Hey all
Looking to into jointing a board with a hand plane and trying to select the appropriate type planes.
I can understand that the long the plane the less likely the plane is to "follow the curve" but given that I can get a #6 at 18", a #7 at 22" and a #8 at 24" is there significance in flatness or speed of work between the three. Given that the different planes are made, there must be a reason why.......
Cheers Eric (a normite in neander territory)
Sam the Cat asks:
Because people insist on being people.
Charlie Self "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." Ernest Benn
Good question but you've been distracted by the two differnt places of use for the planes, face and side. Jointing is done to the side of the board with a shooting board. This allows the plane, whatever it is, to follow a registerd line and shave the boards where needed to make them straight of mate to each other. For this you can use alomost any plane, although a #5 or greater is easier unless you own a shooting/chuting plane. Flattening the face of the board is where the length begins to matter. In theory, a longer plane won't follow the ups and downs of the board but will span them instead. For this a #6 or better will be necessary if it's a long board. The plane needs to be of decent size compared to the board, but if the board is short, say under
3', even a #5 will work adequately. Remeber either buy old planes or fairly expensive ones, India and China make paperweights, not planes, newer Stanleys aren't as good as old ones and Buck or Great Neck aren't worth the effort to fettle, IMHO. I hope that helps, Dave in Fairfax
May I interupt? I seem to have taken up an interest in Anant planes from India and I wonder about your opinion of them as paperweights... I mean I know I can agree about China planes without touching one and I have never shaven a stroke. Have you used the India made Anant planes? Because I would really like to know about their quality, even if you know of an online review I'd like read it. Highland Hardware sells them and has a high opinion of them.
IMHO. I prefer to make my decisions based on my own experience, whenever possible. Anants were cheap enough that I could talk myself into buying them to try against my others without crying too much if they turned out to be junk. I've owned and discarded a #4, #5, #6 and #78. I found them to be better than the Chinese, but to have poor fit and finish. Don't even talk to me about the blades. I found the amount of fettling necessary to make them square and flat to outrageous. Compared to a Veritas or LN they were much cheaper, in every sense. Compared to an old Stanley they cost about the same and are now where near the quality. Just my opinion, but I bought them before I made it. I was thinking at the time that a lot of medical instruments are made in Pakistan and that Kukris are good knives, so that they might have a decent metal industry in that part of the world. They may still have one. I don't think that Anant shows it. I don't worry when I see Pakistan on the side of a medical instrument at work, but I'll never see Anant on my plane shelves again.
That may have come across a bit strong on rereading it, but itreally pushed a button. I'm honestly not trying to pick a fight, I just have a very low opinion of the planes. Dave Leader
Shit that is fair enough! I'm only "Mr. Wannaknow" you know... highland has such a hype on them probably just for sales. But they may have pushed the issue and these days Anant may be doing it right, who knows, I may try just one. I think the LN's are too much money so what is your feeling about Veritas planes? I noticed the LN scraper 112 is $210.00 but the Veritas is $129.xx...
Alex
Don't know if this still applies to India, but a few years ago I saw a documentary on India and in one shot a mechanic was re-sizing a piston to fit a bore. Held in his feet. With a file.
Sounds like the same guys are making the Anant planes.
AArDvarK wrote:
Sorry if that seemed defensive, planes take on an almst religious signifigance here. Get one tuned just right and you'll see why. Highland has a good reputation and it's been quite a while since I tried the Anants, so it's possible that they cleaned up their act. Once upon a time, "Made in Japan" was a curse. I've never heard anything bad about the Veritas planes, indeed they seem to be the most inovative planes around. Come to think of it, I heard that there was a knuckle space issue on one if you had huge hands, but that's just hearsay, and Robin may have addressed that issue, if it was a real problem. Since he's undoubltedly listening in I'd expect to hear from him shortly on this. If you aren't built on Economy of Scale, it may be moot anyway. LNs are gorgeous, but the Veritas planes are spiffy too. Both seem to run right out of the box. The old Stanleys are frequently in a "hone and go" condition due to the previous owner. Many will need cleaning, check under "electrolysis" in the archives. It's really a question of taste and economics. If you don't own ANY planes, go to the local flea market or antiques shop after reading
Dave in Fairfax
A shooting board? For the edge of a 6' board? For the end, or for a short edge, yes. But for a long edge, unless you have the worlds largest shooting board, the reasons you gave for using a jointer on the face of the board also apply to the edge.
And to the OP, I like a #8 because of the greater mass. Once you get it going, it seems to bog down less than the lighter planes. But it's all subjective - as Charlie said, people will be people.
not so fast there...
the chinese have been doing woodworking prolly longer than anybody else. their traditional wood body pull planes are right up there for quality and usability. chinese made-for-export-copy-of-stanley are what you'd expect, though...
the last time I had one in my hands was a few years ago, so they may have improved. then, what I saw was warped, poorly finished castings, parts that only sorta approximated fitting together, chrome plate peeling off, too thin cutters.... real crap.
No problem with knuckles on the smoother/jack. They're the ones on my shelf which DO have enough space for me. My LN low angle, and perhaps the Veritas take a fingering diagram.
I, too, have had experience with donated Anants. I don't know how much the outfit wrote off on the donation, but if it was more than a buck and a quarter each, the IRS oughta lock 'em up. Hell, even the irons chip off when planing knots, and as to the cast in the body....
If you look again, you'll see that I said to use some birch ply, that gives you at least a 5' length. A couple posts back, on this subject, I said that I live in a townhouse and don't have room for things like a jointer, but that a shooting board takes up no space stacked against a wall. If you have a short board then a longer plane will be useful, but if you a decent length board most any plane will work adequately. Once it's started the plane will only tkae the board down as farr as the shooting board has been recessed. You'll need to advance the edge of the board you're working on if more needs to be taken off.
I prefer a #7 or #8 as well, but I don't know That the OP is willing to push that much iron.
Dave in Fairfax
You're right about the Chinese woodies, I'd assumed that we were talking metal bodies since the OP asked about Anants. You're right though, the chines and japanese woodies are a lot of fun and once you get used to them are very easy to use. Your impressions of the Anants was what I remembered as well as a chip breaker made of tinfoil. Fair paper weights.
Dave in Fairfax
Sorry, I missed that.
But since I've never used a shooting board, I have a question. You take your plywood and clamp it to the board to be edged, back just far enough to take off all the irregularities.
Now you start planing. Your last sentence is what I question. Since most planes have a blade that goes very near the edge, how do you keep it from cutting into the plywood? I could see it if the part that rode on the plywood had no blade in it, but I don't see how that could be the case.
BTW, I use my jointer plane mostly for edge joining two boards and for that I just clamp them together.
What you do to make the shooting board, or what I do anyway, is to take a long peice of very stable ply and use it as the base of the board. I then get a thin, 1/4" piece of luan ply and make a straight line along the length, assuming the edge isn't straight as it is. Lay the thin ply on the birch ply and slide it back from the edge far enough for the lane to lie on its side with its sole touching the edge of the thin ply and be supported entirely, or more by the birch ply. Like this on an end view.
___________________ |__________________|_______________ | | |__________________________________|
Glue the two peices of wood together and clamp them flat. When they're dry, take what ever plane you're going to be using as a jointer and run it along the edge of the upper board as though you were jointing a board sitting on the top. This will leave the ower edeg of the upper board as it was, but will cut a recess into the upper board as deep as the set of your plane blade. When you want to joint a couplke of boards, clamps them stacked on top of the upper board even with the unrecessed edge. Now when you use your jointer, it will remove the wood up to the point where it touches its sole on the unrecessed edge of the upper piece of ply. Once it gets to that point it'll stop cutting. Hopefully the boards will be jointed, but if there are still some hollows to be cut out, just advance the two boards a squidge further and do it again. The nice thing about this is that if the sole and blade aren't exactly 90 degrees, the dicrepancy will make upo for its when you put the two baoards together, they'll be complimentary angles.
It's harder to explain than to do, so if that didn't make sense, tell me what was murky and I'll try to make sense, no promises though.
Dave in Fairfax
Good question but you've been distracted by the two differnt
Respecfully, I think you miswrote here.
Jointing is done to the side (edge to clear) of a board, or to the edges of two boards clamped together which are to be edge-joined to make a panel. This is sometimes done with a jointer fence attached to the plane, but so long as the boards are clamped together face-to-face or back-to-back the fence isn't needed as any beveling of the jonted edges will be suplimentary (e.g. match) to give a flat panel when edge glued. However a long plane is a big help so as to not crown the edges from end to end. A long straght edge used as a guide WOULD make it possible to joint with a short plane, a 4 1/2 for instance, but I have never seen that done or even heard of it.
Beveling can be done with a fence on a jointer plane and the combination of the #6 fore plane with the # 286 jointer fence (I think that is the right number) was popular among boatwrights. My guess is the shorter #6 (as oppesd to a #7 or #8 made it possible to bevel the edges of longish planks while also slightly crowning them to conform to the complex curvature of the side of a boat.
I admit to never having used a shooting board, but have seen them used and typically a shooting board is used to clean up a saw cut and trim to exactly the correct angle a crosscut of some ilk, such as a miter cut. Thus a shooting board typically is used to guide the plane while trimming the endgrain of the board. A shooting board may be used is used in place of a miter trimmer or a discsander with miter gague for doing the corners for picture flames and such.
I don't see how a shooting board could be used to edge joint a board, though I have heard jointing referred to as 'shooting the edge' of the board, by Roy Underhill.
No disagreement here.
When I first saw the totes on the Veritas I was not impressed. They looked too clunky. Howver, when I started to use them I realized that they are the most comfortable of all the planes I own. On the models I have tried, it looks like they have actually extended the totes a bit compared to the traditional Stanleys, and even on the low-angle, there is a bit of extra room.
I seem to recall one wrecker (was it you, Lar?) saying that they managed to get an Anant to perform reasonably well by subbing a Hock and doing quite a bit of tweaking. Other than that, I haven't heard of anyone who has had good luck with them.
For my money, there's no question about it. I'm not going to shell out the bucks for a new Stanley, Anant or any other marginal plane when there are good old Stanleys, Veritas and L-N's available.
Chuck Vance Just say (tmPL) IMHO, there's no way you should have to put as much effort into tuning a new plane as you do one that was built sixty years ago.
I guess I missed something, I thought that I'd said that the jointing was done to the sides of the board. As I've said in the past, I'm a turner trying to learn flatwork, so maybe I got the terms mixed up. I use mine to make boards suitable for gluing together to make wider boards and to clean up the ends of a board.
No argument there, That's why I pointed out that the length of the plane in respect to the length of the board is important. It's also why I said that the two boards jointed at the same time would mate up because the angles wouyld be complimentary. It's also why I said #5 or greater.
I mentioned using a long straight-edge to check the straightness of the upper piece of plywood. I wasn't suggesting using it as the reference surface for the plane, and certainly not for use with a #4.
I saw shooting boards used to square ends as well as trim angles.
If you take a look at the sketch I made, the board gets clamped to the upper board just barely hanging over its edge, and the plane is put on it's side on the lower board. The plane will remove the edge of the board up to the point where its sole contacts the edge of the upper board. At that time, hopefully, the edge of the board to be jointed will be flat and square. I got the idea from Jeff Gorman's website,
It's possible that I've misused the shooting board by using it for edges on boards, but since I don't have a jointer, it'll have to do. %-)
Dave in Fairfax
It's certainly not a misuse, as can be seen on this picture from a German woodworking book (1954):
Wolfgang
On 7 Jul 2004 05:11:27 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@txstate.edu (Conan The Librarian) calmly ranted:
I remember thinking the same thing from the pictures but will have to find someone locally with a Veritas plane so I can try it out.
I have only one Hock iron and that came in the $10 #60-1/2 I picked up from another Wrecker. The message you might remember was way back when I had just learned ScarySharp(tm)ing and had actually been able to put an edge on a cheaparse iron from a made-in-India plane. What I didn't disclose: it lasted only a few strokes before reverting to its nasty, tear-outy nature. I keep it for use on sticky doors and gritty, painted stuff where I don't want to lose a decent iron.
Agreed! And I'll probably go with a Veritas vs. a L-N due to owning short crowbars and a proper Scottish wallet. (It screams when you open it.)
---------------------------------------------- Never attempt to traverse a chasm in two leaps
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