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View Full Version : Kawai and Kato microscopic video on planing, with subtitles



Wilbur Pan
05-16-2012, 8:53 PM
A while back, mention of a video showing what happens on a microscopic level when planing was made here. One barrier to watching this video was that it is Japanese. Or at least it's a barrier to me, since I don't know Japanese. ;)

Using a translation of the audio and titles from this video by Mia Iwasaki, I added subtitles to the Kawai and Kato video. The subtitles I added were based on Mia's translation. I did revise her translation a bit taking into account terminology that woodworkers (American woodworkers, at least) would use. I tried to match the translation to the audio as best as I could. If anyone who actually knows Japanese catches any mistakes, please let me know. I can make edits and reupload the video.

But at least there's a subtitled version of the video now.

Thanks to Mia, Bill Tindall, and Professors Kawai and Kato for their generosity and work.

You can watch the video here (http://giantcypress.net/post/23159548132/this-is-the-full-version-of-the-video-created-by).

Enjoy!

jerry nazard
05-18-2012, 1:23 AM
Wilbur,

Fascinating and informative video. I have been following the discussion on another forum and checked over here to view comments. I especially wanted David's take on it as he was posting about chipbreaker placement just the other day. We shall see.....

Best to you!

-Jerry

Curt Putnam
05-18-2012, 1:57 AM
Sir Wilbur - What a wonderful effort! That video should be a source of much pondering and you've made it accessible to all of us! Thank you!

Matthew N. Masail
05-18-2012, 3:48 AM
Thank you very much !

David Weaver
05-18-2012, 7:58 AM
Same video, same stuff I was referring to.

When I got irritated enough about thinking there was something I didn't know (that probably wasn't difficult), I bought a cheap Millers Falls #9 (i'd sold off all of my common bench plane smoothers), and played with it for a couple of weeks until I figured out how to use the cap iron to:
* get a better surface than I could get out of my high angle plane
* be immune to any tearout no matter what the wood is and no matter whether or not the plane had enough passes on so that it wasn't "freshly sharp", and do so at least as well as my infill smoothers

And I said something to Warren M on woodcentral and Bill Tindall saw it and sent me an email and said "I have something for you to look at". It was the text version of this study, and not surprisingly it was lots of detail on some exact circumstances that go right along with this. Bill, and I think Steve Elliot had been going back and forth with this stuff and Bill did a lot of work to find out who to get to so that we could even get this information, and then to converse back and forth with people who don't speak english.

The study goes into details that aren't as important for us, like blade wear patterns, etc because I think it was done with the intention to commercially apply the results to the super surfacer planer that gets used in japan (ever wonder how they don't tear something out on some part of a board when they zip it through and take a very long and fairly thick shaving those?.

Anyway, a bit later, Bill sent us another email and said that he thought he'd found the video, which is the one that I posted (same as this one without translation). I might've been a bit too esoteric about it, I was fascinated to see how much wood moves below the cut line with different chipbreaker settings.

Playing around with a cheap plane and seeing the video (you never know if the video is just one circumstance and you can still find circumstances where the "trick" doesn't work, but so far I haven't found any) is why I said several times in posts where someone was asking about a high frog that they didn't need it. I'm convinced that if there is a situation where a high angle plane outperforms a common pitch plane with a proper cap iron, then it's just that the cap iron isn't set or tuned correctly.

I bugged Chris Griggs with it a little bit the first week or two that I was doing it, too. I don't know what his conclusion is now, hopefully the same.

There's another "problem" that this solves with stanley planes. A thin iron will be perfectly stable, it will be impossible to get it to chatter in the heaviest of smoothing cuts, like bordering on being deep enough to be too coarse to be called smoothing cuts. Which is good because there are some bench plane irons that only come in thin versions (most notably, the tsunesaburo blue steel iron, which I think is the best iron that exists for smoothing if the surface quality matters).

Once you can completely mitigate tearout, then you can figure out how far you can back off the cap iron in less demanding wood, because it does make a plane harder to push when it's bending the chip like that, and in some situations, the surface is better if you back off a little (warren listed some things, but quartered pine is definitely one of them from experience). But, even if it's only set close and the surface isn't optimal, it's still been better than my 55 degree plane every time, by a pretty significant amount.

The original intent of making a big deal about it on here shortly before this study information came about was just to respond to people who said they needed something for figured wood, but with the stipulation that money is tight. Turns out, nobody really needs anything other than a cap iron of decent fitness.

You just have to have in the back of your head seeing all of the old becoming new again, if high angle single iron planes were a need, why did they just about disappear from the market, except in mostly lower cost planes. Not to mention, as george will often point out, that craftsmen who do use common pitch single iron planes have been steepening the angle of attack for years with a back bevel, and even Toshio Odate mentions that in his book (though he mentions it solves various other things).

Bottom line, we have video of what's going on now, scientific testing to prove it in a set of given circumstances, and other interesting information. And I won't sound like I rounded the bend like I would've if this stuff never showed up in this detail and I followed every "what should I buy" post with "you already have everything you need".

Everybody knows the GI Joe slogan, right?

David Weaver
05-18-2012, 8:08 AM
All of this bantering isn't meant to deter anyone from getting or trying infill planes, they still are the cats rear end. More weight means they're still going to be smoother in harder wood, and be easier to push.

But it may be enough to convince some folks that they'll want to order an infill plane with a double iron instead. It's turned my shepherd panel kit into a killer plane, though I did have to do a lot of work to their second iron. Still, a plane that bulled through stuff and left only a "little" tearout now bulls through with no tearout.

Now we can argue about whether or not the difference in level of finish between a 55 degree iron (in a single iron plane) and a 45 degree iron matters, that's the next step in the arguing, and whether or not every person who uses hand tools wants to bother with learning to set the double iron. There are some circumstances that japanese wood is used (unfinished, even in architectural work) where they care more about the unfinished surface than we do.

David Weaver
05-18-2012, 8:39 AM
This is stuff (again, courtesy of Mia, Steve and Bill) that came from a translation of the planing information that was geared toward people hand planing. Their conclusions were (paraphrased):

* using the chipbreaker effectively where it's needed will on average double the planing force needed
* If it's set right, a good consistent long shaving should result (if it's set too close, the shaving will probably not be a nice smooth long shaving). i.e., look at what is going on with the shaving, it changes when the cap iron is working properly, and it's different even than it would be if you were using a single iron plane and with no tearout. It will be continuous and a little bit straighter.
* It's a matter of iteration, you may not get the set you want on on the first try (my thoughts are this isn't always true, i guess it depends on how critical the cut, and how thick the shaving. The tougher the wood/grain direction and the thicker the shaving, the bigger the advantage of the second iron is).

And my thoughts about setting it, since few of the experts want to expand (because they probably don't want to entertain those of us who are hacks)
1) you need raking light to be able to see a very short edge protruding from under the second iron. If you don't have a light source to use where the edge is glinting light back at you, you probably will be left guessing
2) set the chipbreaker close to start. If the shaving comes out straightened out without bunching, the cap iron is probably getting a chance to work the chip and you should get excellent results with no risk of anything bad happening anywhere on the wood. If it's bunching up and not feeding, and bulling you around, and the fit is good, it's too close to the edge. If the shaving isn't straightening out at all or is otherwise no different than it would be with the chipbreaker set at 1/16th, it's probably not doing anything.
3) if you have a setting that is working well, but you don't quite like the surface (especially in soft woods), you can then back it off some and still take a heavy cut without risk
4) if you have wood where you can plane entirely downhill with the grain, then it doesn't matter where it's set, any plane at any pitch will work well. You might want to start with it set off (i.e., not being used effectively) by default and only set it close when you have trouble.


Someone else on WC said that they set the chipbreaker progressively tighter (in a japanese plane where you can do that a little more easily) until the shaving shoots straight up out of the plane. that's not a bad tip, either, but maybe not that practical for a bench plane where you want to be close right away.

Chris Griggs
05-18-2012, 9:30 AM
I bugged Chris Griggs with it a little bit the first week or two that I was doing it, too. I don't know what his conclusion is now, hopefully the same.


Yep, my Stanley no. 4 will plane anything I have both with and against the grain with a stock blade and a closely set CB. Before Dave started talking to me about this stuff I really thought CBs were pointless. Since then, I actually pulled my Hock blade out of it and am going to camber it and put it in my jack plane where I've started to feel a thicker blade matters more. So pretty much same conclusion as Dave the CB not only support a thin blade but seems to mitigate tearout. BUT, all I can say is that a closely set CB seems to work - I don't have any high angle planes and the gnaryliest wood I have around is curly cherry and curly soft maple, so I can't speak with any amount of authority as to how a closely set CB would compare to a single iron HA blade on really gnarly stuff. Derek needs to give this a go on some of his crazy aussie wood and report back.

Kees Heiden
05-18-2012, 4:44 PM
An extra tip. Make sure there is plenty pressure of the capiron on the blade. The shavings are pushing pretty strong against the capiron. On my Stanley #7 the shavings were pushed under the capiron, despite it being well fitted, because it lacked it's youthfull spring. I've bent it a bit in a vice and the problem is now gone. Also make sure the levercap is possitively clamping down, maybe turn the screw a bit further down.

Another benefit of the close capiron setting is the added support to the edge. No chatter anymore. Because you can now pull the frog back (no tiny mouth neccessary) the sole of the plane will add extra support to the blade too.

Van Huskey
05-18-2012, 9:34 PM
Very interesting information. Thanks

Bob Strawn
05-18-2012, 11:14 PM
It is such a joy to be able to read a forum thread on chip breakers where actual chip breaker discussion is going on!!

Here are two failures of mine and a theory as to why they failed.

I made a plane, using two plane blades, one on top of the other with a wooden shim at the back between the blades. The bevels faced away from each other. It was stable, but really did not have the chip breaker advantage. It was also a pita to adjust. There was not a soft iron on top to deaden vibration, and it still seemed stable. Perhaps the wood shim sandwiched between the blades absorbed the shock.

I also ground a flat surface on the 'edge' of a chip breaker when tuning one. This plane was one of those that wanted to jam chips no matter what I did to adjust it. It was ground to a 45 degree angle. Added to the 45 degree angle the blade was bedded, the angle was straight up and down. I did this to try and reduce jamming. It did not. I discovered a hair line fracture that required considerable stress to reveal, epoxy resolved the jamming issue. While testing the newly stable plane with a 45 degree edge on the chip breaker, I found it worked but never found the sweet spot for dealing with rough wood.

I am now convinced the the mostly rounded edge at the front of a chip breaker allows us to more easily alter the alter the angle of the chip breaker as we adjust it. Close up the angle of lift is higher than further back. This is done to a certain degree by a flat edged chip breaker, but a curved chip breaker may end up being more versatile and allow for higher angles. In the video the chip breaker is in effect an 80 degree wall where the chip never touches the top of the chip breaker. Most of the time, when I am planing the the chip touches the chip breaker in such a way that the closer the chip breaker is set, the higher the chip breakers functional angle is.

My 45 degree chip breaker was never going to produce a chip deflection greater than 45 degrees. My use of a 30 degree blade with perhaps a 2 degree shim lifting it, had a maximum deflection that was even lower.

As far as chip breaker distance from the blade goes, apart from chatter I don't see how the wood surface would 'know' the difference. I suspect the real issue is the angle that the chip is wedged open as the blade starts to sever a layer from the surface of the board.

Bob

David Weaver
05-18-2012, 11:33 PM
Just a thought here, it's late. I think the action that occurs is actually the chip being pushed back into the surface of the work piece so that it's not allowed to lift itself. Once there is too much distance, the chip doesn't have enough structure to be forced back town toward the surface of the wood to be cut by the plane iron before it's allowed to meet the actual point of cutting.

I think I read that somewhere in the study, but I don't remember. It's in keeping with the additional planing force being required (because you do the work to cut, and you do the work the smash the chip downwards back into the wood to hold it down before it's cut (of course the whole assembly is moving). It also is evidenced by the surface left on softwoods (where the grain looks crushed if you look closely).

If the action were wedging, I suppose the same could be true, though I don't know why a wedged piece wouldn't just tear out ahead of the iron from getting popped up if the mouth were wide open.

Here is an interesting bit that JWW says about chipbreakers:

http://www.japanwoodworker.com/newswire.asp?content_id=11505


To fit the chip breaker, place it in position on the iron. Be sure it does not rock on the iron. Any adjustment is made by tapping down one tab (found at the top of the chip breaker) or the other until the chip breaker sits evenly on the iron . Now hone the chip breaker hollow side down on a coarse grit water stone until a flat area is established directly behind the edge. Next polish this area on a finish stone. Turn the chip breaker over and sharpen at an angle of 20° on a coarse water stone until the edge is sharp, then polish the bevel and hollow side on a finish stone. Finally, hold the chip breaker at an 85° angle to the finish stone and make a dozen or so strokes. This will add a secondary or "micro bevel" on the chip breaker. The ideal chip breaker breaks the shaving without offering any further resistance.

A very shallow primary bevel and a tiny bevel of 85 degrees. The last sentence is interesting.

Because of a mouth problem on my panel plane (courtesy of yours truly not filing the mouth away toward the bun at the top in the front), I had to employ this on my panel plane to have room for feeding (of course, I could just file as much clearance as I have now with the bun permanently installed, but modifying the front of the cap iron was a bit easier).

I put a bit more than a dozen strokes on a finish stone, but not too much. It works great.

jerry nazard
05-18-2012, 11:57 PM
It works. Test plane was a type 11 #4. I set the frog flush with the back of the mouth to support the iron completely. Cap iron honed and set VERY close on a Hock blade sharpened at 30°. My shavings are tight continuous rolls.

It didn't cost anything close to $300..................

-Jerry

Derek Cohen
05-19-2012, 7:50 AM
David, I think that you need to post photos of the chip breaker set up on the blade, and the blade set up in a Stanley. Also photos of the leading edge of your chip breaker.

Here's what happened to me today ..

I used a Stanley #3, initially set up with a Mujngfang HSS blade. It is a little thicker than the original Stanley. I also used an original Stanley. Wood was a nasty piece of Jarrah.

What I found was that the mouth would jam with shavings if I closed the chip breaker down. Pulling the chip breaker back alleviated the problem. Of course that does not help with the experiment. So I swapped the Mujingfang for a Stanley blade. But same thing all over again.

I redid the experiment, this time with the front of the chip breaker ground and honed to 80 degrees (as per the research). This made it worse as the thickness of the chip breaker was forced even further forward than before (I calculated that the Stanley chip breaker angle was 50 degrees out of the factory), and blocked up the mouth even more. The only thing I did not do was open the mouth wide ... since I could not do this on a Stanley.

Now I was serious about this experiment. I have photos of everything and happy to post them. I was going to compare the Stanley #3 with a LN #5 (double iron with 55 degree frog), Veritas SBUS (single iron, 62 degree cutting angle), and Marcou BU smoother (single iron, 60 degree cutting angle).

All the blades were freshly sharpened. Out of interest, in addition to the HSS Mujingfang in the Stanley #3, I had an A2 blade in the LN, a 3V blade in the Marcou, and a PM-Vll blade in the SBUS (not that any of this is relevant to to outcome). All the planes took excellent shaving (with the Stanley set up with the chip breaker 1/8" back), but the surface finish is where the results count: it was pretty much in order of the cutting angle, with both the Marcou and the SBUS leaving a better finish that the LN. The finish of the Stanley was a little clearly rough.

So, I just could not pull it off with the chip breaker. Since others are claiming positive results, clearly i am doing something wrong. Clear this up for me.

Regards from Perth

Derek

David Weaver
05-19-2012, 8:11 AM
Derek - it's just a matter of mouth opening. If shavings aren't getting caught under the chipbreaker (between it and the iron), then the restriction has to be happening between the top of the mouth in front (which is what my problem was with my panel plane, but self created because of the geometry I left).

If you can move the frog back just so that the iron is supported all the way back and almost touching the casting at the mouth, there should be enough room.

The only plane I've had trouble with so far is a type 11 #5 1/2 that has a replacement iron (I do not have the original iron at all) and the mouth just can't open enough to remove the restriction without mangling the chipbreaker to a very low primary angle with a high secondary angle.

If the mouth of your #3 is too tight to function properly (and it very well may be) then I think that's a casting flaw that the mouth wasn't opened enough to use the plane properly. You can, of course, mitigate it with a file. But maybe just pull out another bailey style plane ( you have a 4 1/2, right? )

I don't know if I'll get pictures this weekend, I might be able to, but if I don't, keep at it. The behavior of the entire plane will change completely if you get it set close enough, as will the shaving.

Derek Cohen
05-19-2012, 8:30 AM
If you can move the frog back just so that the iron is supported all the way back and almost touching the casting at the mouth, there should be enough room.

Hi David

I tried that but it was still jamming with maximum opening.

I will try again with a #604.

I am most reluctant to open any mouths at this stage, especially the #3 - see here :) : http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Commentary/BobsStanley3.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

Chris Griggs
05-19-2012, 9:39 AM
Derek, I'm excited that you're experimenting with this too. If you're 4 has a wide enough mouth opening to work I think you'll be able to provide us with some pretty informative data.

david charlesworth
05-19-2012, 10:52 AM
Derek,

I think I may have managed to avoid choking because the front edges of throat, on my Stanley 5 1/2s, are filed (and polished) forward at 15 degrees. The mouths are down at 4 thou of an inch.

The other thought is that we may only need a very narrow 80 or 75 degree edge on the front edge of chipbreaker. Maybe no more than 12 thou wide? This estimate is made from watching the film.

Best wishes,
David

Derek Cohen
05-19-2012, 11:08 AM
Thanks David

I will try this tomorrow. I left a similar message on the UK forum, where you had posted as well.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Chris Griggs
05-19-2012, 11:13 AM
I'm having a little problem following some of the stuff about CB angle, especially on old style CBs, but I just did a quick experiment. Took the CB of my Stanley no 4. and using a standard protractor raised it so I was honing the top leading edge at about 50 degrees. Took maybe ten swipe on a dry finishing stone, just enough so I had a super thin area with a nice even high polish right at the leading edge. Reset the CB, put the blade back in, and WOW, definitely made a difference. I was already getting pretty good results, but my shaving were a bit too crinkley. They still have some crinkle to them but they are feeding through the mouth and up over the CB much nicer. More of that shooting up and then curling. Plane is easier to push now too, with the CB set close. Don't know why, but it helped.

david charlesworth
05-19-2012, 2:06 PM
Doh,

Senility looms........

David

Brian Ashton
05-20-2012, 5:24 AM
So, I just could not pull it off with the chip breaker. Since others are claiming positive results, clearly i am doing something wrong. Clear this up for me.

Regards from Perth

Derek

You're not doing anything wrong... except using australian hardwood. Extremely brittle, grain changes direction every 10mm and never stop moving and warping... Great for slab furniture but not much more.

Derek Cohen
05-20-2012, 9:51 AM
Hi Brian

I fear that you are correct. I spent time today doing everything could think of, and even things I said I would not do, trying to give this my best shot.

I did take photos, which I will post if anyone desperately wants to see them, but I am just too busy right now to bother with them.

David Charlesworth's advice rang bells. I checked the plane, a UK-made Stanley #3. Yes, the mouth escapement was vertical. This would be a cause of the choking. However, before I filed it out, I replaced the HSS Mujingfang blade with the original. The original UK blade is a POS but it is thinner, and it did not have to hold an edge for long. I ground a new primary bevel, and honed it to 13000. That should be better. I also replaced the chip breaker, and refiled the leading edge to a micro 70-ish degrees.

The mouth was now larger (since the Muji blade is thicker). I ran the plane down the Jarrah board ... and it chattered the entire length. Nice little parallel lines along the board. That won't do. At all. I'm sure I can turn the blade into something, but what ...?

Back to the Mujingfang blade. With the chip breaker back about 3mm it takes decent shavings, but the surface left is rough. If I move the chipbreaker forward, the mouth fills. I filed the escapement at 45 degrees. This left the mouth size unchanged but made some improvement to the flow of shavings (well done David). Unfortunately, it ended up choking after a short while. The mouth was still too small.

So ... there was only one thing for it - I had to file open the mouth. I made my apologies to Bob (my late FIL), and carefully removed about 0.5mm. This did the trick, and the shaving now flowed easily.

However, the quality of the wood surface did not change one iota. Really. It was still rough to the touch and sight.

To compare, I ran the 55 degree LN #3 along the same spot. Much improved finish. Decently smooth. Not perfect, but acceptable. I ran the Veritas SBUS with a 62 degree cutting angle, and the finish was improved again. I did all these side by side, and it was possible to pick out the LN and Veritas. It was a no-brainer to decide which was the Stanley.

There you have it. I will try again with a different Stanley - for what it is worth. I really did hope to see some improvement, something along the lines a few others have reported.

What I should add is that this may be part of the learning path one needs to go through to master the technique. If so, the point should be made that this method is finicky, and there are other methods to reach the goal that are just so much easier. The goal is an improved finish on wood with difficult grain. I have no difficulty achieving a fine finish with high angle planes. The reason to try and do so with a common angle plane is the belief that a lower cutting angle shears the wood and has greater potential for the finish. I must disagree that the finish off one of my high angled planes does not leave a shine.

I think that it is horses for courses. The timber I use is, as Brian (a fellow Aussie) notes to be very hard and brittle. Perhaps this is the limiting factor. Anyway, as I said, I will keep trying.

Regards from Perth

Derek

David Weaver
05-20-2012, 10:03 AM
On harder wood, high angle planes leave a nice finish. On wood like cherry, they don't. I guess part of this is the wood, and I'm racking my brains to think of something I have around to plane - best I can think of is quartersawn cocobolo, macassar ebony and a board of zebrawood (awful stuff, not dense and not very nice). Maybe later today I will get a chance to get in the shop and give it a rip with my planes.

David Weaver
05-20-2012, 3:56 PM
well, one thing is absolutely clear - I can't take pictures of anything to save my life when it comes to stuff that either will show tearout or reflection.

I did get a chance to do a good bit of planing on the face of a piece of dead quartersawn cocobolo (one that is very dry and dusty). I came up with similar results with sharp planes. As the 55 degree single iron plane started to dull, the #4 sized millers falls bench plane created a slightly better surface (a difference that couldn't be seen with one coat of wax). I could do with either one on the same wood (the infill is the same one that I usually describe as having a 4 thousandth mouth, it's possible for it to create very light surface tearout as it gets dull, but nothing very deep, and not something you can even feel - just something you can see with raking light.

On the edge (the board is 8/4) which is similar to the face grain of a flat sawn board, neither plane had trouble, though around some small knots, i created tearout (especially around knots) with the plane that I used to rough it (a mujingfang continental smoother - with the cap iron set back).

This is a board that I have planed before, and one that stops any carbon steel plane in about 30 2 foot passes. It's gotten shorter as I've cut bits off of it, but it is the kind of thing that makes me keep a mujingfang smoother around. If the muji stays sharp twice as long as a carbon steel 60+ hardness iron in regular use, it's at least 5 times as long lasting in cocobolo that has silica bits that flicker light as you look across it.

Anyway, I think you should be able to get similar results with the bench plane, even with a stock iron. The iron I used the millers falls was one that sells at home depot here for $3, but other than being just a tad soft (and only just a tad), it's a pretty good iron that leaves a nice finish. It is approximately stock thickness.

Derek Cohen
05-21-2012, 4:46 AM
OK, once more back into the fray dear friends, once more ...


This time with pictures.


I elected to use a Bed Rock #604. This has a LN Chip Breaker and a M4 blade honed to 13000 on a Sigma. Let no one criticise the components! :)


The chip breaker was given a microbevel of around 70-80 degrees ..


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/1.jpg


This is the Jarrah surface I am trying to tame. It looks worse here since it was last planed by the Stanley #3 in the abortive last effort.


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/2.jpg


For the first effort with the #604 - call it a baseline - I set the chip breaker at about 0.4 - 0.5mm, which is typical of my usual position.


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/3.jpg


The shavings were nothing spectacular and nor was the wood surface (I would not usually use this plane on this wood), but it was an improvement over the Stanley #3 ..


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/4.jpg


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/5.jpg


Soooo ... now the chip breaker was repositioned at about 0.2mm ...


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/11.jpg


... and I started planning, waiting for the smooth surface to appear ... but it was a major anticlimax as the mouth clogged ...


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/10.jpg


OK, here's the culprit ... the chip breaker is not absolutely flush (although I did smooth it on a fone diamond stone.


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/12.jpg


Back to the waterstones.


This is the only chip breaker in existence that is honed to 13000 grit!


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/21.jpg


The mouth has clearance ...


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/22.jpg


But in spite of all this, the plane would not make shavings!


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/23.jpg


So I pulled the chip breaker back again ..


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/31.jpg


... and took a slightly deeper shaving than before. Now you see why I do not do this with Stanley planes ...


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/32.jpg


It is not a pretty sight. Sigh.


OK, out came the LN with a 55 degree frog I used before. Keep in mind that the Veritas SBUS, with a 62 degree cutting angle, produced a better finish yesterday.


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chip%20Breaker%20Experiment/41.jpg


The finish is clearly better to the touch.


There needs to be a summing up of the three experimental sessions: I think that the bottom line is that I just cannot get the chip breaker effect on this piece of Jarrah. By contrast, I was able to achieve a better finish with a 55 degree LN #3, and decent finish with a Veritas SBUS with 62 degree cutting angle. Perhaps some types of wood will not respond to changes of chip breaker projection, and the case for high cutting angles remains the alternative?


Regards from Perth


Derek

Brian Ashton
05-21-2012, 6:21 AM
Density isn't a problem when the grain is all going the same direction or the direction changes are subtle (by comparison to aus woods). Add to that the brittleness and you have a hard time completely eliminating tear out with a standard angled plane and chip breaker. In the video there was a mention of too much compression of fibres with a high angle chip breaker was not preferable. But in aus woods the fibre simply doesn't compress but is shattered (bit of a dramatic adjective) instead which reduces tear out. The video clearly showed that the leverage was a significant factor causing tear out when planing against the grain. And the constant grain direction changes found in many aus hardwoods only magnifies the challenge.

Try lignum vitae if you have it. I'd say it's probably similar in grain direction changes and brittleness but much harder.

David Weaver
05-21-2012, 8:01 AM
Derek, I'm somewhat surprised by this. I don't know of anyone local to me who carries jarrah, though, other than flooring places, and by no means would I be able to find a good test piece.

I am surprised, though, that the iron and cap iron combination could at least equal a 55 degree plane, it must be a combination of circumstances, who knows?

I have tried it on both softer and harder woods than jarrah and found in both cases, I have not been able to get my 55 degree plane to outperform a standard bench plane with the standard stanely chipbreaker and stock thickness iron.

Derek Cohen
05-21-2012, 8:23 AM
Hi David

Not all Jarrah is going to be as difficult as this piece. I have some that is relatively straight forward. Forget for a moment that the wood is Jarrah. It could be any wood that is very hard and interocked. What is notable is that the high angled planes easily performed better in two ways.

The first is that they left a superior surface to the common angle plane.

The second is that they were a snap to use. Trying to set the chip breaker as recommended was a royal pain in the watsit. Learning period or not, I cannot see many wanting to go through this rigmarole.

Call me crazy, but I shall try again (!), this time on different wood. Perhaps something mildly interlocked and see if the surface improves over a high angled plane. In other words, where tear out, per se, is not the issue.

Regards from Perth

Derek

David Weaver
05-21-2012, 9:01 AM
When I was planing quartered cocobolo yesterday, I timed myself setting the chipbreaker close (as in ripple close). I have an idea with the iron where it needs to be set with little tension so it will land there when under tension. It took 12 seconds. I don't know how far on I am in this playing around, maybe a month or a month and a half.

I agree that single iron planes are nice to use, but if you get to know your planes, it's pretty quick to set the cap iron close, or even too close.

I am beginning to wonder, after playing with my stock chipbreakers and several of the design like yours (from LN, hock and shepherd, as well as a couple of older ones), if the updated designs are an improvement of any type other than visual ease (it's easier to look at a primary bevel on a flat chipbreaker and tell effectively where it is). I have noticed the same tendency for them to be less friendly to hard woods when set close, and if they do not have a step built into them at the front, there is not nearly so much leeway to undercut the front some, and the range of the lever cap tightness is a lot narrower because they don't have as much spring.

I don't think the thickness of the iron is necessary for anything, as a stock $3 iron worked fine for me in cocobolo, which is a fair bit harder than jarrah despite some erroneous internet info, I believe the janka hardness test actually yields about 3300 on the face, and the specific density can tend toward 1. However, it should not be a detriment unless there are feeding problems.

If I can come across a piece like that somewhere that the endgrain is exposed on the face of the board (in the bargain bin at rockler or at a flooring supply place or something), I'll give it a whack. I think the odds of finding something like that without considerable effort is pretty slim, though.

Kees Heiden
05-21-2012, 1:56 PM
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll266/Kees2351/Jatoba/DSC02515.jpg

I posted this picture on UKworkshop too this morning. It's a piece of quarter sawn jatoba with a ribbon stripe that gave me fits in the past, trying to handplane. But now I went from rough sawn to a smooth surface within minutes. First I took a rather thick shaving, leaving a little tearout, but removed the sawmarks quickly. Then I lightened up the setting and smoothed out the tearout easily.

Of course Jatoba doesn't come close to jarrah (although it is harder). I remembered a piece of teak, also quarter sawn, also with interlocked grain and even harder and full of silica. It's probably the most difficult piece of wood in my posession, and full of tear out from the planer.

Well I had to take light shavings. I had some chatter at the start of the cut. But in the end it was transformed in a smooth piece of wood. I didn't even resharpen the blade beforehand.

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll266/Kees2351/Jatoba/teak.jpg

For me all this is so exciting because I finally manage to get the performance from my planes that was originally designed into them. I don't have new planes, let alone expensive bevel up smoothers from LN or LV. I wouldn't want to have it any other way, because I love all that old shit. I am especially attached to my wooden planes because they are so full of character, and they glide so nice over the wood. But to be honest I didn't get them to work very well. That now has changed, and I am eager to go ahead with the woodies.

There is one downside to all this. I have a batch of quartersawn beech and some single irons. I intended to make a serie of high angle wooden planes a la the old street tool planes. That plan is now doomed, because I can buy 45 degree wooden double iron planes all day long.

Derek, sorry about your experiment. Just continue practicing with easier kinds of wood. Some day you will be able to plane that stupid piece of Jarah with a humble Stanley plane.

James Taglienti
05-23-2012, 12:01 AM
I tried this out at the end of my lunch break today. It took 5 minutes to polish a vintage chipbreaker on some arkansas stones and less than 15 seconds to set it on a hock cutter. I didnt really microbevel just dubbed the end of it.
It is not at all difficult to place one piece of metal almost at the edge of another piece of metal and then screw them together.
I put it in a 603 and planed some cherry against the grain, no problems. Nice surface. Not gleaming though. Same cherry that the same 603 tore out last week. Thats all I had time for.
I tried this years ago on a hunch (and probably on a lunch break) with the same plane but it turns out the soft steel chipbreaker had a tiny burr on it that was not letting shavings past and clogging the throat.

Kees Heiden
05-23-2012, 3:07 AM
Sure seems usefull, doesn't it?

Yesterday in the evening I walked into the shop and saw that block of teak still in the vise. Of course I couldn't leave it alone. So, first I pulled the capiron back again, about 1mm. And produced immediately deep tearout. So I played around with different capiron settings and somewhere between 0.2 and 0.3mm (not easy to meassure!) the tearout dissapeared. By now the teak was taking its toll on the edge, it was harder and harder to push, creating lines in the surface of the wood where the edge was nicked. The blade started to chatter again, especially on the start of the cut. But still NO tearout!

This technique is really impressing me more and more. For the usual kind of European woods, I like to work with, I don't see any reason for a high angle plane anymore.

David Weaver
05-23-2012, 8:35 AM
I tried this years ago on a hunch (and probably on a lunch break) with the same plane but it turns out the soft steel chipbreaker had a tiny burr on it that was not letting shavings past and clogging the throat.

Well, at least some of us are in company as having tried it before. I tried it to compare against charlesworth's back bevel video when I was debating the whole thing with warren several years ago. At the time I came to the same conclusion, that the second iron works, but I also felt like it was a pain to set back then and when set close and taking a smoother shaving, the common pitch plane with a second iron was just as hard to push as a plane that had 20 degrees of back bevel on it. That didn't seem right to me.

I was also trying it on a piece of hard maple that was low quality and had irregular grain (maple planes pretty shiny regardless of the angle, so i didn't notice the finish difference).

Sometimes something good smacks you right in the head and you're not looking for it, I guess. My head is pretty thick, and everything doesn't always make it in on the first shot.

David Weaver
05-24-2012, 11:53 PM
Success with a japanese plane setup, the first I've tried so far with the subblade properly set. More tedious for sure setting up the plane.

(this is by no means an impressive experiment, just trying to prove a point working the edge, where I can easily take a deep cut).

I did not yet set up the sub blade as prescribed (50-80 degrees), but it is steep enough from the maker to work the shaving, perhaps it's 40 degrees. It's a testament to the blacksmith's work that this iron and subblade were matched perfectly without me doing anything to the subblade - it is sharp and laser flat across the back edge.

Notice that the shavings are fairly straightened out (with no subblade, they curl into a roll). With this 38 degree plane with the board worked both ways, the shavings shown are 7 thousandths of an inch thick (!). If I don't have the subblade in and set tight, I don't come close to getting away with that with this plane. I think even at this, the shaving was a bit too thick for the setting, it's not an elegant experiment, but it did work the shaving right off with no tearout.

Bringing the surface to a shine after this simple problem to solve. Two taps on the rear of the plane and another pass and the surface is reflective in a way that my infill plane can't imitate without applying finish.

Not going to spur world peace, but it does make a nice plane that I love to find an excuse to use a lot more useful for general smoothing in hand dimensioned wood. I can't wait to play with it this weekend a little more with a proper setup of the subblade, so that I have a little more room and leeway in setting it up (it's not quite as easy to get the distance perfect as it is on a western plane, you just sort of set it in close, tap it in a little tighter, try it on each side of the iron, tap it in a little tighter until you have it straightening out the chip on both sides of the mouth (and therefore in the middle also).


232892

I think prof kato and kawai's hand use guide for hand tools (I don't know if it's been fully translated and printed yet) basically says this is an iterative process until you find it's just right. I don't need to do this iterative process with a bench plane (and probably neither does or will anyone else), because I can tell already just in two months where I need to have the iron set both to prevent tearout and to have a good surface.

But with a japanese plane, I can't see quite so well into the mouth or mortise (things are tight in there) and a little more tinkering and test cuts are needed. It looks like once set so that a coarse shaving shoots straight up with the chip coming up "straightened" out and worked, you can just back off the cut a little bit and go without having to take gossamer shavings to get a nice bright surface.