How high an angle is practical for a smoother?

[Darren Brewster]

Hi everyone, I have some questions about attack angles on smoothers I hope I can get some opinions on. Lie-Nielsen sells planes with 45, 50, and 55 degree frogs. Veritas has blade pre-ground for their bevel up planes up to 50 degrees (for a total angle of 62 degrees).
How high an angle can you practically use before the plane becomes too hard to push?
What is the highest angle you would use before turning to a scraper (card, cabinet, or plane)?
Is it worthwhile having a smoother (or extra blade) at every 5 degree increment, or is having say, two separate angles available, say a 45 degree and 55 degree, or some other similar combination, really all that is needed?
Thanks for any insight you can provide.

[David Weaver]

45 and 55 are good. Make the 45 degree plane one with a double iron and the 55 degree plane one with a tight mouth. That'll cover you for everything - the very few things a double iron doesn't do easily, the 55 degree plane with a razor tight mouth will take care of (though at a slight cost in terms of finish quality - the surface will be a bit duller).

With properly set planes and sharpened, there should be very little you have to scrape, but there may some that you want to.

I don't see a practical use for 45, 50 and 55. there's nothing a 50 will do that a properly set second iron wouldn't also do very easily.

Things get harder fast above 55 degrees, and edge life on an iron suffers. If you're just planing chatter marks off of something that went through a planer, it doesn't matter a lot. If you're planing wood that you have dimensioned by hand, that will start to bother you.

[Paul Cahill]

45 and 55 are good. Make the 45 degree plane one with a double iron and the 55 degree plane one with a tight mouth.
I hate to betray my ignorance, but what do you mean by double iron?

Thanks,
Paul

[Brian Kent]

The Mujingfang Polish plane has a 63° angle. It is one of my 4 indispensable planes (along with the Lie Nielsen 102 Block Plane, Lee Valley Low Angle Jack, and home-made A13 Infill Smoother). Only $56, or about the price of a replacement blade. Rosewood plane with an A2 blade that really holds and edge. I keep the blade sharp and cuts shallow so I do not have any problem with the amount of pushing resistance.

http://www.japanwoodworker.com/product.asp?s=JapanWoodworker&pf_id=98.107.2155&dept_id=13602

[Andrae Covington]

I recently bought a 50° O-1 blade for my Veritas LA Smooth Plane to use on some cherry that was giving me tearout problems with grain reversal. This gave me an effective angle of 62°. When I set it to a whisper-thin shaving, it was not significantly harder to push, though I noticed the difference. When I tried thicker shavings (but still in my usual smoothing plane range), then I had problems with the plane skipping across the surface. So it took more passes than usual, but hey, no tearout.:)

[Derek Cohen]

Hi everyone, I have some questions about attack angles on smoothers I hope I can get some opinions on. Lie-Nielsen sells planes with 45, 50, and 55 degree frogs. Veritas has blade pre-ground for their bevel up planes up to 50 degrees (for a total angle of 62 degrees).
How high an angle can you practically use before the plane becomes too hard to push?
What is the highest angle you would use before turning to a scraper (card, cabinet, or plane)?
Is it worthwhile having a smoother (or extra blade) at every 5 degree increment, or is having say, two separate angles available, say a 45 degree and 55 degree, or some other similar combination, really all that is needed?
Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Hi Darren

Firstly, it is important to differentiate between a HA blade on a smoother, which takes very fine shavings, and one on jack or fore plane, which is designed to take thick, rank shavings. Pushing a HA smoother is not that difficult. The others are.

HA for me is typically 60 - 65 degrees. In my experience, a BU plane with a 60 degree cutting angle can be less effort to push that the equivalent BD plane. For many this can be difficult to quantify since many planes are not the same width, and width is important when pushing a HA smoother. The blade on the LV BUS, for example, is 2 1/4" wide, while the LN #4 1/2 is 2 3/8" wide. My BUS at 62 degrees is easier to push than my LN 4 1/2 at 55 degrees. Add a little wax to the sole of the LN and the gap closes up significantly. One of my favourite BD planes is a LN #3 with a 55 degree frog. The narrow blade makes for easier pushing.

How high can one go? LN offer a scraping blade for their #62. David Charlesworth writes about using his #5 1/2 with a 70 degree cutting angle (via a backbevel). Not all smoothers work the same. I have a Marcou smoother which as 60 degrees has never suffered tearout - and I have used it on some really interlocked timber.

In my experience, there is little difference between 45- and 50 degrees. Go for the 50 degress in this situation. Or jump from 45- to 55 degrees. In Western Australia I would recommend 60 degrees for all hardwoods.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Darren Brewster]

Thanks for all the interesting posts everyone, they have been very enlightening!

[Chris Griggs]

I hate to betray my ignorance, but what do you mean by double iron?

Thanks,
Paul

Double Iron = has a chipbreaker

Single Iron = no chipbreaker

[Paul Cahill]

Double Iron = has a chipbreaker

Single Iron = no chipbreaker

Thanks for the reply. I use BU mostly, but have #4 & 5 Stanleys that I play around with a bit. It never occurred to me to use them without a chipbreaker. Is this a common setup?

Paul

[David Weaver]

I hate to betray my ignorance, but what do you mean by double iron?

Thanks,
Paul

What Chris said. I like single iron planes because you can sharpen them and set them a lot faster (not because you can actually sharpen the iron faster, but because there is no taking apart an iron set and precisely setting it when you're done), but it's not debatable that a properly set double iron plane can handle quite a bit of tricky stuff (pedestrian things like curly maple should be no challenge with a bench plane), and if you learn to use one and don't mind setting it properly, you might never need more than one smoother.

The tricky bit is that in order to break smoother sized shavings effectively, the second iron needs to be cleanly set up, tight, and set about the thickness of a sheet of paper from the edge. If it is set off the edge some easily set amount (like a 16th), it's too far away to do anything other than direct the shavings out of the plane long after the finish quality of the surface has been determined.

The benefit of breaking a chip with the second iron instead of with a higher angle single iron is that the surface quality will be better (it'll shine more). I don't know if anyone could tell the difference once a surface is finished or waxed, though, and if you like to card scrape surfaces then it makes no difference which plane you use.

[Derek Cohen]

Paul

I'm afraid that you misunderstand - it is impossible to use a Stanley plane without a chipbreaker as this is used to adjust the blade. Single iron planes are designed to be used that way, and adjustment and blade-holding methods are designed to meet this difference.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Weaver]

It never occurred to me to use them without a chipbreaker. Is this a common setup?

Paul


No, you'll need to get a plane that was designed to be used with a single iron. A stanley plane needs the stability the second iron adds, and you lose the ability to adjust stanley plane without the chipbreaker attached.

As far as the wood is concerned, though, if you use a stanley plane and set the chipbreaker back 1/16th inch or something like that, the wood will otherwise think it's a single iron plane, because set at that depth, the chipbreaker won't break a smoother shaving at the cut.

[Darren Brewster]

Firstly, it is important to differentiate between a HA blade on a smoother, which takes very fine shavings, and one on jack or fore plane, which is designed to take thick, rank shavings. Pushing a HA smoother is not that difficult. The others are.

Hi Derek. Do you mean the Jack is harder to push because it is taking a jack-thick shaving? It would be easy to push if it was set up for a fine shaving as well wouldn't it?

[George Beck]

45 degrees was always a compromise angle. 42 for soft wood and 50 for hardwood just split to 45 degrees. I started making planes at 50 degrees years ago and have since gone to 55 degrees (actually my Krenov planes are about 53 degrees). I also have my LN smoothing plane set up for 55 degrees. I was working a very figured piece of maple (almost a burl) and used 65 degrees, almost a scrapping action. This is an advantage of BU planes as you can keep several blades set up at different angles and quickly switch. BU planes at high angles are significantly easier to push. Just my 2 cents.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Darren

I think I was clumsy with my words. Simply put, pushing a plane set for a fine shaving is quite easy, regardless of the cutting angle. The exception here are planes with wide blades, since this increases the resistance.

Jack planes have a heavily cambered blade to reduce resistance as they cut out thick shavings. Fore planes are similar, but have less camber and take a less thick shaving. Smoothers have the least camber and take the thinnest shavings.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Paul Cahill]

Paul

I'm afraid that you misunderstand - it is impossible to use a Stanley plane without a chipbreaker as this is used to adjust the blade. Single iron planes are designed to be used that way, and adjustment and blade-holding methods are designed to meet this difference.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Indeed I did. So based on this and what David said, a single iron plane could be thought of as either a woodie or infill type plane that uses a wedge to anchor the blade, or a Stanley type BD plane with the chip breaker set back from the edge of the blade. In the case of the latter, I would imagine this would be done to allow the mouth to be closed up tightly?

Thanks,
Paul

[Steve Friedman]

Paul,

I think you misread David's comment.

Generically, there are two basic kinds of bench planes - those that have the bevel of the blade facing down and those that have the bevel facing up.

Bevel up planes (including low angle planes) have a blade that is thick enough to remain rigid without any support near the edge. The blade is held in place by some mechanism.

Sometimes it's a wooden wedge (like many wood planes) like this:
http://thebestthings.com/newtools/graphics/ece_106s.jpg

Sometimes it's a cap iron with a screw adjustment like this:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/images/item/woodworking/planes/05p3401-dsp.jpg

Bevel down planes have a thinner blade that would not remain rigid enough without some support. Therefore, a shorter piece of steel (known as a chipbreaker or cap iron) is attached to the thinner blade to make it more rigid, with the edge of the supporting iron very close to the edge of the blade, like this:
http://thebestthings.com/newtools/graphics/clifton.jpg

The effective cutting angle (the angle of the blade where it touches the wood) on a bevel down plane is determined by the angle of the frog in the plane, typically 45 degrees. The best way to change the effective cutting angle of the blade is to replace the frog with one that has a higher angle. I have never tried this, but understand that it is possible to increase the effective cutting angle by grinding a slight bevel on the back of the blade, so that the effective cutting angle would be 45 degrees plus the angle of the back bevel. Moving the chipbreaker will not do anything to affect the cutting angle.

The effective cutting angle of a bevel up plane is determined by the angle at which the blade is ground. Buying extra blades for a bevel up plane is much cheaper than buying extra frogs for a bevel down plane. Also, switching blades on a bevel up plane is much quicker than replacing the frog in a bevel down plane.

Whether a plane is an infill or not is something completely different. Infill planes can have a single thick iron or a thinner iron with a chipbreaker. Infills can also have a wooden wedge holding the blade or a cap iron with a screw adjustment.

Hope this helps clear up some of the confusion.

Steve

[Zander Kale]

Paul
it is impossible to use a Stanley plane without a chipbreaker as this is used to adjust the blade.

While this is basically true, it is possible to use a Stanley style plane with a single iron - my #2 is one such. It has a 1/8" iron, Stanley cap, Stanley like frog but no adjusters, a hammer does that. I haven't tied it but I'd wager that a nice thick single iron would work just fine in a Stanley (with a bit of fiddling you could probably make the depth adjuster work).