Planing Madness

[Warren Wilson]

I came across this episode of *Samurai Carpenter* this morning and thought others might enjoy a look at some extraordinary hand planing at a competition in Japan.

The shavings look like translucent tissue paper -- and the competitors are able to take a single, full-length shaving from long (maybe 6') stock. The winning shavings are in the 5 micron range (i.e. About 1/5000" thick).

(The "Samurai" carpenter is actually a 6'6" Canadian man from Vancouve Island, but he has long enjoyed Japanese joinery).

You can skip the first 1:56 if you are not interested in observations about airports and hotels.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=339s&v=zs9X-XzFGHI

[Jim Koepke]

The winning shavings are in the 5 micron range (i.e. About 1/5000" thick).

Aren't those the fatter ones?

My understanding is even my thinnest would be just an also ran:

Fine Shaving 0.0002x?.jpg

Of course this is neither 6 inches wide nor is it 6 feet long.

Thin shavings can be mesmerizing with a mirror like surface left behind. They may be great for final smoothing. However, in the realm of removing wood and dimensioning a piece super thin shavings increase time and effort.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

Aren't those the fatter ones?

My understanding is even my thinnest would be just an also ran:

Fine Shaving 0.0002x?.jpg

Of course this is neither 6 inches wide nor is it 6 feet long.

Thin shavings can be mesmerizing with a mirror like surface left behind. They may be great for final smoothing. However, in the realm of removing wood and dimensioning a piece super thin shavings increase time and effort.

jtk

The thing with shavings are that they're compressible, so absolute measurements don't mean anything unless they're made in a consistent manner. That's why they use those standardized "gravity drop" micrometers for planing competitions. IIRC the heads on those are also larger (even lower pressure) than yours, but I could be wrong. If your screw-driven micrometer has a consistent (not "grabby") torque limiter then your results would be meaningful relative to each other, though.

Also things like meteorological conditions come into play. Compare for example Brian's 2016 and 2017 Kez writeups, where basically the same cast of characters got VERY different results.

[Jim Koepke]

If your screw-driven micrometer has a consistent (not "grabby") torque limiter then your results would be meaningful relative to each other, though.

My micrometer does have an adjuster that limits how tight the head can be pressed against the object to be measured.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

After sharpening a blade a thin shaving offers an indication of how sharp a blade may be. For me it is a starting point of knowing when the blade will again need sharpening. An iron being sharpened for a few final smoothing passes may be given more attention than an iron being used for hogging off some wood on a piece being dimensioned.

Thin shavings are helpful to set the lateral adjustment of the blade. Mostly for me this is done by feeling and comparing the shavings from the left and right hand side of the blade. Crumpling a shaving can give a good indication of its thickness. The difference feels greater the thinner the shaving.

Taking a thin shaving after using a blade for a while will also indicate any nicks that may have developed. If a plane is making ribbons there are either nicks in the blade or there might be cracks in the wood.

Then there are our friends who live off the grid and have outdoor plumbing who find thin shavings much more comfortable.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

I came across this episode of *Samurai Carpenter* this morning and thought others might enjoy a look at some extraordinary hand planing at a competition in Japan.

The shavings look like translucent tissue paper -- and the competitors are able to take a single, full-length shaving from long (maybe 6') stock. The winning shavings are in the 5 micron range (i.e. About 1/5000" thick).

(The "Samurai" carpenter is actually a 6'6" Canadian man from Vancouve Island, but he has long enjoyed Japanese joinery).

You can skip the first 1:56 if you are not interested in observations about airports and hotels.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=339s&v=zs9X-XzFGHI

There is at least one known "mad person" on this forum.

I almost fell out of my chair laughing when the guy was stoked about his "16 micron shaving" at 5:49. That's a little under 2/3 of a mil, and is achievable by anybody with rudimentary sharpening and plane-tuning skills, even on less-than-ideal wood. "Half-mil shavings" (~13 micron) are like a basic hand tool woodworker rite of passage, though the difficulty increases dramatically once you get much below that.

Speaking of ideal wood, it's important to keep in mind that these guys are working with very even- and straight-grained planks that are hand-picked for the purpose. Brian has at least one such in his shop for practice.

Brian, do I recall correctly that you've pulled about 8 microns on Alaskan Cedar?

[Brian Holcombe]

There is at least one known "mad person" on this forum.

I almost fell out of my chair laughing when the guy was stoked about his "16 micron shaving" at 5:49. That's a little under 2/3 of a mil, and is achievable by anybody with rudimentary sharpening and plane-tuning skills, even on less-than-ideal wood. "Half-mil shavings" (~13 micron) are like a basic hand tool woodworker rite of passage, though the difficulty increases dramatically once you get much below that.

Speaking of ideal wood, it's important to keep in mind that these guys are working with very even- and straight-grained planks that are hand-picked for the purpose. Brian has at least one such in his shop for practice.

Brian, do I recall correctly that you've pulled about 8 microns on Alaskan Cedar?

My best to date is 8 micron, that is correct.

14 can be difficult on the full length of the beam, unbroken, depending on how the wood is behaving. Apparently a board that is sufficiently dry is actually worse for this competition than one that is much less dry and for some reason can be quite difficult to pull a super thin shaving on.

[Patrick Chase]

My best to date is 8 micron, that is correct.

14 can be difficult on the full length of the beam, unbroken, depending on how the wood is behaving.

Good point. I probably overstated the ease of getting to 1/2 mil. My experience has been that I've invariably been able to get there when I want (which is almost never :-) over "furniture-scale" distances with fine-grained diffuse-porous hardwoods, but I can't say I've ever tried for 10+ feet. The footwork involved alone probably induces enough "jitter" to be limiting.

I also don't have much experience with AYC though IIRC the tracheid diameter is ~30 um, so we're literally splitting cells here. Fiber diameters of common hardwoods like Maple and Birch are down in the teens, which may help, though any resulting advantage is probably offset by the presence of other, larger structures in the hardwoods.

Apparently a board that is sufficiently dry is actually worse for this competition than one that is much less dry and for some reason can be quite difficult to pull a super thin shaving on.

Cell wall strength? As noted above the tracheids are far too large to be preserved intact at such shaving thicknesses, so you're basically depending on the strength of cell walls rather than entire cells. Bound water (content up to the fiber saturation point) is stored in the walls and might therefore tend to thicken and thereby stiffen them.

[Brian Holcombe]

Interesting, that could certainly be the case. Dryness did seem to have an incredible effect. One person taking 15 micron passes on the competition board was able to return home and take a 3 micron pass on his test board.

The competition boards are around 8' and 2"~ wide. Any defect amounts to a disqualification, so any tear, split, hole or fuzzing edge. Yann included ripples as a tie breaker this year.

[Patrick Chase]

Dryness did seem to have an incredible effect. One person taking 15 micron passes on the competition board was able to return home and take a 3 micron pass on his test board.

Without knowing anything about the circumstances, my uninformed guess is that those measurements may not be apples-to-apples. It's remarkable how much you can "squeeze" a shaving with a screw micrometer.

Did this person happen to have the same micrometer that was used for the competition, or did they take their own "parallel" measurements at the event?

[Jim Koepke]

It's remarkable how much you can "squeeze" a shaving with a screw micrometer.

My understanding of using a micrometer is if one is squeezing the piece being measured, they are using the micrometer improperly.

Though there are memories of some of the less likely to succeed students in class putting dents in feeler gauges with a micrometer and a very unhappy instructor.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

My understanding of using a micrometer is if one is squeezing the piece being measured, they are using the micrometer improperly.

Though there are memories of some of the less likely to succeed students in class putting dents in feeler gauges with a micrometer and a very unhappy instructor.

I'm a (former) mechanical engineer. That's where they send the kids who think they're mechanically inclined but can't actually use the micrometer without denting stuff (or the Bridgeport without snapping endmills, or...).

[Jim Koepke]

I'm a (former) mechanical engineer. That's where they send the kids who think they're mechanically inclined but can't actually use the micrometer without denting stuff (or the Bridgeport without snapping endmills, or...).

That must have been why they kept me in the ranks of repair tech, rework tech or fixing things that other people broke. Sometimes my attention was directed toward coming up with ideas for new tools, techniques and procedures or writing a manual.

One of the hardest things to learn sometimes is to be careful about sharing one's knowledge. At one of our meetings we were discussing our new equipment's communication system. One of the systems used for this is known as SCADA. Someone asked what the heck SCADA meant. My injected answer without hesitation was Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. I may have actually blurted it out wrong. Guess who was the guy who was assigned to work on any SCADA system problems after that. My vast knowledge on the subject ended with what the acronym meant. That didn't matter. Some quick study and understanding the components had me telling engineers what had to be done in some cases. Most often it was addressing and assignment errors. Occasionally it was a malfunctioning component and being able to identify what needed replacing. Another attribute that was helpful at the time was an ability to pick locks. Some of the equipment was in locked cabinets. Sometimes it was easier to fix a problem than it was to try to explain how to fix it to the engineer who was supposed to fix it.

jtk

[steven c newman]

Reminds me of a cartoon a long time ago.....through various "panels" it showed how a simple tree swing could go wrong....starting with what the Customer ( a child) wanted, to what finally evolved out ......wasn't pretty, and wasn't even close to what was ordered....

Someone with a better search-fu than i have, might be able to find it, and post it here?

[Jim Koepke]

Reminds me of a cartoon a long time ago.....through various "panels" it showed how a simple tree swing could go wrong....starting with what the Customer ( a child) wanted, to what finally evolved out ......wasn't pretty, and wasn't even close to what was ordered....

Someone with a better search-fu than i have, might be able to find it, and post it here?

There are many versions of this, here is one:

http://www.projectcartoon.com/cartoon/2648

jtk