Questions re scrapers & hollowing backs of doors

[Tom LaRussa]

Here are a couple questions for all you neandexperts out there:

[1] What's the best type of tool to use to hollow the inside of a coopered door? (Think Krenov without the beard, experience or talent.)

[2] I have a ruined Marples pull saw. (Bunch of teeth yanked out when somebody borrowed it to make "a couple quick cuts" in some plywood.) Is this good scraper material?

TIA,

Augie

[Wendell Wilkerson]

I have no experience with coopered doors but I am going to guess that a compass plane could be used to hollow the back of the door. A compass plane has convex sole. With metal bodied compass planes the radius of the sole is adjustable. I have also seen tools called inshaves and scorps which are basically drawknives with curved blades like these :Inshaves and Scoprs (http://www.traditionalwoodworker.com/default.php?cPath=36_107) . A convex sole spokeshave might be useful too though maybe not for initial rough out. Hope someone with more experience can give you a more definitive answer.

As for making scrapers from the saw, I would go ahead and try it. The saw is already busted what do you have to lose?

Wendell

[Pam Niedermayer]

I think a coopered door is by definition "coopered." That is, glue up is such that the resulting object is curved and does not need to be hollowed. As to how to smooth such a thing on the concave side, there are convex planes, often called compass planes, that are also suitable for chair making.

Pam

[Tom Scott]

First I'll say that I haven't tried coopered doors yet, so take this for what it's worth...not much. To me, it looks like the compass planes sugested would be difficult to use. Most of the ones I've seen the sole curved front to back, which means that for the curve of a door you will most likely be planing cross-grain. You could look at chair-maker tools such as a scorp and/or travisher.

BUT, I will go back to Pam's comment as to whether you really need to hollow the inside. I can't speak for Krenov, but I don't think I would bother smoothing the inside beyond some minor scraping at joints and such. Depends if this is to be a show piece or not.

Tom

P.S. The saw steel should be good scraper material.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Hi Augie-

I've never done coopered doors either, but I own two Crown(www.crownplane.com (http://www.crownplane.com)) compass planes which I use for shaping chairseats. These have soles which are curved fore to aft and from side to side. These would be an ideal way of shaping the inside of a coopered door. Steve Knight (www.knight-toolworks.com (http://www.knight-toolworks.com)) also makes similar compass planes. Both makers are noted for high quality work and reasonable prices. The standard warning applies here: DANGER- Slippery slope ahead!! There is no such thing as buying only one wooden plane.

As others have suggested, you could use a travisher or a curved sole spokeshave, but both would have a steeper learning curve vis a vis control. Another choice would be a very large size Hollow plane like a #18 followed by some judicious scraping with a curved or swans neck card scraper.

[Tom LaRussa]

I have no experience with coopered doors but I am going to guess that a compass plane could be used to hollow the back of the door. A compass plane has convex sole. With metal bodied compass planes the radius of the sole is adjustable. I have also seen tools called inshaves and scorps which are basically drawknives with curved blades like these :Inshaves and Scoprs (http://www.traditionalwoodworker.com/default.php?cPath=36_107) . A convex sole spokeshave might be useful too though maybe not for initial rough out. Hope someone with more experience can give you a more definitive answer.

As for making scrapers from the saw, I would go ahead and try it. The saw is already busted what do you have to lose?

Wendell
Thanks Wendell,

I've been thinking along the lines of the convex spoke shave for now and trying to build my own convex-soled plane at some point in the future.

Inshaves and scopes look pretty hard to use... I picture myself taking a big gouge out of my leg or something with one of those. :o

[Tom LaRussa]

I think a coopered door is by definition "coopered." That is, glue up is such that the resulting object is curved and does not need to be hollowed. As to how to smooth such a thing on the concave side, there are convex planes, often called compass planes, that are also suitable for chair making.

PamPam,

You're right. When I said "hollow" I really meant to say "smooth."

:)

Augie

[Tom LaRussa]

I've never done coopered doors either, but I own two Crown(www.crownplane.com (http://www.crownplane.com/)) compass planes which I use for shaping chairseats.

I took a look at Crown's web site. Their planes are too pretty to use!




These have soles which are curved fore to aft and from side to side.
Ah... That sounds like what I need. Krenov, of course, would (and does) just make his own, but I'm not quite there yet. Soon, I hope...



The standard warning applies here: DANGER- Slippery slope ahead!! There is no such thing as buying only one wooden plane.

Thanks for the warning, but it comes too late.

It started when I read Krenov's chapter on building wooden planes. Then I got Whelan's book. I found it hard to understand their three-dimensional directions from two-dimensional pictures, so I bought one really messed up wooden junker off ebay -- just so I could see the pattern you understand.

Then I thought a plane in somewhat better shape might give me a better understanding, so I bought a 22-incher which is in good shape so far as the wood, but needs major help metal wise.

Then, when I was just poking around, I found this really cute little 100-year old English coffin plane -- supposedly in user condition. Well, it needed a tiny bit of honing, but that's all. It cuts really nice.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about this coopered door conundrum and, to make a long story short, I have two compass planes on their way here via Royal Mail.

But I'm not hooked.

Really.

I can stop anytime I want to. :o




As others have suggested, you could use a travisher or a curved sole spokeshave, but both would have a steeper learning curve vis a vis control.
Yeah, I think I'll put off learning those for a bit -- at least until I get really good at sharpening. BTW, I'm doing the "scary sharp" thing, with a plain old bench grinder for any prelimnary stuff.

Speaking of sharpening, where do you come down on the hollow-grind vs non-hollow grind question?


Augie

[Wendell Wilkerson]

After I suggested using a compass plane, I was bothered by the fact that you would be planing crossgrain as Tom Scott pointed. It seems like there must be a better way. I found an answer in "David Charlesworth's Furniture Making Techniques Volume Two". There's an article titled "From a jack to a king" where David takes a beat up wooden jack plane and turns it into a large hollow plane that he said "has proved extremely useful to me for dished or coopered work". He made two versions in the article, one with a 6" radius blade and 11-3/8" radius sole and the other with 9" radius blade and 17-3/4" radius sole. Good books by the way. Lots of info you won't find in other books. Good luck.

Wendell

Looked at the Crown Plane link that Dave posted. The gutter plane that Crown has in their catalog looks like an upscale version of the plane that Charlesworth makes in his article.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Hi Augie-

I'm somewhat indifferent about the hollow grind vs flat grind when it comes to edge tools. I use hollow ground on all of my lathe tools because it's quick and they need resharpening quite often when I'm in a turning mode. For chisels, I use both hollow and flat grinding with the hollow being done mostly on chisels which have lesser quality steel. Again, it's speed. My good chisels and my plane irons mostly get flat ground along with the marking knives I make and sell. I'm not much of a fetishist about sharpening and do whatever seems to get the job done fastest and with the least fuss. I sometimes think that some folks view sharpening as a sub-hobby of woodworking and overly complicate things. My friend Mike Dunbar has a semi-famous statement that, " Better is the enemy of good enough." The meanings are many: trying to improve something good can cause you to screw it up, super fussiness adds considerable time for a marginal increase in quality, and finally that if it works well- that's sufficient.

[Mark Singer]

A Stanley #113 or #20 is a good compass plane. I have the 113 which is the older model.It will adjust to the radius. Plane at an angle so you are not 90 degrees to the grain. You can the make a custom sanding block by scribing the door and bandsaw the curve. If you make 3" wide there is peel and stick paper in rolls. When you fit the doors leave them a bit longer and plane them to fit after they are swinging. Brusso knife hinges are great for this application. Want to see the final project.

[Jerry Palmer]

I picked up an old transitional (I think all transitionals are probably old so maybe that was redundant but, oh well), that someone had rounded from side to side, and then ground the itron to match the curve. Back when I used to think Krenov and I were related, I tried one of the things he mentioned in one of his books; that is to visuallize and construct the door(s) first, then build a cabinet around it. I did a coopered door using that plane to clean up the curves on the inside and it worked excellently. A bit of scraper work after the plane and the door came out great. Never did build the cabinet around it though as other projects and honey-dos got in the way.:D