Hi There,
I’d like to start woodworking, and my first project is to restore my wife desk. It’s a very old desk in pine that belonged to her dad when he was young.
She painted it blurple (her own mix of blue and purple – latex paint) some time ago. She now regrets it – so I removed all the paint, and sanded it.
Problem is that the top of the desk is not really flat. I was thinking to use a plane to flatten it, but do not know which one to get.
I think #6/#7 might be a good choice. On the other hand I might be able to do just fine with a #5, as the surface is relatively small (~40×60).
I don’t mind buying LN/Veritas, as I hope it to be a good investments for the many years to come.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Yannick
Replies
As always this will spark a debate but for me if I could have only one plane it would be a high quality (either purchased that way or an old one tuned up) #7. It can do just about everything.
Which plane you use is not as important as knowing how to use it. I would suggest you try it out on some scrap wood first, before using it on a desk which probably has a significantly high sentimental value. Post a photo when you're done.
Rather than jump right into the issue of which plane to buy first, I'd suggest thinking first about what will be involved in flatening the desk top. Is it solid wood (as opposed to veneered), and if so, how thick? How much out of flat is it? Is the top thick enough to allow removing the required amount of material?
A point might be being missed here. Unless you are going to remove ALL of the wood,leveling the top will likely result in a surface with sanded areas and areas with planed (raw) wood. The end result will be problematic for finishing with any opaque material.
Thank you very much for all the replies and suggestions.
The desk is solid pine, and the top about 3/4" thick. And it's "fairly" flat, it's just that you can feel grooves and bumps with your hands.
I've tried to attach pictures to this reply, hope it works ok.
Once flattened, shouldn't a complete, but light, sanding mitigate any possible issue regarding raw vs. sanded finish?
In my experience the issue of raw vs. sanded does not make a difference unless you are going to stain the desk. In that case a light sanding over the entire surface as you mention would be a good solution.You mention you want to start woodworking so I assume you do not have sharpening equipment. In my opinion as soon as you plan to get chisels or a plane you should budget in the cost of sharpening equipment. In hardwood blades dull within minutes of continuous use and unless you sharpen frequently you will start hating your hand tools. There is a lot of literature on the subject. I personally use 3 water stones (1000, 4000, 8000), one 220 diamond stone to true up the water stones, a slow speed grinder with a Norton 80x cool grinding wheel and Veritas tool rest, and a Veritas Mk II honing guide. Not saying you need all this right away but you definitely need the ability to sharpen your plane iron when you get your plane.
If you are new to handplaning, (1) know how to tune and setup any plane that you choose, (2) consider planing only across the grain, or diagonaly in different directions to flatten the surface, then finish with as much sanding as necessary. Flattening a surface is one thing, smoothing is much more advanced.Brian
Yannick,
Napie said it. A really fine tuned #7 with a tight mouth and set to take thinnest cut possible. Use LIGHT cross hatched pencil marks across top so you can see what your removing. (light -- so you can sand off any remaining later). Only work over the "hills" then follow with scraper IF any plane marks and to level any last differences, being care full not to hollow with the scraper, then light sand over all. USE care as pine is soft.
Practice first on scrap.
Boiler
Yannick:
I'm big into planes, but I'm not sure you really need to use one in this case. How deep are the grooves? You may get the smoothness and appearance you want by using a large sanding block and sanding with the grain starting with 180 grit, then 220, and finishing with 400. It won't cost you much or take much time to try this first to see if it gives you the finished surface you are looking for. If not then I would suggest buying the Lee Valley low angle jack. You can do a lot of different work with this plane and it is easy for a novice to setup. Plus a low angle plane will normally give a better surface to pine than a standard angle. If you do decide to plane the top, by alls means practice on some scrap pine boards first.
gdblake
My opinion - do not attempt to plane that desk top. Flattening a surface with a plane is not rocket science, but you do have to learn how to do a few things first. Among them: how to read the grain, set up the blade with a slight camber (curve), sharpen the blade, advance/retract the blade in small increments, and set the lateral adjustment. Non-plane related, but equally important - how to chamfer an edge to prevent blow-out from the required cross-grain planing to get a surface flat, and how to deal with knots.
If you're new to handplanes you are highly likely to cut a lot of deep tracks into the desktop, create a few areas of horrendous tearout, and potentially pull some of the knots loose. You may well wind up having to replace the top or cutting it down to less than 1/2" in thickness.
I applaud your willingness to learn to use a hand plane - this is actually an excellent application for one, and far more efficient and with a more certain outcome than a belt sander. But what I highly advise you to do is to set the project aside for a while, buy a decent #5 jack plane (L-N, Lee Valley, or a good-quality Stanley antique from the 1920s-1930s) and go to one of your local woodworking club meetings. Find someone there that uses handplanes regularly, and bribe him with a six-pack to come over with a couple of his well-tuned planes for a Saturday afternoon. He'll show you more in 30 minutes about what mistakes to avoid than you'll learn in 2 weeks reading books and magazine articles, and the two of you can restore the desktop in about 15 minutes without making a mess of it.
Yannick,
Even an experienced woodworker with a good quality, finely tuned, plane would have problems flattening a pine panel with large knots in it like your table top. Simply put knots are almost impossible to plane smooth and they are brutal to the plane blade's edge.
Personally I would either leave the top alone, most tables are not as flat as yours is already. If you feel you must flatten the top, learn to sharpen and turn a burr on a card scraper, which will cost you way less than the cheapest plane, this is job made for that tool.
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
A quote from James Krenov, from a recent thread, sums up what you're trying to do (given no experience with handplanes), it is:
"There's still time to ruin it."
...which is probably exactly what you'll end up doing if you've never before four-squared a single board much less a large panel.
Again, thanks to all of you for the informative comments. Very, very nice forum here.
I am hearing the calls to caution, and will probably end up practicing plane skills on another project. You guys just saved a desk.
I will try to sand it some more, and/or use a scraper to get an even flatter surface.
despite what all the rikenologists may suggest in terms of planes to flatten this desk, my apparently rather bizarre suggestion woud be to use a home made scraper.
Not some richards paint-scraper device from the paint store,--- but rather a 6-8-10-or even 12'"" wide table scraper.
Made from perhaps a sacraficial saw blade held in a home made handle. It's been a coon's age since I seen on of these on the market, but they are easily made.
The will eclipse any plane by any manufacturer living or dead, cheap or expensive , in achieving flatness.
Moreover, in terms of cost, the concept of cobbling up one of these table scrapers, sharpening it and using it is likely available free at your local library with only a modicum of time investment, the steel to make the tool is likely available at yer next garage sale venture ofor 3-5 bucks, and the elbow grease is free.
3-5$ cash outlay, a few hours in the library, a few hours at garage sales, Hell if you put yer mind to it, yu could get up Sat AM at 7am and have the darn thing flattned by noon.
Then it's done, except the finishing
No pressure eh?
Eric in Calgary
"It's been a coon's age since I seen on of these on the market"
Heck, I've never even heard of a table scraper, let alone seen one. Interesting idea though. I assume it's just a jumbo-sized cabinet scraper, but you mention making a handle -- I'm puzzled about the configuration and attachment of such a thing.
I Googled "table scraper", bit I only got hits for baking supplies and a small hoe for cleaning bird feeders -- neither seems to fit the bill. ;-)
Care to elaborate on the configuration of such a tool?Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PAEverything fits, until you put glue on it.
Mike, like you visualized, it is like a massive cabinet scraper. Handle looks like a (thin) rolling pin with a slot in it.
Gonna take a lot of elbow grease though....
Eric
Hmmm. Sounds like a baker's bench scraper, like this,
View Image
but bigger & sharpened like a cab scraper?Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PAEverything fits, until you put glue on it.
Hi Yannick
My advice is that you use a sander on this table top.
As a few others have stated, handplaning is a skill that is developed with practice ... and you do not want to practice on this table. What you have here is straight forward for someone with experience, but it is in truth a more difficult job that it at first appears. The challenge lies in removing very little of the surface thickness - just enough to renew the finish and not enough to alter the dimensions (including the surrounding edge shape).
If I were doing this job, I would avoid a long plane, such as a jointer (Stanley #7) or a jack (#5 or #6). A long plane trims the hills and needs to continue removing thickness until it levels all in the valley. You will end up with a thinnner top.
I would use a short smoother (the shorter the better) set for a fine shaving. This could literally take off a few thousands of an inch where it matters and leave the thickness and general shape untouched.
Also forget about scraping. You do not scrape Pine. It istoo soft and will leave a furry finish. Use sandpaper wrapped around a short length of hardwood (similar to a short smoother, say 6" long - long enough to maintain a flat and short enough not to have to remove a greater length).
Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek,Actually you can use a sharp hand held card scraper to achieve a very nice finish on tight grained American white pine, I do it all the time. In fact, if the wood has resin in it, mistakenly referred to as "old pine" or "pumpkin pine" it is about the only way to do the final finishing since the resins will clog sand paper in just a few strokes. On fast grown white pine, that looks and feels more like balsa wood, you'll have to keep the burr very sharp, and take a light cut, to get a clean fuzz free surface, but it is usually possible and gives much better control than sanding. The blanket chest in this link was finished with a scraper:https://www.finewoodworking.com/uploadedImages/Fine_Woodworking_Network/Image_Resources/Gallery_Images/white_chest_xl.jpgJohn White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
Edited 10/1/2009 3:33 pm ET by JohnWW
John,
If you are man enough to produce a ready to finish surface on eastern white pine, with a card scraper, you are a better man than I am. But, I already knew that ;-)))
I am wayyy impressed. I've scraped white pine many times, never been satisfied with the results.
Awefully,
Ray
Ray,For the best results the quality of the wood is critical. I use only tight grained resinous white pine for the fancy pieces. The softer more commonly found pine can be worked with if that is all that is available, but it won't take on a sheen the way the best wood does.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
Well don't hide the name of your supplier for this elusive stuff. Do tell.
C Stanford,Here's my secret (don't tell anyone). Anytime I'm in a Home Depot I rummage through the stacks of pine, wide stuff in 1x and 5/4, and occasionally I get lucky and find a board or two that is tight grained, sticky resinous, and weighing twice as much as any other board in the stack, and I take it home and stash it away for use someday. I like the HD for this because the way they stack the wood vertically makes it really easy to go through the stack and there isn't some yard worker offering to help or giving me the evil eye because I'm not taking whatever is on the top of the pile.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
Unfortunately I'm in the South. They don't sell white pine down here, they stack other construction lumber (softwoods) horizontally, and I've never seen one smidgen of 5/4 in any coniferous species at a Home Depot in my area.
This wood isn't in the framing aisle, this is trim lumber, 1x and 5/4, and it is usually in a separate aisle, in vertical storage, often with the wood moldings.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
John,
Also a good source for finding q-sawn stock too. Found some really nice curly maple too.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
That's a very nice chest, John. And nicely finished, too. I believe you when you say that you can scrape this type of pine. Still, I have my reservations that the OP could, or anyone else for that matter!
Scraping as as much an art as planing. For the OP sanding would be a lot safer.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek,Thanks for the compliment, that chest was an experimental piece, it has some odd joinery, but it came out well enough to keep. As I pointed out in my posting to Ray just above, the quality of the wood is critical, if you are trying to get a really good finish off of a scraper. I think anyone could learn to use a scraper as an efficient, and low risk, part of the finishing procedure for most woods, but it might not be worth it. I'm no purist, if a wood is fighting me with one approach I go to "Plan B" whatever it might be.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
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