I've got access to a goodly amount of really rough lumber. I've made crude things out of the stuff in the past, but I'd like to see what more refined things I can do with it.
Modern woodworking wisdom would say get a jointer and a planer, but they're both expensive and they take up space. I really don't have room for any more stationary power tools in my shop. Not even mobile/benchtop models.
So I'm thinking about neandering... What would Roy Underhill do with a rough-sawn oak board?
Is this a trick question? :-)
-- Jim in NC
On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 00:17:00 -0400, "Morgans" pixelated:
Please note that after a gazillion TV shows and decades of woodworking that Our Lord Roy still has all 5 digits on each of his hands.
Despite its quaint tendency to leak that bright red stuff (as shown on TV! and in my shop) when even slightly damaged, our skin mostly remains where it was before said damage with only slight dips and bumps to show for it.
------------------------------ Gator: The other white meat! ------------------------------
Call Norm?? Greg
Use a scrub plane to level, a jack to surface, and a smooth to finish what was going to show. Everybody used to do it that way. Once a year I do the same for the kids at school, as much for a history as a woodworking demonstration. I follow with a machine demo.
Doctrinaire types have difficulty with the obvious - woodworking is a "good enough" and a "make it fit" activity, not a machine, micrometer and interchangeable parts production. That's what it means to work by hand - things go together after fitting, not direct from the machine.
See Jeff Gorman or Patrick Leach's site if you don't have a library or bookstore.
Make crude things out of the stuff. (and get blood all over the place in the process).
Regards, Tom Tom Watson - Woodworker Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania
On Sun, 07 Sep 2003 10:08:29 -0400, Tom Watson pixelated:
Hah! Anyone in a shop who isn't a little bit bloody isn't really working. -------
------------------------------ Gator: The other white meat! ------------------------------
Learning that very quickly with my present project.
I guess the first question is based on the number and type of planes that you own. So Far. If you can, this is the time to run away. Planes can be a trifle addictive, and unfortunately there are a lot of different brands and models,as well as types. Boggles the mind, POs the SWMBO. Advance at your own risk.
Dave in Fairfax
I own one cheap Stanley block plane. The iron is screwed up from botched attempts to sharpen it. It needs to be ground, lapped, honed, etc. and I don't yet have any of the right sort of jiggery to ensure a successful job at that, so the plane is pretty much useless. I think it would be all but useless anyway based on looking through catalogs and whatnot. It has no depth adjustment, and it's difficult to set it up even when the iron is sharp.
So I'd be looking at buying some hand planes. Expensive as they are, I could probably come out ahead relative to the cost of a planer, jointer, and a new ~$2,000 shop in order to have enough floor space to accommodate them. (I don't even have bench space for benchtops in the current shop.)
Plus doing it that way would teach me a thing or two, I think. Time isn't really a factor. It's not like I'm doing production woodwork. Besides, doing some hand work will help build my arms up for the eventual day when I managed to convince SWMBO to let me build a forge and learn how to make swords. :)
Yeah -- the addiction is incredible!! Oh, and I own a jointer (but not a planer -- I'm too busy buying planes right now to bother with that ;) [snip]
Give Steve Knight a hollar
For a good article on wood planes vs metal planes check out:
Good luck, and welcome to the group of addicts, err...whatever you call it.
(Oh, and I still plan to buy/use a planer and my jointer still gets plenty of time, so I bounce back and forth between both camps...)
Mike
I need one for sure.
I have a lot of pieces of granite laying around, so I don't have to use the gigantic one for this. I built a little sidewalk out of the stuff, but I still have several scraps about the size of your average sharpening stone. I finally stopped bringing it home because I ran out of uses for it, but I have a pretty much infinite supply if anyone wants me to mail them a chunk of shiny granite. (Ignore the coffee grounds... Yes, it comes out of a Dumpster...)
I definitely need to learn how to sharpen properly. I spent a good bit of time today working on this iron without proper tools, and basically, I need to buy a lot of stuff in order to be able to do this.
I've got the book, but none of the equipment, and the equipment isn't available locally. Mail order is a PITA without credit cards, but it looks like that's the way I need to go if I ever want to move forward with sharpening.
My new, out of the box Marples chisels are considerably sharper than my poor attempts at sharpening my old Stanley chisels, but they're starting to dull already.
I figure I'll start practicing on the cheap chisels, and then work up to this plane iron, and then try to sharpen my good chisels.
Using sharp tools sure is a joy. I cut some recesses into the side of a wooden locomotive without touching a mallet, and without cutting myself due to loss of control. That was just with the factory Record edge, which I understand isn't terribly sharp.
I need to flatten the sole too. I tried to use it today, after getting the iron somewhat almost sort of kind of better than it was, and I have a long way to go before I master this Neandering stuff.
I think learning how to sharpen stuff should be my next big project. I've been hacking stuff together out of wood for years now, and I still can't sharpen anything more delicate than a machete worth a damn.
I'll remember that. :)
I haven't gotten that far yet anyway. I'm trying to flatten the sole. Is there a better way than using my belt sander? It's still got some curvature around the perimeter of the casting, and one low spot (or high spot, depending on how you look at it) that hasn't been hit yet somewhat off the centerline. There's a fairly broad, flat area all the way around now, but I'm not down to the point where the entire thing is perfectly flat. This after running with the thing duct taped to my belt sander for over an hour.
It seems "flat enough" to me, but I'm not sure if I should go the extra distance or not.
Forget it. Not true. Tapping with a mallet to adjust wouldn't hurt it a bit and is common practice on planes without adjusters.
Be careful with the belt sander. It is very easy to do more harm than good with one. Take the belt off that thing and cut it so it lays flat. Put that on that piece of granite of yours and finish it by hand. For it to perform well, it needs to be flat all over, not just in spots.
On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 02:45:19 GMT, "CW" scribbled
Achshally, I broke off the bullnose end of the casting on my Stanley #130 double end block plane by tapping it. Maybe it was because the casting is pretty thin at that point. But it should be OK on other planes.
Listen to Clint on that one, or use a glass shelf. That's how I've flattened my planes.
Luigi Replace "no" with "yk" twice in reply address for real email address
Luigi Zanasi wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
I know this may be a semi-religous question, but have you found any real value in joining the 'flat plane society' ?
I've amassed a fairly decent selection of nice, old Stanley users, and that's the one thing I've never bothered to do. I've never measured for 'anti flatness' on any of the soles of the planes; I have done a gross sanity check with a straightedge, and while there's the occaisonal glimmer of light betwixt the two (and that reminds me, now that I've got a Starrett square, I should revisit this), none of the Stanley's are anything at all like the POS buck bro's that I wasted my money on. Which is to say, they've all been pretty flat.
OTOH, I've found a lot of value in making sure the frog seats well, the mouth is clean, etc, etc .... so I'm curious about this.
Regards, JT
Or, um, buy an inexpensive pack chock full of sandpaper and avoid destroying a $6 belt. :)
Seriously though, how much risk of harm is there? It's a stationary belt sander, not a portable one, and the platten is quite flat. I'll go check it with a piece of granite tomorrow, but I'd bet it's just as flat. Maybe I'm in for a surprise.
Hmmm... Along these lines... I wonder if I could flatten my warped table saw (aluminum) with a piece of self-stick sandpaper affixed to a block of granite. I have some big blocks of granite maybe 4" wide and 14" long. I could use several sheets stuck edge to edge or whatever it took. Let the weight do the job, and just slide it back and forth... Maybe I could get it flat, or closer to being flat. I can't set the blade perpendicular to the table on both sides of the table simultaneously, which is rather unsettling to say the least.
Replacing the saw is a subject that has been beaten to death already, but I'm stuck with it for some time yet. I tuned it up, and have been impressed with the new-found quality of my cuts until today, when I noticed that my rips are still some fraction of a degree off 90. I want to dial it the rest of the way, and it's damn near impossible. Of course the table surface itself could be entirely to blame. This was narrow stock, and I'll bet it went right into the dip on the left side of the blade... I was probably testing with wider stock, which would tend to average out the problem by riding on the high spots.
Mostly thinking out loud, sorry...
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.