How smooth will a smoother smooth?

[Marty Walsh]

I took delivery on my LN 4 1/2 (thanks for the recommendations), and now I have a question or two.

Question #1) How smooth will a well tuned, properly used, smoother actually get a board?

Those that have been following my saga might remember I'm working on lots of curly maple drawers and got the 4 1/2 to smooth the fronts. Well, I've test driven my new smoother on some scrap curly maple (if there IS such a thing), and I'm not terribly thrilled with the overall finish. The piece I deliberately chose had some planer ridges from a nick in one of my planer knives. The smoother removed the ridges nicely, but the overall finish is no where near what I can accomplish with my Festool 150/3 running through the grits up to 320.

I took progressively thinner shavings, as hopefully you can see in this pic.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=17042&stc=1

I started with substantial shavings, progressing down to whisper thin shavings that were so thin they wouldn't even stay together as they ejected. But the surface still isn't what my finger tips know as 'smooth'.

Am I doing something wrong, or do I have artificially high expectations of my smoother?

Question #2) What's the deal with 'curved blades'?

I got both of David Charlesworth's DVD when I got the 4 1/2, and after sitting through them both a few times, I'm wondering if I need to use his trick of rounding over the blade edges. I'm not sure if the not-so-smooth surface I'm getting is being caused by corner gouging from the iron, but hey, I'm new and don't know much of anything yet...:confused:

Does everyone here already know about and use the 'curved blade' technique? I searched on here and only one reference in a mini-review of the DVDs.

Thanks...
Marty

[Richard Wolf]

As with all tools, both hand and power, technique comes with practice. Rounding the corners very slightly on the blade will help you, but my approach to using a smothing plane is to start on one side of the drawer front and progress across the face slightly overlapping the previous pass. Also, I work left to right, apply slightly more pressure on the right side of the plane. Sometimes with figured wood it may seem impossible to get the same finish as you feel with sandpaper and unless your name is Thomas Lie-Nielsen your technique may take longer than you care to invest.

Richard

[Steve Wargo]

Did you sharpen the iron and flatten and polish the back? The iron is no where near ready to use straight from the factory. Also a cambered iron will help a bit. The 50deg frog is highly recommended for figured woods. There is something to technique. I think it's prudent to believe that you could purchase a plane and right out of the box create a perfect finish on a highly figured wood. Probably sharpening, cambering and setting the plane up for the right cut will probably produce the results you're looking for. It's not an overnight process, but if you address all the little issues and ask more questions you'll get answers and work through this.

[Alan Turner]

Marty,

I haven't seen the Charlesworth DVD's, so can't comment. But I will share with you what I do in terms of sharpening a smoother. I sharpen the blade dead straight, until I get to the 8000 stone, and then at the very end, I bear down a bit more on each end (side) for the last three to five strokes, which puts a vey slight crown on the iron. For plane irons, I use the Eclipse jig. Hold a straight edge agaisnt the now sharpened edge and look into the light, and you will see the slight camber on the edge. Perhaps the ends are .003 back from the center.

Then I take shavings of less than .003, so that the corners never are in the wood. I do not clip the corners of the iron, as some do. With this techinique, there is never a corner gouge because the corner never reaches the wood. It may take a few times over the board to get it smooth, but there are no harsh lines parallel with the grain. If the iron is 2" wide, I may take about 1.25" to 1.5" of shaving width.

I do not have an LN smoother (yet). I use a 604C with Hock iron and cap iron for easy woods, and an HNT Gordon for figured woods, like curly maple. I feel that the high angle of attack -- 60 degrees -- and the tight mouth -- .005 -- are what makes this work. And, the iron is 1/4" thick, and very solidly bedded.

Some practice will be required, but there is a shorter learning curve than you might suspect. Keep at it and it will come. I feel that my hand planed surfaces are far smoother than I can achieve with any abrasives. I go with them only, unless I am using a water dye, and if so, then I raise the grain, and brush sand with 320, but little grain is acutally raised, esp. on maple.

[Robert Weber]

Two things,

First, Graham Blackburn is also a proponent of the "curved blade" methodology. The curves vary from a sharp radius in a scrub, a wider radius in a jack, and a very flat radius on the smoother. The only plane blade he sharpens completely flat is a jointer, since theoretically the edges of the blade are off the wood. He then, like Alan, sets the blade shallow enough that the corners are up in the mouth of the plane.

Second, and more importantly, planing won't create a completely flat surface to the touch, because of the physics of how a plane cuts. The flatter the curve and shallower the cut the smoother the board will be, and some of the remaining waviness can be taken out with a card scraper (again cutting an arc by virtue of the curve bent into the scraper by the user's hands).

You will never get as "smooth" a surface with a plane as with sandpaper, at least to the touch. When you sand you are abrading the wood cells and leaving them ragged and soft, and filling the pores with tiny amounts of sawdust. This leaves the surface silky smooth to the touch. However, many feel is "fuzzes" the grain, and applied finished will not produce the gleam that a planed/scraped surface can.

So the trade-off is: smooth to the touch but less refined figure and sheen, or take care of the smoothness with shellac and save the shine.

My $0.02...

[Roy Wall]

Marty,

The technique Alan described for "rounding" is what the LN guy re-iterated at the WW show---it's got to be virtually the same as Charlesworth---and a universal method.

To further refine your cut, us a 1/2" wide piece of birch on edge and make shavings using the L & R edges of the smoother. Compare this and adjust your blade accordingly till they are equally thin.

Use pencil lines to mark your finish board, so that you know "exactly" where each pass went--and then overlap each pass by about 1/3 of the blade........working across the board. This should also help to remove/reduce plane marks.

Is that a 50 deg frog??? If so, it should bring out a little more "depth" of the wood---if not, it would be a matter of perfecting your sharpening a little more.

Just FYI, I'm not there yet either:confused: ---but I'm trying!:cool:

[Derek Cohen]

Marty

My take on smooth planing is this:

1. The correct cutting angle is the lowest you can use before tearout begins. Lower cutting angles slice while progressively higher cutting angles move progressively from cutting to scraping.

2. I mostly work with Australian hardwood, which require high cutting angles (around 60 degrees), but there are times, when the timber is straight grained, that I can use a low angle set up. The LA set up is going to produce the smoothest surface. As you go up the chain, so the surface can become progressively matt. Note that this is a rule of thumb since different timbers react differently.

3. Smoothing planes, in particular, require smooth blades. While this may sound obvious, it is not the same thing as having a sharp blade. A blade may be sharp and cut gossamer shavings yet leave an awful surface. For example, if you sharpen to 1000 grit on a Tormek then hone with rouge, you will have a blade that is a polished 1000 grit. Real sharpening on waterstones begins at a higher level than this, and correct sharpening does not omit any grits in the sharpening sequence since, if you do, you will not remove the deep scratches from earlier grits. It is these that destroy the surface when you smooth plane. New planes out-of-the-box often feel - and plane - as if they are razor sharp, but they are in reality serrated at the edge.

4. A minimum requirement for smoothing is probably around 4000 waterstone, with 6000 good and 8000 better. I always follow this up with Veritas green honing rouge, which takes the edge to a higher plane (pun intended!). And don't forget that the back of the blade is as important as the bevel. It is unlikely that this will be perfect in a new blade.

Below is a pic of a 9 foot pine shaving I made last weekend (planing timber for a loft bed for my son). It measured a continuous 0.002" thick. Plane is a Mujingfang 11" smoother. Cutting angle is 45 degrees.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Konrad Sauer]

Hi Marty,

A good smoothing plane should be able to leave the surface looking like glass - even curly maple. I was out in the shop the other night and took a picture of the surface of a piece of curly maple I had just planed. The reflection in the surface is of the snow covered trees outside my shop window. With a slight camber in the iron, you can plane any surface from edge to edge without any trackmarks what-so-ever.

The trick to this is a flat sole on the plane, a very sharp (and smooth as Derek pointed out) iron, and a fine mouth.

Cheers,
Konrad

[Don Martindale]

On highly figured woods, I get as smooth as I can with a plane that I made bedded at 55%, & then use a card scraper. I don't have the technique that a lot of others have here. On a recent guitar that I made with quilted maple back & sides, I had to forsake the plane altogether, but the scraper did the trick. It works nicer & faster than you (or I) would think. But, as I said, I don't have the technique that some of the other members have with a plane.....don

[Rob Millard]

It looks from your shavings , that they are somewhat striated . This could be due to fracturing of the cutting edge. This would of course result in a surface with minute ridges. On a couple , but not all, of my LN tools with A-2 blades, it was necessary to grind back about 1/32” before I got to “good” steel. My guess is that the surface, or bevel grinding removed some of the temper. I will admit, that I’m a fanatic about sharpening ( but I want it done in a hurry). I use sandpaper up to 2000 grit and then polish with a bit of 3 micron diamond paste on a block of hardwood. When I plane curly maple with my LN 4 ½ fitted with the high angle frog, I get a surface that is almost polished, and could be matched with sandpaper but wouldn’t have a crispness and clarity of a planed surface. If you experience tear out, try wetting the surface with water or mineral spirits. This will make even difficult maple plane like a dream. If you use the mineral spirits remove any wax on the plane bottom before starting, because you wouldn’t want it to contaminate the wood. If you use water take a few passes on dry wood before you put the plane away to dry the bottom and cutting edge.
Rob Millard

[Mark Singer]

The surface is , of course , more important than the shavings..the clarity is the real quality that hand planing offers . If the surfaces undulates in a subtle way it could be a good thing and adds a softness to the touch as in older pieces of furniture...This shows the hand wrought process of planing and celebrates the "solid" wood and not veneer quality. Perfection is often not as important as the character , I think it adds something, even to my modern pieces. I don't ever paint hand troweled smooth plaster...the mottleing and trowel marks are again part of the process...if they are gone completly it becomes like plastic....if there are too many....it becomes just another badjob

[Marty Walsh]

(Finally dragged myself away from the shop to come back on here and check for replies...)

Ok folks, I get it, I get it...SHARPEN the blade better. :eek:

Seriously, I guess I was spoiled by the LN 60 1/2R I recently acquired. It did a FANTASTIC job right out of the box. But then again, I realize I'm trying to accomplish a completly different task with the smoother.

I'll be flattening my water stones and getting to it soon. And from the concensus, and other things I've read, I'll be attempting to properly camber the blade. (I'm worried I might over-do it, so I'll go lightly.) And I think I'll avoid the Tormek on the blade...for now anyway.

Rob, I believe you've nailed at least one of my problems, if not the main one. Striations are exactly what I felt. I sat at the bench, rubbing my fingertips over the board and can feel minute ridges, although I don't know enough to recognize that from some of my finer shavings. But now that you've pointed that out, I can see it. Thanks!

Don, you're also correct. One or two swipes with a well burred card scaper and I got the surface I was expecting, (after doing most of the work with the 4 1/2). But with the volume of surface I have to smooth, and the planer tearout I have on some of the drawers, I think the size and nature of the smoother will get the job done sooner.

Derek, all I can say is I have 'shaving envy'. Nice, and from a nice tool.

And of course Mark you're right. It's the amazing finish I've witnessed on curly maple, that only a hand planing can produce, that I'm after. The grain seems to come to life. Now that I've witnessed the effect, I simply can't and won't settle for less. (But, you have to admit, Derek has a kewl shaving there...)

Konrad, and for you, I have 'finish-envy'. I don't expect such a mirror-like finish, but I do expect (and WILL attain) a very smooth finish. You wouldn't be interested in a short 'vacation' in Northern Virginia would you? (Bring your smoothers of course...:rolleyes: )

Well folks, as always, I'm indebted to you all for your advice and comments. I've been neglecting a few other projects, so it'll be a few days before I get back to this. But the next step WILL be water stones to 8000 on the blade before I touch it to wood again.

I'm learning...;)
- Marty -

[Gene Collison]

Marty,

Take a look at your plane iron edge under magnification. If you can see the cutting edge at all it is not sharp. The edge should be totally free of scratch patterns. Forget the context of sharpening and polish the iron on both sides to a point keeping the non bevel side flat. When both sides are polished like a mirror and to a point, the finish on your wood will be there. The polishing tools will start with a 1000 grit stone and end up with an 8000. Overly simplified yes, but that's the concept. Use magnification to determine where your tool is at in relative sahrpness. Knock off the corners of the iron when you finished as others have suggested.

Gene