Hand planes on plywood? Fess up

[Doug Shepard]

Anybody else occasionally use hand planes on plywood? I'm getting close to wrapping up the carcass for a router cabinet under my TS extension and so far I've used my good LN Adj. Mouth block plane on the plywood more than I'd like to admit. Then this afternoon a LV Skew Rabbit plane got pressed into use for about 5 minutes. A few days ago, the LV Router plane saw some plywood use.
Am I going to hand tool hell by myself?

[Sean Hughto]

It happens. Baltic birch shop stuff mostly (like the carcase on this cart):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2317/2281043624_ff65229e3b.jpg

Usually just means a trip to the waterstones afterwards, as the glue is tough on the blades, I guess.

[Chris Kennedy]

I've done it, and have done one worse. My FIL was building cabinets with a less than stellar tablesaw, and I trued up a lot of cuts with my low angle jack.

As for my one worse -- I used a handplane on pressure treated. Don't ask.

Cheers,

Chris

[Andy Muckle]

OK, once in a while, but that's what the Anant block plane is for - I only feed the LN the good stuff.

[Greg Cole]

OK, once in a while, but that's what the Anant block plane is for - I only feed the LN the good stuff.
Ditto, I have a circa 2002 Stanley Block plane for scraping paint, finding nails & screws and generally bad things for a good plane... not sure plywood is on the list of things I've done with that little POS though.:rolleyes:

[Todd Bin]

I use my no. 95 LN all the time on plywood. In fact that is why I bought it. The low angle skew blade takes nice shavings on both the long and end grain of the ply. And the integral 90 degree fence ensures that the edge stays 90 degrees.

[Narayan Nayar]

Maybe I missed that class but I don't see what law of woodworking anyone using planes on plywood is transgressing. I use my block plane and LA jack all the time on plywood edges--fitting drawers and joints, etc.

At worst the plane iron gets dull. So then I sharpen it. Just like with real wood.

[Bill Houghton]

but they are tools. Tools are used for work.

Planing plywood's within the job assignment, as opposed to using a chisel to open paint cans (that's what screwdrivers are for, after all).

[Jamie Cowan]

Yup. Did it today to clean up the edge of a thin piece before putting it on the back of a bench. Not proud of it, but I did it.

[Richard Dooling]

It just gives me more opportunities to develop my sharpening skills. All good!

[James Scheffler]

Anybody else occasionally use hand planes on plywood? I'm getting close to wrapping up the carcass for a router cabinet under my TS extension and so far I've used my good LN Adj. Mouth block plane on the plywood more than I'd like to admit. Then this afternoon a LV Skew Rabbit plane got pressed into use for about 5 minutes. A few days ago, the LV Router plane saw some plywood use.
Am I going to hand tool hell by myself?

Plywood is one thing, but they don't work well on mdf. Don't ask me how I know that. :o

Jim

P.S. And really, if anything like that ever did happen (and I'm not saying it did, but just speaking hypothetically, because who WOULD sink so low as to do something like that?), it probably was just a mostly useless $9 block plane from Sears. :D

[Robby Tacheny]

You know, last weekend I used my Stanley #5 on my MDF benchtop. It actually worked really well. Maybe it dulls the blade, but I now have a flat top again. I spilled too much "slop" on it from cleaning up hand planes and had some raised areas.

-R

[Jacob Mac]

I certainly have. But usually because I do something dumb and a handplane is the best way to save my project from going in the burn pile.

[Ron Petley]

Well heck yes when I did this stuff full time it was 50-50 I would say, never thought about ti, MFD a little less, and particle board as well, I hates the stuff, scratches the bottom of your plane. So after MFD and particle board plywood is looking good, so it depends from what perspective you look at it. Oh I forgot to add corain and arborite and once in a while a bit of skin off my fingers but that did not seem to hard on the blade. Cheers Ron.

[mike holden]

Narayan,
The problem with using a handplane on plywood, is not the wood, but the glue.
The glue is hard enough to chip the blade. Plane blades are soft enough that this doesnt happen often, but when it does, it is major regrinding to get the edge back.
This is also the reason that edge jointing on your jointer is not recommended - you get a series of chips in the blade that match the glue lines (DAMHIKT - grin!)
Mike

BTW, I too have used a low-angle lie-nielsen plane on plywood, leveling a grid on a torsion box - the most overbuilt piece of shop furniture I have. mh

[Tony Zaffuto]

Once and never again! Was using my favorite low angle block plane on the edge of a piece of plywood. A sliver got stuck between the sole and the blade and caused a crack on the corner of the mouth.

T.Z.

[Narayan Nayar]

Narayan,
The problem with using a handplane on plywood, is not the wood, but the glue.
The glue is hard enough to chip the blade. Plane blades are soft enough that this doesnt happen often, but when it does, it is major regrinding to get the edge back.

Hey Mike.

I get that, and yeah, it does happen. And I have some small scratches in the sole of one of my planes as a result of using it on plywood. But these incidents happen in normal use as well. And one can also chip plane blades on any kind of lamination or on knots.

I suppose I consider blades a consumable item and grinding and honing just part of the process. And I'm now practiced enough at it that I don't think it's any more or less inconvenient than any other part of the process. But for the one time I chipped a blade on a plywood edge, there are probably thousands of break-free swipes I've taken.

I will say that I really only use one block plane and one LA jack for plywood, so perhaps not I'm as carefree as these statements might suggest. I consider these tools in particular "fitting" tools, not "finish" tools, but I suppose I could set them up for the latter, and despite the fact that they've been used on plywood, they'd still perform admirably.

[Ray Frederick]

I use my block plane all the time in the field as a carpenter and in the shop on all kinds of non-wood materials. I've used it on Corian counters, MDF, and constantly on plywood. It is great for tuning up scribes when installing cabinet fillers and the like , a little bit of extra sharpening but not a hugely noticeable amount..the average time to dullness seems about the same regardless of use.

In over 10 years of using, maybe abusing :), my Stanley 60 1/2" on these type of materials on a weekly basis at least and I've never damaged the plane or iron.

[John Schreiber]

Sure. Why not?

A tool exists to solve problems. The day when I can make a project which doesn't need some adjustment hasn't come yet. I'll use a plane on MDF or ply or whatever. In fact, I was making some clamps out of PVC recently and used my LN 60 1/2.

Not good for the edge, but sharpening is part of the game.