All,
I accquired a handful of wooden bench planes a few months ago and would like to get them in shape for using. I’ve sharpened the blade…but then realized I don’t know the first thing about wooden planes. I read a bit online but I need more basic information…like do you hammer the wood wedge before you tap the blade…and how do you set the proper depth…and how come all the mouths are about 3/8-1/2″ is that okay or should I put a new sole on as was illustrated by Bob Smalser here.
Can someone recommend a good book on tuning and modifing wooden planes..that is basic stuff?
Replies
BG:
With my planes that I've bought and or made I find that if I set the sole of the plane on a flat board and put the blade in place then insert the wedge and push it in place with my thumb. That is usually sufficient to set the blade to its proper depth. If an adjustment is required, you can "gently" tap the blade to lower it or tap the rear end of the plane to raise it.
Tapping the rear of the plane will also loosen the wedge.
Roger
Herg,
Thanks, that is helpful. Do all your planes have a large mouth?...does that not matter like it does in metal planes?
BG:
Yes it does matter.
Roger
BG, tapping the front of the plane tightens the blade.
Conversely, tapping the rear loosens it.
NEVER strike the iron with a hammer. (A 'Mushroomed' iron/chisel, is the mark of abuse in the the hand of a shoemaker)
DON"T tap/hit/smash/destroy the wedge.
A lot of older wooden planes had a small hardwood or metal button to strike for that purpose.
Keep the planes from splitting/checking, by occasionally wiping down with linseed oil
Look for matched sets IE: Concave/Convex Tongue /Groove/
Flat soled planes can be 'Leveled.'
They can be leveled by inverting a belt sander (In a vise or clamped) and gently applying the sole to the moving belt directly over the 'Platen'
Before sanding, criss-cross several dark pencil strokes across the sole, to mark the hills and valleys.
As soon as all marks disappear, STOP
Too much leveling will enlarge the mouth. (A no no)
Nothing in this world satisfies like the feel of a sharp adjusted OLD wooden plane doing your bidding
Think; Jesus, Joseph and our forefathers.
My grandson (6) is a 'Little shaver' already, as I presented him with a small plane and showed him how to use it.
Steinmetz
Edited 8/20/2004 10:09 am ET by steinmetz
Edited 8/28/2004 10:31 pm ET by steinmetz
"My grandson (6) is a 'Little shaver' already, as I presented him with a small plane and showed him how to use it."
what did you do about the iron? Is it sharp enough to shave wood, but not so sharp he'll hurt himself? I'm guessing there was a long lesson on respect for the tool, childhood curiosity being what it is.
6
6 smile, He is not a pampered kid and he'll learn to respect tools once he gets a few nicks and scrapes (Don't we all learn that way?
Dr Spock showed us how to raise a lot of Girlly "men"
That approach continues today, with political correctness ,enviromentalism and Big Brother methods
M y sons and all my grandsons were not overly protected helpless whiners growing up and today they are self sufficient ,taxpaying ,God fearing, patriotic, hard working husbands,fathers,and students.
Steinmetz
Wow, all that from a friendly discussion about wooden bench planes!
6milessouth.
"Wow, all that from a friendly discussion about wooden bench planes!"
That's okay...sounds like he's earned it.
Steinmetz,
Damn...another thing a 6 year old knows more than me...this is right behind how to make a mom smile.
Isn't there a "wood planes for dummies" book somewhere. I do have one of those buttons you mentioned on one plane....three of the planes are from europe and three are american. Right now about the only thing I can use the smoothers for would be scrub planing ...they can take a very deep cut...I just can't get them to stay with a fine cut.....I'll continue to practice and fiddle.
yes, I plan to test
BG, a scrub plane has a slightly curved iron (Blade) It is a dedicated tool designed to remove material rapidly
The reason for the curved iron is not to have the edges dig in; also the cuttings are tapered side to side to elliminate pronounced ridges in the wood.
After scrubbing the majority of the waste, it is usually followed up with a smoothing plane.
Usually smoothing requires you the move the plane diagonally across the wood to flatten any ridges left by the scrub.
If your's is a true scrub plane, it would have a less wide base and (I think ? ) A special angle on the frog .
You are fortunate in owning a scrub plane I haven't seen one since the 60's when I was an apprentice carpenter and hung wood doors using only hand tools
I miss that ole Stanley scrub. Stein
BG:
There is an excellent book called "Making and Mastering Wood Planes" by David Finck that is in many libraries but is unfortunately out of print and if you check amazon.com, it's selling for more than double what it cost new. It takes you through every step of making a plane, including introductions to the tools needed to make one, through using it effectively. The introduction has a picture of the author's 3 year old daughter (I think) kneeling on and planing a tabletop.
A significant part of using a hand plane is holding the work, and the workbench book (Landis) shows a variety of approaches.
There's another book by Whelan on wooden planes that I have not read. I understand that it explains how to make a greater variety of planes than does the Finck book.
If it's using and not making planes that interests you, there are good books by Sam Allen and Garrett Hack, as well as an inexpensive older book that Woodcraft carries that describes use of all the types of Stanley planes, but not wooden ones.
Alan,
That is very helpful, thanks so much. I'm a big user of the library so I'll check there first....for all of them
The book by Finck is a good one and i got my copy about a year ago so it might still be available somewhere. I made about 9 planes different sizes, style, woods, . Made one for my 3 year old a small 3 inch smoothing plane that he can make great shavings with thats how user freindly you can tune these planes. My boy however came out of the box with great hand eye coordination and follows instructions and heads warnings well don't know where it came from. If the sizes of the mouths are what you claim they are it will effect the size of the shavings. I bought a Harris panel raising plane a long time ago that had a mouth about the size you have mentioned and I never could get it to take light shavings. It hogs off shavings and the wedge is constantly coming loose. Ive tried to make adjustments to tighten the mouth. It still is a pain to use so I don't. to close up the mouth you usally only need to inlay a patch and don't need to glue another sole on them. Garret Hacks book as well as Krenov has some stuff on wooden planes.
Woodnthoughts,
Now your hitting the nail right on the head.
"... that had a mouth about the size you have mentioned and I never could get it to take light shavings. It hogs off shavings and the wedge is constantly coming loose. "
That has been my experience....but, I don't know what I'm doing and the comments on here are helping quite a bit. I need to hit the books.
I went to an auction recently and inspected many of the wooden bench planes...it appeared to me they all had large mouths. ...maybe they are being sold to sit on a wall somewhere...
Seconded (or thirded) on the Woodwright series, and Finck's book does cover tuning if you can find it, but a one-stop reference is John Whelan's Making Traditional Wooden Planes (no affiliation, but http://www.astragalpress.com/ has it). Most of it is about plane making (all kinds), but there is excellent information on tuning and a good bit about recovery.
The bodies of your planes may or may not be practical to recover, but vintage tapered irons are supposed to make outstanding "new" planes; I wish I had a couple. If you have access to decent stock (cherry is about the only thing that I can usually find in the right thicknesses and condition for one-piece bench plane construction, but it works well), they really aren't all that hard to make from scratch.
/jvs
JVS,
Your comment about the plane bodies not being worth saving....I've got a few chunks of 16/4 hard maple about 8" wide and 4-5' long..would that be a reasonable wood?
The best wooden bodies have a convex sole and blade.....an adjustable rabbit plane...and a shoulder plane but, the blade does not go to the edge of the body. The other three are smoothers of slightly different sizes with some cracks on the sole..but not so bad
Absolutely reasonable. Beech may be ideal, but hundreds of others work perfectly well. Knocking the throat out of sugar maple is not going to be a lot of fun (unless you like that sort of thing...); but just for the exercise and to prove to yourself that you can, you might want to cut one out of softer stuff to get an idea of what the process is like and throw the result in the burn box after it has served the purpose. Careful--the process is so fun that you may forget to make furniture for a while.... :)
a shoulder plane but, the blade does not go to the edge of the body
As long as you can get it to the side that matters for the cut you are making, that part should be fine. Got pictures?
/jvs
This guy lives in my area and I saw one of his planes on display and then found out about this web site http://www.knight-toolworks.com/ and under the "ABOUT US" heading he gives a picture tour of building a wood plane. It led to a plane making marathon and a break from furniture for a brief period. Like jvs said it's fun and once you get the templates and jigs made it just makes sense to keep going. If the irons are good you could incorporate them into bodies you build. The wide mouth in the old used planes I think is probably a result of continues truing of the sole.Each time you do that the mouth gets a little wider. The only fix for that is to inlay a patch which closes the mouth up.
Woodnthoughts,
I have been to Knight's webpage before but never did the 'About Us' section...terriffic, thanks for the heads up. He certainly does make it look simple and straight forward.....I'm sure with a few books and a bit of time I can complicate the process and get my shorts in a knot.
BG, check out this site. There are links to more info. Wood planes aren't easy, I just passed on a couple of nice ones, they would be fun to play with but the ones I already have are just shop decoration.
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~alf/en/en.html
hammer,
You mention 'shop decoration'...that is what I'm trying to avoid...the blades are so darn thick an all, I really want to put those to use...
BG,
Don't walk, RUN to your local library--or save time and just go straight to your local book store--and get Saint Roy of Underhill's The Woodwright's Shop. You can save more time by getting all five of his Woodwright's Shop books the first time you go to get just one. In each of his books Saint Roy writes in depth about finding, buying, restoring (if needed) and best of all, using wooden planes.
Saint Roy doesn't write only about planes, of course. His books are a great source for learning about tools and wood, and the ways to put them together to make useful things--and just fun things too. He is part information, part inspiration, and always fun to read.
Alan (no, the other one)
Alan,
Gees, your right...my mother always turned to the saints when trouble arose...that should have been my response too....lol.
Quick someone post the link to Larry Williams website. Dont have it handy but Larry and his partner are experts on wooden planes and i believe they have a use and care section on their website.
Larry used to frequent the forum often but i havent noticed him around, probably due to him being very busy.
http://www.planemaker.com/
Google is your friend.
By the time i bought up my google page, id have forgotten why i was there.
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