Infill vs Wooden Smoothers

[Bryce Adams]

I'm fairly new to hand planing, and have run into some issues with tearout while smoothing, particularly on quarter sawn white oak. I've been researching solutions to smoothing difficult woods with highly figured and/or reversing grain. Seems like infill planes, that are heavy, with very fine mouths, and irons bedded around 55 degrees are especially good at smoothing difficult woods.

But I've also read that wooden smoothers, again with very fine mouths and irons bedded around 55 degrees also work exceptionally well to produce polished surfaces on difficult woods.

I know I need something different than my tuned Stanley planes. When I run into wood that I can't plane, I resort to sandpaper. I'm trying to decide what to try next.

Do those of you with experience with both types of plane have any preferences or find that one type works better than the other?

Bryce

[mike holden]

Bryce,
First - there is no "magic bullet"!
The variety of woods and grain patterns make blanket statements impossible.

If your "tuned Stanley plane" is not leaving the finish you want, then I would suggest that the next step is a card scraper.

As regards the wood plane vs infill - let me try both on the piece of wood in question, and I can answer the question regarding which of the two planes I try (not all infills not all woodies) works best on that board.

Get with some friends who have both, or join a club, and get a chance to try both; then decide which one, if either, you would like to own.

Sorry, but there is no definitive answer here. Trees are like snowflakes - no two the same.

Mike

[Raney Nelson]

I think just about any plane with a higher effective pitch is going to show some improvement for QSWO. That's a wood I would probably want at least a 50 or 55 degree attack for. If you want the simplest solution, you can easily put a 10 degree backbevel on one of your stanley blades (or on a replacement blade) to get a higher effective pitch angle. I do think there are some advantages to both wooden and infill smoothers, but they are not nearly as obvious as changing the attack angle would be.

[george wilson]

I used to use wooden planes every day when in the museum situation,open to the public. We used curly maple and other hard to plane woods.

Try planing straight across the board with a very sharp,fine cutting plane. It won't tear out the grain that way. you can get a decent surface that is ready to scrape that way.

[Brian Kent]

I highly recommend one of these - a 62° rosewood plane that is very effective on difficult grains and highly rated in a comparison test:

http://www.japanwoodworker.com/product.asp?s=JapanWoodworker&pf_id=98%2E107%2E1155&dept_id=13602

http://www.japanwoodworker.com/product.asp?s=JapanWoodworker&pf_id=98%2E107%2E2155&dept_id=13602

Each about $55.

Brian

PS: I also recommend this:

http://www.breseplane.com/Full_Size_Smoothing_Planes.html

which is in the "more than $55" price range.

[Michael Faurot]

Try a toothing blade in one plane. Go over the surface with the plane holding the toothing blade. Follow up with a different smooth plane. You'll likely need to repeat with toothing blade, then smooth plane several times to get below the tear out and the amount of smoothness you like.

Also, if your smoother is mostly doing the job, but only leaving a few areas with a small amount of tear out . . . Stop planing and go get a scraper to smooth out the few areas that need to be touched up.

[Barry Vabeach]

Bryce, I don't think either one has any real advantage in terms of tearout. A very detailed comparison was made many years ago and the IIRC the overall conclusion, with a minor exception, was that the higher the angle, the less the tearout. The fineness of the mouth has less of an impact. http://www.woodcentral.com/bparticles/haspc.pdfhave
I had both a very fine wooden smoother, and have owned a mess of infills, and my preference is the infills, hands down. OTOH, that is just a personal preference, a wooden smoother is going to be much lighter, which is an advantage in one respect. The infill is going to be much heavier which gives you an advantage in terms of momentum. Also using a traditional coffin sided woodie, your hand placement is totally different than a Stanley- you might like it or hate it. The infill is slightly different in terms of the front tote, but otherwise should feel like a cousin to a Stanley. If both had a similar bed angle, and similar blade, the wood wouldn't care whether the blade was in a wooden smoother or a infill, and the results should be comparable, though the ergonomics would be vastly different.

[Casey Gooding]

I faced the same problem. I built a Krenov smoother bedded at 55 degrees and have had great luck with it. Works really well on hard to plane domestics. Haven't tried it on many exotics. Though it did well on a purpleheart box I recently made.

[Bryce Adams]

So it sounds like higher bedding angles are the key to less tear-out. After that, choosing between a wood plane and an infill is largely a matter of personal preference.

I'm going to start by building a 55 degree angle wooden plane. My 1st wood plane was a Krenov style, but this time I'm going to try the design that Derek Cohen used on his recent jack plane - with abutments rather than a cross pin.

After that - we'll see. Maybe my winter project will be a dovetailed, infill plane to try it out. I find that I like building tools, and I'm too thrifty to think about paying a lot of money for a single plane.

Bryce

[Barry Vabeach]

Bryce, if you like building, you may want to try out St. James Bay Tool Co, it has some kits at pretty attractive prices. It doesn't come with much in the way of instructions, but you can find some info on the internet, and the owner answers questions when you get him on the phone.

[James Owen]

A couple of things that might help with your current planes:

(1) a very, very sharp iron;

(2) skewing the plane to about 30 degrees off center

You might also take a look at the Lie-Nielsen planes that will take 50 or 55 degree frogs (50 degree: #4 or #5; 50 degree or 55 degree: #4.5, #5.5, #6, or #7). One of these should handle the QS Oak with little or no problem.

The Japan Wood Worker Chinese-style woodies, bedded at 63 degrees, will also do a nice job on difficult-grained woods.

[Aled Dafis]

After that - we'll see. Maybe my winter project will be a dovetailed, infill plane to try it out. I find that I like building tools, and I'm too thrifty to think about paying a lot of money for a single plane.

Bryce

If it's a kit you're after, then I may be able to help, I'm in the process of developing a couple of small kits in my spare time. I currently have a small shoulder plane kit available, and am working towards a small smoother kit.

This venture is purely a hobby, so I can't promise a date for when the small smoother kit will be ready, but as I say, I'm working on it.

Check out my website http://infillplane.co.uk (http://infillplane.co.uk/)

I'm never going to get rich doing this, I see it as an opportunity for people to have a go at making an infill plane, without worrying about the detailed design and the drudgery of hacking metal. My kits are designed to be put together with the minimum of metalworking equipment and skills. You'll get by with little more than a vice, file, hammer and hacksaw.

Cheers

Aled

P.S. Note to the Mods.

If I've stepped out of line as regards advertising, I'll withdraw my post immediately. Just let me know.

[Bryce Adams]

A couple of things that might help with your current planes:

(1) a very, very sharp iron;

(2) skewing the plane to about 30 degrees off center

You might also take a look at the Lie-Nielsen planes that will take 50 or 55 degree frogs (50 degree: #4 or #5; 50 degree or 55 degree: #4.5, #5.5, #6, or #7). One of these should handle the QS Oak with little or no problem.

The Japan Wood Worker Chinese-style woodies, bedded at 63 degrees, will also do a nice job on difficult-grained woods.

Although everyone's definition of very sharp differ, I am honing my iron up through an 8000 grit Norton waterstone.

I actually don't remember if I specifically tried skewing the plane. I'll give it a try.

The higher angle approach (one way or the other) sounds like it should help my QS oak problem.

[David Keller NC]

"The higher angle approach (one way or the other) sounds like it should help my QS oak problem."

Indeed it will. One comment on the wooden plane vs. infill plane - I have and use both. The woodies are largely beat up antiques that I've tuned and "throated", the infills are either antique Norrises or new Konrad Sauers.

What I'll note here is that it's very tough to find an antique, traditional-construction wooden plane with a high angle blade. They do very rarely come up at tool auctions, but usually not in a condition that would make one say "wow!".

From the standpoint of antique infills, this is also true - very few of the Mathieson, Spiers, and Norris planes that come up are much over 45 degrees. Of course, one can always have one made by a custom maker to your specifications.

From the standpoint of using them, I think of the situation appropriate for an infill vs. a wooden plane a bit differently than just the grain orientation and problems with tear-out. When the wood's mild and easy to plane, like softwoods and relatively soft secondary hardwoods, I generally use wooden planes or LN Stanley copies.

When the wood is really hard so that there's a very fine line between no cutting and stalling, I reach for the infills. The additional weight seems to help greatly in setting the plane to take an appropriate thickness shaving.

In regards to getting a traditional-construction wooden plane with a high angle, the Clark and Williams smoothers are 55 degrees, I think. While you'll be waiting quite a long time for their molding planes, their bench planes have a much shorter delivery time, so they're an option if your preference is spending time on woodworking projects vs. toolmaking (nothing wrong with toolmaking - I do it quite often, it's just not everyone's cup of tea).