Garret Hack said you can feel smaller tolerances than you can see. :-) I pretty much agree with him. If you can't feel the difference, don't try to set a Knight smoother. :-)
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Get one of these - a Record Calvert-Stevens. Basically a Bailey #4 with a Norris adjuster on it.
Eyeballs and a bright light. Never underestimate either well-lit eyeballs, or touch.
What's special about a Knight smoother? They have set screws to center the iron.
Bob
On 8 Sep 2004 13:38:57 -0700, "Bob" calmly ranted:
My old one doesn't.
Touchy-feely? :) OK, I'm setting the frog correctly then.
I also like Hack's suggestion of painting the back wall of the mouth white. (I think it was Hack. If it wasn't him, it was the other guy.)
Seems that it would be an easy matter to install set screws in any old plane. Not that _I_ currently have the right tools or skills, mind you.
Well then, feel on brother. I hear Knight planes are so good that you can get the adjustment anywhere near right and they do nicely.
Bob
: I've tweaked the cap-lever bolt, looking for the point which will allow : firm lateral adjustment, without slopping around when blade meets wood. : I've tweaked the alignment of the frog.
The lever cap should be so adjusted that you can only just release the cam with one finger. In this situation there should be no difficulty in adjusting either the lateral lever or the feed screw.
Jeff G
-- Jeff Gorman, West Yorkshire, UK Email: username is amgron ISP is clara.co.uk
Yep. I gave up on trying to eyeball the lateral adjustment on planes when I first started using wooden planes, and now I adjust them all by touch. I hold the plane with the pads of my index and middle fingers under the plane and spread so they touch the iron where it extends from the sole.
Needless to say, be careful. The iron is (or should be) very sharp, and injury may result if you are careless.
Chuck Vance
On the theme of how great our physical senses are, I recall reading ages ago about a study: Experimenters asked subjects to torque something "very hard," "hard, but not too hard," "lightly," "not too lightly," and so forth. Measured numerical torque values were very consistent across the experimental group. So, your advice looks imprecise at first glance, but my finger will understand exactly what you meant. Thanks.
Responding to a different post: The same finger whimpers when I think about exposing it to my blades. I have an Ice Bear 10,000 stone riding toward me in a Fedex truck this morning. "The Wells Fargo wagon is a comin' round the bend / I wonder what it has for me?"
Hey, remember those old-timey safecrackers who'd sandpaper their fingers to increase sensitivity? That fellow who wrote recently about making his fingers bleed whilst learning to use a diamond stone was on the right track!
(snippage)
Good story, but myth. A combination lock can be "felt" depending on the tolerence to which the mechanism is manufactured. Most safe's were made to be hard to move (or say a concrete room) and time consuming to open. For most of history--including most safes sold today, fire is a more important design consideration than theft.
Among other things, this is discussed in Richard Feynman's delightful "Surely You're Jest, Mr. Feynman." In addition to being a Manhattan Project physicyst, Feynman was also an amataur safecracker and locksmith who frequently put his skills to use when his colleagues forgot their safe combinations.
On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 09:11:40 -0500, Australopithecus scobis calmly ranted:
Yeah, so if you ever get pulled in by the cops and they notice that your fingerprints are all sandpapered, just explain that you're a harmless woodworker. If they don't believe you, have them blow in your ear. If they don't lock you up for making a pass at them and turn you over to the DHS, the sawdust cloud coming out of your ear will get their attention and prove your point decisively.
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