Making shavings

[Dan Forman]

This little gem came to me from Lee Valley a few days ago, thought I'd give it a bit of a workout.

Dan

[Dan Forman]

Oh yeah, it had a little help from the rest of the gang. I have been working on gathering a well rounded stable of planes over the last month or so. Allow me to introduce my little family. From left to right: Spiers infill smoother, Mujinfang high angle smoother (from LV), LN 60 1/2, two waifs of unknown ancestry from LV, probably of the Mujinfang dynasty, Stanley #3 and #5 , and a LV LA jack. There is an old Stanley #7 jointer on the way from CA to round things out on the longer side.

This started out as mostly just practice, but I did manage to take the piece of rough walnut stock with a serious twist, and flatten it so it no longer rocked on my table saw. It will be ripped into strips and used for Japanese saw handles. Not having a work bench, I clamped a piece of thin stock to the TS, and used it as a stop, without the benefit of anything in back to hold it steady. Not an ideal condition to work in.

It's pretty smooth for the most part, though there are a few areas of minor tearout, in spite of using the infill for final smoothing. Though it's only bedded at 45 degrees, the mouth is tight, and it has a massive iron which was at least apprehensively sharp, if not absolutely scary. Probably need practice in that area too. I was a little disappointed that it couldn't handle the fairly modest figure of the walnut (which doesn't show up on the picture at all). It did better than most of the others, but still left some rough areas. In clear sections the surface is very smooth indeed. The LA LV jack with the high angle blade (combined angle of 50 degrees, now the middle of their line) didn't fare any better though. The only one that didn't produce tearout was the Mujinfang (60 degrees), but I don't have that one down yet, it's very light, and seems to want to hop about more than the others.

Now I need to hone my sharpening skills (sorry about the pun, but just couldn't resist), and slightly camber all of the blades to reduce the stray gouge marks.

Working on this kind of reminded me of learning how to fly cast. A lot of timing and body mechanics to work out, but when everything comes together and you take a nice shaving or two, there is a certain richness to the experience.

Dan

[Mark Stutz]

Very nice family there, Dan. It is really satisfying to prodeuce such a pile of shavings. How did you come by the Spiers?

[Dan Forman]

Mark--- Thanks. I found it on eBay about a month ago. It really does have a different feel than the others when using it, very solid and smooth. It is quite heavy for it's size.

Dan

[Roy Wall]

Nice work Dan.........and a nice family too!!!

I came down the other night and just put a piece of poplar in my vise with edge grain up.....

Ran through every one of my planes making shavings - it was fun.......my daughter llikes the shavings too!!!

[Tyler Howell]

Looking Good Dan,

Enjoy.:cool:

[John Miliunas]

Very nice collection going there, Dan! I especially like the infill!!!:) Must be something in the air. I've been go through some of my pieces and fine tuning them and just testing them on some Walnut and BE Maple. (Face grain for smoothing!) Yeah, it's a LOT of fun!:) :cool: