and scrapers do leave a different surface; the scraper leaves a slightly fuzzy surface.
2) My primary scraper is a Stanley #81, which has a rosewood sole for easier use. It is a little harder to set than my Stanley #80, but I like its action and chatter free nature. I sharpen it to a 45º angle, and turn the edge with a burnisher. The final angle of the burnisher determines how aggressive the scraper will be; closer to 90º is less aggressive.
3) I work mostly with figured cherry and walnut. Altho I have several finely tuned planes, there is always greater risk of a chunk tearing out with the planes, so I put up with the more frequent sharpening of the scraper and use it almost all the time, especially to remove thickness planer marks. I normally start sanding with P220, as anything coarser will leave visible scratches in the figured areas. After proper scraping, sanding primarily evens the texture.
4) Figured mahogany is a special case! I've just finished two crotch mahogany tables (coffee and dining). They were both large slabs that were too wide for my 26" thickness planer (and would have been torn up by it.) So we flattened them with a router set-up, and scraped them to get rid of the router marks. Any plane would have torn up the surface, as the areas next to the crotch were heavily rowed. Mahogany, even crotch areas, is not as dense as cherry and walnut, and doesn't support itself when fibers are pushed by the cutting edge. Fibers will just bend over, or will tear out when the grain is wrong. And the rowed nature will mean that 1/4" away, the grain is heavily the opposite direction. We kept the #81 blade sharp, and after we did the best we could, I used a very sharp card scraper to scrape individual spots to get rid of the tearout, which was not at all deep after the main scraping. Then I started with the P220 on a random orbit sander; it took some time to get everything smooth (and after about 5 coats of Waterlox brought up the sheen, there were still a few pits that appeared.) I got a new appreciation for a card scraper, after years of ignoring mine in favor of the #81.
Good luck! Figured mahogany is a bear! (Matched by quartersawn sycamore, which is also not dense and heavily rowed.)
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