why don't hand planes work so well with fences?

[brocpuffs]

ppl,

I recently tried (again) to clamp a thick piece of good wood to the side of a #5 jack plane so's to keep the edge I was planing, perpendicular to the face. AFAIK, the wood was square and smooth.

Once more, the plane would just not cut with the "fence" attached, even though it was doing great on its own.

Why does adding this edge fence thing, interfere so much with the action of the blade?

Feels a lot like when trying to use a multi-plane, which seems to resist all efforts to do more than rise a little dust?

thanks-

James [e-mail]

[Anthony Diodati]

Never tried it my self, Are you sure the blade is good and sharp, and adjusted side to side properly?

[Bridger]

does the blade cut all of the way to the edge? a standard jack plane doesn't. it'll cut a little, then the part of the sole between the blade and the side lands on the workpiece, stopping further cutting. you can work around this by rabbetting your fence a bit so the rub face reaches the blade. Bridger

[Larry Jaques]

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 21:49:20 -0500, brocpuffs brought forth from the murky depths:

Try a 3/4" dowel next time. Angle the plane so the iron is both skewed and mating well centered on the wood. Scriiiiiitch!

Why? 'Cuz takes your focus away.

Kinda like standing on one foot, tilting your head back, closing your eyes, hopping up and down, patting your head, and rubbing your stomach, all at the same time? Humans don't multitask nearly as well as computers.

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[Eric Lund]

What he said. In addition, I'd make sure that fence was itself jointed and waxed.

Cheers, Eric

[charlie b]

Cut to the chase. Get the Veritas plane fence. Earth magents hold it on the side of #4 - #7s at least, Threaded peg in it sticks out over the top edge of the casting to keep it from rotation along the long axis. Bottom of the fence jogs in under the edge of the bottom of the plane so all of the cutting iron is exposed. You need about 2 1/2" of the stock above the vise jaws though.

Really works - I check with a machinist square.

charlie b

[George]

Hell, go whole hog and get the shoulder plane. Rabbets up to 1/2 beautifully against a fence. Does shoulders, too.

NB: whenever you rabbet, pays to scribe the line with your utility knife, unless you've a real rabbet plane with a nicker.

[dave]

Ladies and Gentleman we have a winner! Good reasoning. Dave in Fairfax

[charlie b]

I don't know if I should neener but I did get their shoulder plane and to neener some more, use the Tite-Mark to scribe shoulders.

But I think what he was looking for was a way to edge join a board to square edges. The Veritas fence eliminates the need to learn good planing technique and, as noted, has some limitations, but hey - we don't need to know how to plow with a horse anymore either. Some "accessories" are gimmicks and some are short cuts.

charlie b

[brocpuffs]

Exactly, charlie. The wood "fence" I made was pretty dang square and smooth and so on. I suspected technique. Thought I'd ask.

Nobody get started on shooting boards, please. They work, they can take a lot of room.

I was looking for a way to edge plane/join a board on the fly, no tailed tools, neither 110, 220 or JOAT :-)

James [e-mail]

[brocpuffs]

Getting old. Still lotsa muscle, no brain-

James [e-mail]

[Silvan]

It doesn't. I've used a fence lots of times. Biggest problem is holding the fence off 1/4" or so in order to allow the entire blade to contact the wood.

I made a handy dandy thing out of two pieces of angle iron, like thus

| _==_ | |

Plane clamps to the smaller piece. It works fine, but unfortunately the angle iron isn't quite square, and it doesn't produce perfect 90-degree angles. It took me a long time to discover that fact. It was a good idea, but the materials I made it out of weren't up to the task.

[Layne]

Okay. I will! :-) Actually an alternative to a shooting board. I was having a bad day jointing a short board. So, I got another piece almost identical to it in size and flat. I clamped the two boards to my workbench/dining table (yeah yeah) so that the first board's edge isslightly hanging over the second board's edge. So, one end is clamped to my dining table *ahem* workbench and the other end I clamped a stop to the table...workbench. I planed in the direction of the stop and got a nice square edge. :-) Only took as much room as my dining....workbench.

Layne