Hello all,
A very basic question I’m afraid but, how wide should my plane be?
I’m looking at Japanese planes and there are varying sizes. I guess it all depends on the size of the stock you’re working on but I haven’t found any resources giving any recommendations on this matter.
Currently I’m just messing about with stock about 30mm wide and not so much with boards.
Can I use a 45mm kanna for this? Or would it be wiser to get something closer to 70mm for when I do want to move to bigger stuff? Or would a 70mm kanna be to big for 30mm stock?
All help would be greatly appreciated.
Sven
Replies
I have no experience of Japanese planes at all, but would suggest that 70mm sounds huge.
My No4 Smoothing plane has a 50mm blade. I have a 51/2 which is a bit wider, and that's a beast. Hard work for sure.
If you can't find someone who really does know what they are talking about, consider what you might do with the plane and how that might affect your use. Watch a few videos of people doing the sort of thing you want to do and see what tools seem to work for them.
Were it I, I'd go for the 45mm plane as this is like as not going to find more uses and be easier to use than the bigger option, but frankly, I'd also ignore me!
Someone said on the forum something like you get used to what you have and learn to work with and don't miss other things you haven't used. Having said that I use hand-planes most of the time on a shooting board. I have an old woodie jack plane that has a lot of mass, over 50mm wide blade and it comes in handy when I need mass to plane a lot of material fast (like planing an edge). When I get within 4mm to my line, though, I put it aside and get a small bevel up block plane to get closer to the line and fine tune. When face planing especially fine grained woods prone to tear out, that means you need to plane cross-grain or diagonally. Usually, when I need to remove lots of material, I start with the jack then move to a 45 to 55 mm smoother to fine tune. I usually follow with a cabinet scraper then a card scraper. That's what I do.
If you're an adult male, 60-70mm in general, and sometimes you'll find 72mm or whatever.
Japanese planes don't cut the full width of the blade - you grind the corners off to some extent, so you'll end up with maybe something like 60-65mm in the cut, and you're pulling the plane and will probably want some camber.
They're not western planes, so you can't just convert the width and assume they're the same. The small block planes will be no good for smoothing - they're block planes, and they're tiny.
Thanks to really appreciate the comment. I ended up getting a 45mm. It works nice now I set it up but I do realise that it might not be the best for smoothing wider boards.
A 48mm is pretty great, especially as a first kanna.
I have one made by Yamamoto that Suzuki Tools offers.
I use it for trimming shop sawn edge banding, smoothing saw marks, chamfering, heck a couple months ago I fit doors to a storefront with it. While my #4 and #9 1/2 both still have their place, I reach for my 48mm kanna most often these days. How well it functions is directly related to how well you set it up. Get one with a decent length body/dai. At least the length of a #4 and you can smooth quite well with it. Only add the tiniest amount of camber to the iron.
A 65-70mm plane is much tougher to set up and has much less utility, but a lot of fun and can leave a very fine finish.
Thanks for the reply. I ended up getting a 45mm and I'm very happy with it. Reading what you do with yours is very reassuring.
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