Curly Maple Neander Milling Protocol

[Todd McDonald]

I have some 13/16 Curly Maple I need to make some drawer fronts (7" by 20"). I would like to mill them down to aprox. 3/4 or a little less. I am afraid to run them with power tools due to tear-out. I really dont want to buy or rent a drum sander.

What protocol for hand planes would be appropriate?

I have a #5, #4 and some card scrapers and of course a lot of elbow grease and some addtional funds for another plane.

[george wilson]

When I was musical instrument maker in Williamsburg,we made a great many stringed instruments with the curliest maple backs and sides we could get. All work was done by hand.

We planed the maple straight across the grain with a very sharp,finely set plane. Then,we scraped the wood smooth the rest of the way. If your wood is already at the needed width,clamp a piece of hardwood along the edge the plane will emerge over to prevent breaking off pieces of the edge. Better yet,glue an extra strip of hardwood and saw it off later.

You can also use a toothed plane to rather grate the wood away,and scrape it afterwords. We used old wooden,near vertical blade toothing planes with fine teeth.

[lowell holmes]

I use a bu jack plane with the 38 degree iron honed to 40 degrees or the 50 degree iron for curly maple.

You can run it through a lunchbox thickness planer if you will spray the wood with a fine mist of water as you feed it rhrough the machine. Allways take a light cut through the planer.

[David Keller NC]

Since you are already at 13/16" thick and your target is 3/4" (which is 12/16"), you're already past the point of doing much in the way of planing. If the boards are very flat, you can put a 10 degree back-bevel on your #4's iron and plane them without tear-out.

If the boards need flattening, you're going to need to shoot for about 1/2" thick drawer fronts, as I'd guess that you've got at least 1/4" of cup, bow, or twist to remove.

In that case, I'd use the #5 directly across the grain (chamfer the opposite side first to prevent blow-out) to remove any cup. Then put a 10 degree back-bevel on the #5's blade and plane with the grain to smooth out the cross-grain furrows.

George's alternative (a toothed blade followed by a scraper) is, by the way, the most bullet-proof option for processing any wood with wildly figured grain. It even works on cocobolo, which is some of the most difficult wood to plane without tearout that I've ever encountered.

[Sandy Stanford]

I have some 13/16 Curly Maple I need to make some drawer fronts (7" by 20"). I would like to mill them down to aprox. 3/4 or a little less. I am afraid to run them with power tools due to tear-out. I really dont want to buy or rent a drum sander.

What protocol for hand planes would be appropriate?

I have a #5, #4 and some card scrapers and of course a lot of elbow grease and some addtional funds for another plane.

Use a toothing plane in succession with your number five until you get close to finished thickness and then plane with the grain with your smoother followed by a card scraper if necessary.

[Todd McDonald]

Use a toothing plane in succession with your number five until you get close to finished thickness and then plane with the grain with your smoother followed by a card scraper if necessary.

The boards I have are flat, I just need to thickness them some.

Does a toothing blade go in a scraper plane? If so, looking like I need to add a scraping plane to my small collection. Slippery slope:D

[george wilson]

The German or domestic instrument grade we used for musical instruments was,and is very expensive. Hundreds of dollars for some sets of back and side woods. Therefore,we did do the safest thing when planing them.

[Chuck Tringo]

Lee Valley and Lie Nielsen both sell toothed blades for their bevel up planes as well as their scraper planes.

[Mark Stutz]

Todd,
Do you HAVE to take them down to 3/4 for drawer fronts? I doubt anyone but you will know the difference. If you are doing Halfblinds by hand, the longer tails would look good IMO. If you have to, the toothed blade in a BU plane would be the way I would go.

Mark

[Randy Klein]

Todd,
Do you HAVE to take them down to 3/4 for drawer fronts? I doubt anyone but you will know the difference.

Mark

+1. Make sure you actually need that exact dimension. Otherwise just smooth it up and use as is.

[Dan O'Sullivan]

Todd
I just worked this walnut down with a BU ground with a high angle blade and an old Stanley BD with a back beveled blade. I did some scraping. It takes time.

I have surfaced a fair amount of curly maple and the best results I get happen when I use a high angle of attack. Back bevel the BD or set the BU for a steep angle.


From your description it sounds like you are flat. Its time to minimize stock removal and get a good surface. Some here have mentioned moistening the surface while planing. This works for me at the planer in the early stages but I'm uneasy with this while hand planing. I can't get a good feel and see the wood surface results well enough for my liking. With the adjustable mouth on the BU jack, I can go slowly and limit the surprises quite well. It might work for you.

dan

[Todd McDonald]

Thanks everyone for the replies. The hand plane world is still a puzzle to me.

I surely do not have to be 3/4 for drawer fronts, 5/8 would probably be better for this project anyway.

I must correct my original post, my #5 is really a LN #62 Low Angle Jack Plane that has the stock iron. Looking like I will need a higher angle blade for this work.

Also another correction, my source for the #4 has dried up, so I will spend Christmas money on a LN #4 or mybe a LV#4 and a extra iron. LN also list a 50 degree high angle frog, which frog angle to get or both?



Thanks again and Merry Christmas.

Todd

[Randy Klein]

For a smoother, get the higher frog angle.

[Danny Burns]

I must correct my original post, my #5 is really a LN #62 Low Angle Jack Plane that has the stock iron. Looking like I will need a higher angle blade for this work.

You can just sharpen the blade you have at around 40 degrees, and then the 12 degree bed angle will give you a 50+ degree angle of attack.
Afterwards you can either resharpen the blade to the original angle, or get a new one in the mail.



Also another correction, my source for the #4 has dried up, so I will spend Christmas money on a LN #4 or maybe a LV#4 and a extra iron. LN also list a 50 degree high angle frog, which frog angle to get or both?

If you are going to be doing a lot of work with wild grained woods then this 50 degree frog is nice, but if you are just occasionally tackling wild grained woods, then a very small back bevel of a 5 degrees or so will do the jib nicely. The back bevel only need be thicker than the shaving taken.

Try a scribble of paraffin wax on the sole of the plane to help reduce the friction, since the steeper angle needed for figured wood means more resistance to overcome. I owe a thanks to Rob Cosman for that advice.

Take only the thinnest if shavings, since thin shavings are weak, and so break before tearing.
Keep the blade really sharp.
Try planing with the flame of the wood, rather than the grain.
Tighten up the mouth so that downward pressure is exerted just before the blade. This is the only time you need a tight mouth.

If you work a lot in wild wood you might want to consider the LN 4 1/2 since it has a 55 degree frog available for it. Perhaps the O1 blade will help in a very tough case, since it can take a sharper edge, and then keep it sharp during the work with frequent honing.

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=HAF

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=o-1bl


Derek Cohen posted a nice approach to sharpening with honing in mind.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/BeyondSharpASharpeningStrategy.html

His site has a lot of other nice articles as well.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/

[Dewald van Lamp]

LIL.

Hard maple is fickle, in my very limited experience.

Some planks will be ok if you skew it through the thickness planer, others will not obey...

I have had very little success with the small batch I have worked through my 12" Makita thicknesser.

I think, in the end, sanding is the way to go.

Worked for me.

The result is worth the trouble.

:D

[Todd McDonald]

So I was looking thru Lie-Nielsen website for a spare blade for the #62 and came across a demo video of milling what looks like tiger maple:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pxKo1vjOwA

Much to the same technique as mentioned in this thread.