I bought a few planes and a honing guide at some garage sales (total expenditure $12), and have been having fun playing with them; but have some questions.
1) What is a short plane good for; why would you want to use a #4 rather than a #5? Wouldn't that be like using a short jointer when a long one is available? I suppose it is lighter, but what else.
2) One of the Stanley planes came with a Dunlap iron. Is that likely to be better or worse than the Stanley irons?
3) An article in a "Fine Woodworking" book said that a hair's width off perfectly flat on a #5 might be okay for rough work, but for precision work it has to be better than that. Is this to be taken seriously?! I find it hard to believe that a hair's width could even be measured over 14" (by the home woodworker anyways), let alone make a difference.
Shorter planes are used for final smoothing. The shorter length allows the plane to follow the ridges and valleys on the surface, removing material and creating a smooth surface. This is why #1 to #4 planes are dubbed "smoothers". Longer planes (like the #5 jack or the #6 fore and the #7 & #8 jointers) are used to remove the hills. The longer length means they will NOT follow the surface, but will rather work to make the surface flat by taking off the tops of the hills. If you're following me, you can see the difference in their use. Of course, if you set up a #5 with a very tight mouth and very sharp iron you can use it as a smoother, assuming your surface is flat enough. I often use a #5 or even my #6 to smooth large panels, simply due to the size issue. Having various lengths available, however, gives you more versatility. The different weights, lengths, widths, etc. offer you the option to choose the best plane for the job. Also, don't forget about the blade angle. For difficult woods, you often need a higher angle to avoid tear-out. Also, using a plane to shoot the end grain of boards might necessitate a low-angle plane, or a miter plane. It's a neverending struggle, but it's a lot of fun :-). And this is all coming from someone with only about 3 years of hand tool experience, with only the last one being very serious.
I have no idea about Dunlap irons, but there are better irons available from Hock and others. I have several older Stanley planes with Stanley irons, and generally speaking, those irons don't hold up quite as well as the newer irons in my Lie-Nielsen and other planes. But, the thing to do is flatten and hone the iron and try it and see how it goes.
I haven't seen that article, but it does sound a bit ridiculous to me. You do need the sole to be flat, but talking about hair's widths is going a bit overboard, IMO. There are several woodworkers out there with immensely more experience than I have that say similar things about not needing it to be perfect. There are critical areas that DO affect performance more than others, however, so you have to keep that in mind (just in front of the mouth, for example).
The other post with the links should give you some good ideas, especially the first one.
It's not a clear size equals task sort of thing, but what you'll find is that you tend to start with a short coarsely set plane like a #40 scrub to knock down just the obvious hi spots then jump up to medium set #7 jointer sized plane to work over the entire surface more thoroughly because it will bridge across the low areas and bring down the more subtle high spots. Once you're taking nice full length curls, move to a finely set #4 smother size to get your final finish.
Of course every craftsman has his or her favorite planes for various situations and often the wood dictates some plane selection. I don't own a scrub plane so I usually open up the mouth on a #5 jack instead. A #6 or #8 would work basically as well as a #7 jointer. I tend to use a wider #4 1/2 smothing plane more often than a #3 or #4.
The thing you will begin to learn is that some simple tuning issues impact the performance of a plane a great deal, others not as much depending on what level of performance you try to get from a specific plane.
My advise is to jump in and let your struggles teach you a few things, read the archives of some forums dedicated to hand tools like the one at woodcentral.com, resolve to learn to sharpen your tools. Scarry sharp method is an inexpensive option worth trying. Have fun!
Take a look at "The Handplane Book" by Garrett Hack. It's goes through the various types of planes and their uses and has a lot of information about old Stanley style planes.
Heh. There ought to be a support group or something. Or maybe this is as good as it gets? I just got a shipment from LV today - Hirsch firmers and the some accessories for the LA block. "That's Entertainmeeeent"
My name is Patrick. That's the icky version of Patriarch. I haven't bought a hand plane in 3 months. But even then it was only the $29 foot print, that I could afford. And then after 3.0 hrs worth of flattening the sole, flattening the iron. Changing the bevel angle and then some serious honing. I could actually plane oak and it did a pretty decent job. It did a god job of smoothing the face and edge. It even did a good job of planing end grain.
Someday the hair will grow back on my arm, and the nicks on my fingers will eventually heal. Ya know - testing...
I think the reason it started out as a crappy plane, had something to do with the 25 degree bed angle, compounded with the 25 and 30 degree bevels. "Try pushing that sucker on oak"... I went with a single bevel about 18 to 20 degrees. Then put a mirror surface on both sides of the iron. Goes through oak quite easily.
Oh well, back to the Lee Valley Catalogue and some dreaming.... Maybe someday "assuming I stop buying wood" I'll be able to afford a real plane. Preferably one that's made by Hawaiian Airlines and takes me to the Big Island for the rest of my life.
patriarch wrote in news:Xns953B646076C6Dgmadsencomcastnet@63.240.76.16:
First I was planing only on the weekends...with my friends, c'mon one's not gonna kill ya, then I started planing during the week...then later on I would find myself planing alone, I tried to tell myself that I could stop anytime I wanted....I was still in control or so I thought...then came the others...jacks jointers scrubs, anywhere I could find them, I bought, and bought and bought, I was hiding them from my family, I could hear them whispering, knowing I was different...that I had a "problem" I told them they were crazy, I was just fine, leave me alone I am just fine....
Sure is a slippery slope...but i am much better now...
So you bought the Footprint H4 for $29 and completely tuned it "out the bazoo" and it is now a perfectly fine working plane, as good as any other no matter what brand, except maybe the iron not being a Hock A2... that teaches me something about the cost of things and their necessity. Do a little studying on tuning, work hard doing it and we'll be just as good. It is not so much the tool as it is the crafts- manship. I suspected as much, and frankly, you get more of my respect.
"AArDvarK" wrote in news:eeiQc.3009$yh.1696@fed1read05:
It's true. A hack with a Clifton, or a Lie-Nielsen, or similar higher-end plane is still a hack. A craftsperson, who tunes, and uses, his or her tools, is indeed a craftsperson.
I admire those who imagine, envision, design, create and complete works of art, and craft, and beauty. That they did it with tools we can't even identify today, in many cases, indicates that we must pass on what we learn.
That many here are firmly rooted in building the future in electornics and communications, as well as discovering our heritage of hand tools and working with woods, is somehow deeply satisfying.
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