Edge jointing/ unwanted taper....posture correction ?

[John A. Callaway]

Working on a case, curly maple, and I have to do a bunch of glue up to get the panels to size..... And my same old problem that always shows up presented itself again over the last few days, so I got to thinking about it while planing today.....

For starters, I am planing out both sides of the joint at the same time, so that any taper in the edge will match up and be complimentary and the joint will seal up...... But still, I want to get past a hurdle with this, and start getting a square edge with out resorting to buying a jointer fence....

So, this is what is happening....

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMG_0193.jpg

I am left handed, so the high side ends up being closer to my body, the low side on the away from me ( left side in photo )

I started wondering about my posture, and the position of my hand and forearm in relation to the plane and my body..... ( the iron is not laterally skewed, its square out the mouth...) because something is putting pressure on the left side of the cut....

This is the way I am normally positioned

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMG_0185.jpg

My feet are not staggered so I could get a good pic here ( below )

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMG_0194.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMG_0187.jpg

Now, when I start to change things, ( which got uncomfortable rather quickly, and didnt seem .... natural .... Probably on account of me trying to overcompensate for pressure on the right to shave down the high side.

forearm in line with the sole of the plane, not angled out

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMG_0186.jpg

Here my forearm is up tight against my chest, just below my ribs....

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMG_0195.jpg

and using my palm to press down on the side of the plane, while keeping the finger fence and downward pressure applied.... seems like a little too much going on with my right hand.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMG_0188.jpg

now, having said and showed all of this, I did get a square edge across the two edges of the stuff in the vise..... and a clean joint with out high spots on either end or a dish out in the middle of the length ...

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMG_0191.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMG_0192.jpg

so, seeing all of this, has my posture and grips and body alignment been all wrong? We have to rule out bench height right now, its a few inches too tall, but not overly uncomfortable, and I have gotten used to it.... and it may be a year or two before I can get around to building my " serious bench " ( notice the stroller box in the back ground? YaY ! a new live action toy to play with in six weeks ) .....

or, am I just being to over analytical about all of this and just keep planing the joints in matching pairs and move on ?

[Jim Neeley]

John,

Rather than trying to change your posture, try changing your position, as with sawing. If you move your body a few inches away from the bench as you plane it should correct itself.

It works for sawing so should work for planing.

The nice thing about this approach is it doesn't ask you to tweak muscles unnaturally as you would if you were to try to force it.

Try it; you might like it! :)

Jim

[Jim Matthews]

"...am I just being to over analytical about all of this and just keep planing the joints in matching pairs and move on?"

I think match planing is a good practice, even if you're dead nuts on perpendicular. That way, parts are made to go together.
I would recommend you have a look at the way your iron is set up - I think it cuts heavy on your far side.

You can test if height influences this (as you suspect) by standing on a sheet of 3/4" plywood.
I would stack up four layers, and screw them together as a platform. You could take a couple passes, then remove a layer from the stack.

You'll probably feel the "ideal" height right away. Were I to guess, i would say you have your power arm up too high.
I like to shuffle my feet to cover ground on long boards like these. I couldn't do that comfortably with my elbow bent much.

I saw Phil Lowe test his planes with a small block of straight grained stock, about 1/2" wide.
The little blocks were small enough to hold between your thumb and index finger, "high" enough to keep your fingers away from the blade.

Pass the block over the blade, Left Center and Right. If the shaving is the same all the way across, the iron is square.
It's a good way to test a blade for camber, as well.

[John A. Callaway]

I use a little block like that, I saw Daneb from LN do that in one of their videos..... So I know its not that, plus, It does this with both the old Stanley No.8 or the Ln 5&1/2 .... So it's me, or something I am doing. I have thought about either taking this bench apart and shortening things up, or putting a false floor down to elevate me ... The bench is a Hoffman and Hammer from Highland , and its the little one ( and for what I paid for it I could have bought two benchcrafted vises and plenty of SYP to build it , but ya start out knowing a little and then you learn ). The bench is nice, and I will more than likely never get rid of it, but it's days as my primary bench are somewhat numbered.... so maybe I will take a look a little closer and see about lowering it.

Standing away from the bench may work too.... It is something like that may be the simple little trick to fix a nuisance problem... Also, it does this too if I set out to flatten the face of a board... which can get really annoying very quickly.

It is something I will spend some time trying to solve. This is one of those times when I really wish I could spring for a week long class somewhere and spend some serious time with an instructor who can watch my work and then help me correct this, and other little things I nit-pic myself about.

Then again, this is why I do this. Its not stupid simple, but its not building nuclear reactors either.... so I will get there at some point.

thanks for the replies so far. Keep the ideas coming !

[Jim Koepke]

This happens to me. Less now than in the past.

Part of it is compensating for what feels flat when moving the plane. With more practice you will look at a piece of wood and know what way to "lean" your plane.

jtk

[Jack Curtis]

It might be worth trying a tall wooden jointer. I've never had any problems using them, and Larry William, of Old Street, has written that the height of the plane is very important in gauging uprightness.

[Tom Vanzant]

1+ what Jim N said.... move away from the bench a few inches and don't hold your arm so tightly to your ribs. You might be causing your arm to twist and cause the heavier cut to the far side of the edge.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

The other thing I like to do is keep a little square handy, and once I'm starting to get enough of a flat to check, keep on eye on things before I've worked to what I would assume is a finished state. Sometimes it's easier to catch it early on than fix it after you've made things really out of square. I generally don't bother to lean down and squint or anything, I just feel and hear square by rocking the square.

[Roy Lindberry]

It's interesting that you mention that your iron isn't skewed, because that in itself is one solution. I simply check my boards for square regularly while edge jointing, and rather than trying to "lean" the plane so there is minimal contact between the sole and the wood, which can be very inaccurate, you can simply skew your iron a bit in the right direction to make corrections. That allows you to keep the maximum amount of reference surface.

Or, if you are using a plane with a cambered iron, you can slide the center of the iron to the heavier side of the cut. I don't know if that's how the "old pros" used to do it, but it is convenient and it works. I believe I saw Bob doing that in this video (http://logancabinetshoppe.com/blog/2010/10/episode-27/) toward the end.

[Dale Cruea]

I never check my plane iron for square to the body. I will check the chip. If the plane is taking a little more off of one side I will move my plane iron. Seems to work for me. If I square my iron I will always plane out of square. I thought that was what the lateral adjustment was for.
It seems that once I get an iron set it works for edge planing and flat face work also.

[John A. Callaway]

standing a little farther away doesnt seem to do it.... so it has to be something with my pressure or the angle of the force of the push from my power hand.... so for the last boards today I just tried to skew out the blade a little on the right side to take a slightly thicker cut on the right.... with the jointer plane only, to finish and smooth out the finish edge for glue I then took real light shavings with the smoother and that blade remains square out the mouth.

I do continually check the work by eye, and I have several squares and I will try the square by feel method. Never thought about just seeing if it will rock on the edge and corner of the work. Good idea.

[Jim Koepke]

If what you are doing produces a consistent result, then all that needs to be done is to make a slight change to the way you hold you plane to flat. Just a slight tilt will do it. After doing this and getting the result wanted it will start feeling natural.

jtk

[Wilbur Pan]

This might be a bit of a stretch, but if you are planing the edges so that you are high on the same side consistently, are your boards truly vertical when they are in the vise? This happened to me. I was consistently planing one edge high, and found that the issue was that my bench had tilted so that the boards were not perfectly vertical when clamped in my vise. I was planing level, which is (1) easier to do than you think, and (2) resulted in an out of square edge since the board was not perfectly vertical. Correcting the way my bench and vise worked so that the face of the board was truly vertical took care of that issue.

[Charlie MacGregor]

This suggestion may be completly w/o merit but you might try not hooking your index finger over the iron but try to wedge it beneath. It might or might not change your grip ???

[Jim Matthews]

This might be a bit of a stretch, but if you are planing the edges so that you are high on the same side consistently, are your boards truly vertical when they are in the vise? This happened to me. I was consistently planing one edge high, and found that the issue was that my bench had tilted so that the boards were not perfectly vertical when clamped in my vise. I was planing level, which is (1) easier to do than you think, and (2) resulted in an out of square edge since the board was not perfectly vertical. Correcting the way my bench and vise worked so that the face of the board was truly vertical took care of that issue.

That's a really good question.

[John A. Callaway]

Actually, I don't think I have given that a moment's thought until now.... something I will really have to examine a little further..... but, something I am not even sure about how to go about correcting if something is off in there.... Get the bench top level with a bubble level.... check the vice's clamp face and edge of the top for vertical plumb, and flatness..... beyond that, what else can you really do?

Again though, I have encountered this problem on the board's faces before, which I chalked up to not planing every equal an equal number of times.... but maybe the bench isnt level, and if so , this could be the effect of that problem...

[seth lowden]

FWIW, in the third pic it looks like the front knob screw is centered over the board closer to the bench. I would consider planing with your usual technique with more of the right half of the plane hanging off nearer to you, if that makes sense. Small changes in how the plane bears on the wood can make a significant difference in how the pressure is distributed. I would guess you usually have more of the left side of the plane hanging off the board away from you.