Help with smoothing

[Nick Laeder]

I am just finishing up the glueup of a large walnut table for my wife. It's my first really big project.

I'm a hybrid woodworker, out of necessity, but I love working with edged tools.

The tabletop is made of 8 rows of 5" walnut planks, 1.5" thick, biscuit jointed together. The planks are pretty uniform, out of the jointer and planer. However, there are slight ridges where they glue together, nothing extreme, but present. By no means do we need this table to be perfect, it's modeled after a simple farm table, albeit a long one (9' long).

Now, on to my question. I have a few handplanes, that are sharp. A cheap #4 Stanley with the plastic totes, and a decent corrugated bottom #5. Both are tuned up pretty well, and take decent shavings (the #5 better than the #4). I have a couple of block planes, also.

My thoughts on finishing this tabletop were to convert the #4 into a scrub, like Paul Sellers does in his YouTube video, and then use the #5 to run along the grain to even up the scrub marks. From there, I'm thinking about purchasing a Mujingfang plane to do the final smoothing. I have cabinet scrapers, but the thought of 30 square feet of scraping makes my thumbs hurt.

For a tabletop of this size, would the 11" Mujingfang jack be more appropriate than the 8" smoother? I notice that both of them have the same bedding angle and blade assembly. As much as I'd love to buy ALL OF THE PLANES, I have three boys under 6 to feed, and my tool budget is limited. I've read tons of reviews of the Mujingfang planes, and they are pretty much universally known as a fantastic deal.

I'm also open to other suggestions. Or donations.

Nick

[Gene Davis]

Call Austin Hardwoods in Denver, book time on their widebelt sanders, and truck it on up. It's ready for fine sanding and finish as soon as you get it back home.

Here is Paul Sellers showing you how to smooth a glued-up top with his go-to favorite, a #4 Stanley-type. Point is, anything will work as long as it's sharp, tuned, and you know what you are doing.

[Bob Glenn]

If the ridges you want to erases are not too tall, I'd go with your card scraper. It will take less time than you think since you won't have to do all 30 square feet, only the ridges. You will have to resharpen it often though. I just did this on a table top of red oak for our son and it turned out great. I hope you aligned your boards at glue up with the grain running in the same direction.

[Nick Laeder]

Haha, had to change my location. We moved East five years ago. Shows how often I post here, eh?

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll just put some more work into my #4 and use it.

[Nick Laeder]

I kind of think the ridges are actually one board marginally higher than the other, but I'll have to look at it closer with a straightedge when I get home.

There is no chance of this many planks having the grain aligned by happenstance, so I'm going to go ahead and say nope.

[Steve Voigt]

It sounds like your #5 is in better shape--and maybe a nicer plane?--than your #4. So I would just use the #5 to smooth the table. If all you have are slight ridges at the joints, there is no need to use a scrub or roughing plane--you will just lose unnecessary thickness on that nice big top.

If you haven't already, do some research, here or elsewhere, on setting or using the chipbreaker to control tearout. You won't find that on Paul Sellers' site. Practice on some scrap before you tackle the tabletop; walnut can be pretty bad for tearout.

[Tom Vanzant]

Level the high boards using your #5, planing across the high points. Once the top is level, use either the #4 or #5, set for a very light cut to determine grain direction, then flatten and smooth. Set your cap iron (chip breaker) very close to the cutting edge to reduce tear-out.

[Jim Koepke]

Howdy Nick,

Google > setting a cap iron < to find information presented by David Weaver at WoodCentral on how to (of all things) set the chip breaker.

If the problem is only high spots along the glue line and the planks have already been machine surfaces scrubbing across the grain will be more work than is necessary.

Knowing when to stop planing is as important as technique and being able to take extremely thin shavings when working to avoid tear out.

Some of the technique is keeping the blade to the high side of the joint and skewing. Another part is to keep the blade as sharp as you can get it.

Good luck and is there any chance to see some pictures?

jtk

[Barney Markunas]

If you want to consider the abrasive planer route, call the lumberyard in Middletown. I've not been there since I moved out of central PA ages ago but I would bet they probably can take care of you.

If not, make one of your planes as sharp as you can get it and proceed cautiously. You will quickly discover if grain alignment is going to cooperate; if you start to get some tear out, become friends with your scraper. Unless there are big differences between the boards at your joints, I wouldn't bother with a cambered iron scrub. You might consider investing in an aftermarket blade and chip breaker to hot rod your 4 or 5 rather than acquiring another plane. Though there is certainly nothing wrong with adding another to your arsenal, you'll have a yet another learning curve to address tuning and using the Mujinfang. You will like what happens when you put a thicker (Hock, LV, LN, etc.) blade in. You can't be too rich, too handsome, or have blades that are too sharp. When in doubt, sharpen your blade and make sure your chip breaker is set properly. Good luck with your project.

[Chris Hachet]

Or, alternately find a simple project you can do with a wood such as Poplar to tune your planes on. I would rather learn on a cheap piece of wood than a Walnut table top.

Perhaps you could build a quickie saw till for your shop and plane the pieces by hand or something? it took me awhile to get used to using hand planes, but once I got them dialed in and sharp, they prooved to be very helpful.

[Matthew Springer]

It's actually surprisingly easy to do this well with very little experience + a couple tricks. I hand smoothed up a large maple top first time out with a just a scrub, a LN #5 and a lot of patience. In my case, I was building it in the one car garage and I had a table saw and that was about it. I knew nothing. I'd been using planes about two weeks at the time. I am glad the LN stuff comes sharp because I, umm, may have ignorantly skipped that part on my first time out.

I had no idea what I was doing. I still don't, but I didn't then either. This is what I learned, ymmv. I'm way better at it now, but I still suck relative to people that do this for real. And I can still flatten a top ~pretty easily.

First off: Your enemy is not actually bumps and hollows. A straightedge + the planes will find and eliminate those. Your enemies are plane tracks and tearout. Because these things will make your top worse very quickly while you're trying to make it better.

1) Use whichever plane is the sharpest: The diff between a #4 and #5 is basically nothing in practice, it's more about having one blade setup for big shavings and another set up for ultra fine. The length and heft really doesn't matter that much, just make sure they're stupid sharp. If you want to set up both as smoothers, go for it. Tight mouth, slight camber, stupid sharp.

2) Make sure you round the corners of your irons. I didn't and I kept chasing plane tracks all over the surface without knowing what they were. I literally flattened the top smooth by setting the plane to only make a track on one side, then would plane all 30" to the other side to take out the track. Really.

3) For tear out, you want to read the grain direction and adjust as you go. Take a light pass, have a very tight mouth and make sure the iron is stupid sharp. You can also skew the plane which only works if you're also using a cambered iron. These things (super thin shavings, super sharp plane, skew plane) basically all slow down the process so you need more passes. That's ok if you're patient. I am not patient so I used my two planes (#5, #4.5) for a thick/thin setup. Worked fine.

4) At some point it's totally ok to switch to sanding if you need to. It's not a coincidence that my first table top flattening experience was also the day I learned to use a card scraper. I usually sand all my finish work up to 1500 and it also looks pretty darn good imho.

Don't drive yourself crazy.

[Jim Koepke]

Your enemy is plane tracks and tearout.

This is where, as you put it, "stupid sharp" comes into play.

If you are taking super thin shavings there isn't going to be much of a plane track to notice. Plus a very slight camber to the blade will eliminate them entirely. By slight camber, I mean drag one edge down the length of a stone and then the other.

See my camber round tuit:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?158373-My-Camber-Blade-Round-Tuit-Finally-Came

This was done on the backside of the blade, but the same will work on the bevel side.

If there is a Home Depot near by, pick up one of the Buck Brothers branded replacement plane blades for $3 and have an inexpensive experimental blade.


I literally flattened the top smooth by setting the plane to only make a track on one side, then would plane all 30" to the other side to take out the track. Really.

I not only believe you, I used to do the same when using my #4-1/2 to smooth large surfaces.

jtk

[Glen Canaday]

..here or elsewhere, on setting or using the chipbreaker to control tearout. You won't find that on Paul Sellers' site. Practice on some scrap before you tackle the tabletop; walnut can be pretty bad for tearout.

Oh! But you WILL find that in Richard Maguire's rants on englishwoodworker.com. That particular rant is also on youtube. His rant was actually the impetus for me personally giving up on the whole tight mouth thing. A tight mouth is only a requirement for single-iron planes.

I had been chasing that again and again and finding I did nothing but clog the plane since I was also choking up on the cap iron already. Turned out all I needed to do was just do what worked..if that makes any sense.

[Steve Voigt]

Oh! But you WILL find that in Richard Maguire's rants on englishwoodworker.com. That particular rant is also on youtube. His rant was actually the impetus for me personally giving up on the whole tight mouth thing. A tight mouth is only a requirement for single-iron planes.

I had been chasing that again and again and finding I did nothing but clog the plane since I was also choking up on the cap iron already. Turned out all I needed to do was just do what worked..if that makes any sense.

Yeah, I have Richard's video linked on my website, along with the Dave Weaver article that Jim mentioned, some videos by Kees, and a number of others. Richard's stuff is great; he's the real deal, and entertaining too. Glad you made the cap iron work for you!

[Nicholas Lawrence]

It's actually surprisingly easy to do this well with very little experience + a couple tricks. I hand smoothed up a large maple top first time out with a just a scrub, a LN #5 and a lot of patience.

There is a significant difference between a LN #5, which is going to be ready to use pretty much out of the box, and a plane shaped object with plastic handles. My advice to the original poster is to take the advice to practice on something else before getting into that table. Five minutes of hacking with a poorly tuned plane on randomly oriented walnut could easily create enough tearout to keep someone busy for a week trying to get it out. If you are going to start on the table, at least start on the bottom.

[Nick Laeder]

Holy cow, how have I missed Richard Maguire? I watch youtube videos ALL THE TIME, and I've never come across him.

Thank god it's too cold to work in the shop today, I need to go make some more tea and watch more of this guy.

Thanks for all the help, folks.

I'm also considering bringing my sharpening stuff inside for today and working on irons and cap irons.