A plane question and a card scraper question

[Curtis Niedermier]

To expedite the process of soliciting free woodworking advice, I decided to combine two questions into one post:

About hand planes ....
When I use my vintage Stanleys, if I ever back the iron off to take a lighter cut, I always turn the depth adjustment knob back in the "tighten direction" until all the slop is gone before I start planing again. I guess I've always felt like the little metal piece that fits into the opening in the iron to adjust it up and down (that's the technical term for it...) needed to be down against the bottom of the opening to prevent the iron from creeping back while in use. Does that make sense? Anyway, I don't know if this is necessary, and while watching a Paul Sellers video the other day, I saw him back off his iron and then go right back to work. He wasn't worried about the slop. I'll experiment with it, but I figured many of you here would already be prepared to weigh in.

About card scrapers ....
What kind of surface do you get on your work when you use a well-tuned card scraper? Or a cabinet scraper too? Reason I ask is I've been using both a little more lately, trying to make a point of mastering these tools in the process of building some small boxes. I can make pretty, wispy shavings with both, just like the experts say, but my wood surface never has that glassy look that I get from a sharp plane iron. It's more dull and definitely feels different to the touch. It's smooth, but not slick. Is that normal? Should the surface be just as smooth and glassy as it is off the plane?

Last night, I did a little experiment with my card scraper by turning a slightly lighter hook and a slightly heavier hook at a more abrupt angle (as compared to my "normal" hook). The former only created dust and made the wood feel slightly fuzzy. The latter cut a pretty substantial shaving and made the wood feel slightly fuzzy. I care not about shavings, but only about leaving a nice surface.

So basically, if you all are getting that glassy sheen, then I think it's time I revisit my texts and re-learn how to set up a card scraper.

[Bill Houghton]

Can't speak to the card scraper, but I do the same thing, always advancing the iron, or at least taking out the play.

[steven c newman]

I will "spin the wheel" until it meets some resistance, then maybe a hair more. Then back to work.

Never used a card scraper, always used a piece of freshly cut glass. Then, there just some woods that just fuzz up.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

On the plane, I take the slop out. Whether it is necessary or not, I don't know, it is just what I do.

On the scraper, the finish somewhat depends on how you hold it. If you don't like what is happening, trying a little bit more or less "bend" and try varying the angle of attack. That can make a bit of a difference.

If I am using a scraper, it is usually because I have to, and I am usually happy with what it looks like. If it is a little dull and you want to improve it a little, trying rubbing it fairly firmly with a good handful of shavings.

ETA: obviously having the scraper properly prepared makes a difference as well, but it sounds like you have a good handle on that.

[Jim Koepke]

About hand planes ....
When I use my vintage Stanleys, if I ever back the iron off to take a lighter cut, I always turn the depth adjustment knob back in the "tighten direction" until all the slop is gone before I start planing again. I guess I've always felt like the little metal piece that fits into the opening in the iron to adjust it up and down (that's the technical term for it...) needed to be down against the bottom of the opening to prevent the iron from creeping back while in use. Does that make sense? Anyway, I don't know if this is necessary, and while watching a Paul Sellers video the other day, I saw him back off his iron and then go right back to work. He wasn't worried about the slop. I'll experiment with it, but I figured many of you here would already be prepared to weigh in.

I love to chip in my 330590.

My recollection is Stanley suggest to always finish the blade adjustment advancing the blade. This would mean having the pawl (yoke, Y adjusting lever, etc.) exerting force on the blade/chip breaker.

Often I will back the blade off and give a test cut and proceed from there. If the lever cap screw is a bit loose, the blade can move and change the setting. My rule of thumb is if the blade moves on the first stroke, the lever cap screw needs a bit more tension. I adjust this at the rate of about 1/16 turn at a time. If it takes more than a few strokes to move the blade when planing a couple feet, then you likely have the tension set at a good point, if not over tight.

When my test strokes show the blade is where I want it, then the wheel is turned snug to keep it from changing.

My understanding of card scrapers is limited. From what I know they do not leave as nice a surface as a plane on straight grain. Their use does leave a better surface in places a plane can not reach or when the grain is too squirrelly for a plane to tame.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

To expedite the process of soliciting free woodworking advice, I decided to combine two questions into one post:

About hand planes ....
When I use my vintage Stanleys, if I ever back the iron off to take a lighter cut, I always turn the depth adjustment knob back in the "tighten direction" until all the slop is gone before I start planing again. I guess I've always felt like the little metal piece that fits into the opening in the iron to adjust it up and down (that's the technical term for it...) needed to be down against the bottom of the opening to prevent the iron from creeping back while in use. Does that make sense? Anyway, I don't know if this is necessary, and while watching a Paul Sellers video the other day, I saw him back off his iron and then go right back to work. He wasn't worried about the slop. I'll experiment with it, but I figured many of you here would already be prepared to weigh in.

Let's start with what you're actually doing there: The fork (some call it a yoke) that connects the depth adjuster to the cap iron has some play at both ends (though mostly where it engages the cap iron). By taking up the backlash as you describe, you ensure that the fork is biased such that any force pushing the blade up/back will be resisted by the fork and ultimately the depth adjuster.

The problem here is that that fork is very thin and made of cast iron. It isn't designed to handle the loads required to hold the blade in place during planing and is a notorious point of failure precisely because people [ab]use it for that. See for example Patrick Leach's comment on the topic here (http://You might think it strange that the cast iron fork can break, but break they do, usually as a result of too little pressure from the lever cap on the iron, which then results in the iron being thrust backward during planing, putting an extreme amount of force directly on the fork, ultimately snapping it.), in the paragraph starting with "Check the depth adjustment fork" and the one after. IMO if you have to rely on the depth adjustment fork to prevent the blade from moving up/back, then the lever cap is too loose, period.

EDIT: I probably should have been clearer that what I said here is specific to "vintage stanleys" (OP's wording) with the relatively fragile soft iron depth-adjust fork. It doesn't apply to newer clones from L-N etc that have beefier forks.



About card scrapers ....
What kind of surface do you get on your work when you use a well-tuned card scraper? Or a cabinet scraper too? Reason I ask is I've been using both a little more lately, trying to make a point of mastering these tools in the process of building some small boxes. I can make pretty, wispy shavings with both, just like the experts say, but my wood surface never has that glassy look that I get from a sharp plane iron. It's more dull and definitely feels different to the touch. It's smooth, but not slick. Is that normal? Should the surface be just as smooth and glassy as it is off the plane?

Last night, I did a little experiment with my card scraper by turning a slightly lighter hook and a slightly heavier hook at a more abrupt angle (as compared to my "normal" hook). The former only created dust and made the wood feel slightly fuzzy. The latter cut a pretty substantial shaving and made the wood feel slightly fuzzy. I care not about shavings, but only about leaving a nice surface.

So basically, if you all are getting that glassy sheen, then I think it's time I revisit my texts and re-learn how to set up a card scraper.

Adjectives about surface quality ("glassy", "smooth", "fuzzy" etc) are inherently relative and subjective, so it's impossible to evaluate the quality of your results based on what you say.

In general, higher cutting angles leave "fuzzier", less "glassy" surfaces than lower ones. The hook on a scraper reduces the effective cutting angle quite a bit, but even so it's steeper than most planes and the surface quality is impacted as a result. It should still look quite a bit better than, say, the aftermath of an ROS with #220 paper, though - is that the case?

The fact that you got a shaving by burnishing at a steep angle but not at a shallower one is potentially significant as it suggests one of two things: Either you didn't get a good hook at the shallower angle, or you're tilting the scraper too far forward to the point where it's scraping instead of cutting with the shallower hook. If the latter is the case then you can probably improve the surface quality by holding the scraper more upright...

[Patrick Chase]

I will "spin the wheel" until it meets some resistance, then maybe a hair more. Then back to work.

Never used a card scraper, always used a piece of freshly cut glass. Then, there just some woods that just fuzz up.

A properly burnished card "scraper" is actually a cutting tool with similar action to a highly-pitched plane, because the hook meets the wood at an acute angle even when the scraper is held well past vertical. A piece of glass is just a scraper, period. Totally different cutting actions with totally different results (the burnished card scraper should yield less fuzz).

[Patrick Chase]

I love to chip in my [2 cents].

My recollection is Stanley suggest to always finish the blade adjustment advancing the blade. This would mean having the pawl (yoke, Y adjusting lever, etc.) exerting force on the blade/chip breaker.

Patrick Leach (of Blood and Gore fame) says that Stanley recommended more or less the opposite - all cutting loads should be carried by friction at the frog/blade interface, not the yoke/fork. See the #3 entry that I linked in a previous reply on this thread.

On a more practical note, if Stanley had intended that fork to carry cutting loads then they probably would have made it out of steel instead of grey iron. There also wouldn't be quite so many planes with broken forks.

[Warren Mickley]

I think you are way off here, Patrick. We like the lever cap to be loose enough that adjustment is not too hard. The iron will gradually slip if the fork is not holding it in place, so we always end with adjustment in the forward direction. The iron will slip even if the lever cap is tighter than optimum.

[Daniel Rode]

I don't know what the "right way" is, but this is what I do. Whenever I back the blade off, I then turn the wheel forward until I take up all the slack and just barely begin the forward movement. As Warren wrote, the cap iron needs to be loose enough to smooth adjustment.



My recollection is Stanley suggest to always finish the blade adjustment advancing the blade. This would mean having the pawl (yoke, Y adjusting lever, etc.) exerting force on the blade/chip breaker.

I'm no engineer but it's a combination of parts holding iron and preventing it from moving back as we push the plane forward. The yoke is taking part of the load, but not nearly all. In truth, adjusting an iron where the cap is too tight seems more likely to break the yoke. I've never see a plane with a broken yoke, so it must be fairly durable in any event.

[Curtis Niedermier]

Thanks for the replies. Regarding the original plane questions, what's right and what's not is hard to say, given that everyone does things a little different than the rest, but I think I'm handling the backlash/slop like most of you are. Point scored.

As for the scraper, and specifically Patrick's comments, I do realize that glassy, smooth and fuzzy are subjective when used to describe the board's surface, so I'll leave it at this: The surface I achieve with a sharp hand plane is smoother than what I achieve with a card scraper. To what degree of smoothness does not matter, but surely we can all understand "smoother" when comparing two surfaces, right? I didn't think the question was so tough to handle.

I probably do tend to tip forward a bit much when using it. I think I'll film it this weekend and have a look.

Thanks for the reply all.

[Patrick Chase]

I think you are way off here, Patrick. We like the lever cap to be loose enough that adjustment is not too hard. The iron will gradually slip if the fork is not holding it in place, so we always end with adjustment in the forward direction. The iron will slip even if the lever cap is tighter than optimum.

I think there's a difference here between how the planes were designed to be used and how people use them. The fact that they intended the blade to be held in place by friction is evident from two things:

1. The fact that they used soft iron for that fork. If they had intended that to carry cutting loads they would have made it out of steel.

2. The fact that Stanley's instructions for the classic Bailey planes emphasized the role of the lever cap screw to hold the blade in place, and said nothing about biasing or otherwise using the depth adjustment for that purpose. See Blood&Gore for details.

As a (former) mechanical engineer I'm particularly convinced by (1) - no competent designer would have committed that blunder *unless* that use of the fork was unexpected and unintended, and Stanley had pretty competent designers on the whole. (2) is just confirming the obvious.

I realize that many, many people do use Stanley planes as you describe, keeping the lever cap relatively loose so that they can tweak the depth adjust during planing. Some of them also break their depth-adjust forks.

If you have an L-N or similar modern clone then the situation is different because those have stronger depth adjustment forks that are designed to take the load.

[Patrick Chase]

I don't know what the "right way" is, but this is what I do. Whenever I back the blade off, I then turn the wheel forward until I take up all the slack and just barely begin the forward movement. As Warren wrote, the cap iron needs to be loose enough to smooth adjustment.



I'm no engineer but it's a combination of parts holding iron and preventing it from moving back as we push the plane forward. The yoke is taking part of the load, but not nearly all. In truth, adjusting an iron where the cap is too tight seems more likely to break the yoke. I've never see a plane with a broken yoke, so it must be fairly durable in any event.

Two remarks:

1. We're not talking about something like a viscous clutch that splits load consistently/predictably. Friction is very discontinuous, and a disturbance (say, hitting a knot) would cause the fork to instantaneously go from handling no load to handling most of it. Think "stick-slip".

2. Classic Stanley soft iron forks do get broken that way. Patrick Leach describes the issue in Blood&Gore (linked above) and I've seen it.

[lowell holmes]

The article on the Fine Woodworking website concerning sharpening scrapers will change your mind about scrapers. They absolutely have a cutting edge when properly prepared. The attached photo shows back splats that are bowed and have opposite twist . There is no way they could be planed to shape. They were "planed"with a card scraper.

330645

[Derek Cohen]

Well, I have never seen a broken yoke/fork in 20+ years of using handplanes. The reason I move the wheel forward is to take out the backlash and ensure that the blade/chipbreaker is held in the forward position with some mechanical assistance. If the wheel was not in the forward position, the blade/chipbreaker would only be held in position by friction (tightness of the levercap). It would then be vulnerable to being pushed back and losing its setting by the forward force in planing. Adding extra downforce via the levercap screw is not recommended as this will tighten the adjuster and increased force will be needed to move the blade projection. That is a recipe for damage.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

Well, I have never seen a broken yoke/fork in 20+ years of using handplanes. The reason I move the wheel forward is to take out the backlash and ensure that the blade/chipbreaker is held in the forward position with some mechanical assistance. If the wheel was not in the forward position, the blade/chipbreaker would only be held in position by friction (tightness of the levercap). It would then be vulnerable to being pushed back and losing its setting by the forward force in planing. Adding extra downforce via the levercap screw is not recommended as this will tighten the adjuster and increased force will be needed to move the blade projection. That is a recipe for damage.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I think that this is one of those pins-first vs tails-first things that can't possibly be resolved by forum debate, and that's where I'll leave it. I recognize that I (and Sellars and Leach) am in a very small minority on this one...

[Tom M King]

"Just right" is a fine balance of both levercap, and yoke. I'm sure I can't explain it in words. It's a feel thing. You do want to be able to adjust it on the fly, but you don't want the little yoke to take all the heat, and you don't want to strip the threads on the adjuster.

[Tom M King]

One thing that hobby woodworkers don't seem to understand when looking at all the expert videos is that there is a wide range of different touches doing the same work. Some are very heavy handed, and a few are light handed. For instance, when filing a saw, the same amount of metal can be removed with either a half inch stroke, or a full stroke. I'm not much for taking advice from the heavy handed ones, since that's not the way I work. It applies to many things in hand tool work. Watching any video, or taking any one person's advice, probably won't give you the absolute final answer for what works best for you.