all in a days work

[Tom M King]

I have 16 operating shutters to build for a mid 19th Century house. Each shutter is 20-1/2 x 92 inches. Originals were two raised panels that match other doors on the house. The originals have nothing worth saving, except the dimensions. We had a good supply of Cypress 1x8s left from making shingles for the house, so we picked through the remaining boards to get good prospects out of. Thursday, we glued up the boards for the panels. The 16 shutters need 32 panels. I rough cut the pieces to 40 inches long. They will finish at 13-1/2 inches wide, but I glued up the whole boards to see how they plane before running them down to final width.
Yesterday, I started hand planing the boards to flatten the panels, and they need hand plane texture anyway, not to mention that I don't have a 16" wide jointer.


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The house has a good air conditioning system, and with it being mid 90s with maximum humidity, it was the right time to do some inside work. I turned the AC down to 68, because I knew I would be burning some calories.
I clamped the little 5' Lervad bench to the table saw. There is no room on this job site for a large bench, and I've done this many times before. The 40" panels left plenty of room in between the end of the bench and the table saw, and stayed plenty sturdy enough.

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The boards were flat enough not to require anything as aggressive as a no.5, but I have two no. 6's that work just fine for this. I don't know the camber on the blades, but one takes shavings maybe 15 thousandths thick, and the second maybe half or a little less than that.
Smoothing planes finish. In this picture I have a 4-1/2, a 4, and a 3 laid out. The 4-1/2 takes a thousandth or less, so it wasn't much use for this job that didn't have to be furniture quality, so I put it back up. The 4 got used some, but the 3 was best for getting any low spots that the 6's would quite get down into, but weren't worth the time to take the whole board down for.

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I started at an angle that I could reach all the way across the 16" width, and took any hump out of the middle with the first, coarsest set no.6.
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A no.6 is a good length to be able to feel when these panels are flat enough, and wonder if this wasn't the intended purpose for a Try plane anyway. I use winding sticks to judge how to take any twist out. I don't have any fancy winding sticks, but just find something close at hand. These are a couple of scraps of decking boards we ripped down to make new purlins out of for one of the work building roofs. They were plenty straight enough, and already a good enough length for this job.
I sight over the nearest one to the bottom of the far one, like in the picture.
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[Tom M King]

I started planing at 9:30 in the morning, had to stop to give a tour, we took about a half hour for lunch, and the guys wanted to quit at 2 (they were doing outside painting in the miserable conditions), so I have maybe three hours work in the 17 that I finished. The only problem I had was a little irritation on the outside of the knuckle on my right little finger outer joint where it just sort of dangles rubbing the mounting part of the tote. Next time, I'll add a band aid there to start with.
The stiles and rails will be a little thicker than the wood I have, and I haven't even picked it up yet. As long as I'm doing "something that needs to be done", I'm good with calling it all in a days work. I have a lot of work in progress.
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Obligatory picture of shavings pile. They're a lot thicker off the floor than they look in the picture.
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[Tom M King]

Sorry for the strange formatting. I posted this first on another woodworking forums that automatically downsizes pictures, and copied and pasted. The copy and paste eliminated all spaces.

When I first noticed the irritation on my little finger starting, the line in the DIre Straights song Money for Nothing kept going through my head. ".Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger.........."

Photography stand lights coming. It's too dark in that room without them for videoing, but I hope to take some video during the rest of that job.

Stock Stanley irons. I sharpened after lunch, but didn't absolutely have to. I'd like to have a LV Jack Rabbit to run the raised panel edges, but I'll find some other way to do them.

[Patrick Chase]

When I first noticed the irritation on my little finger starting, the line in the DIre Straights song Money for Nothing kept going through my head. ".Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger.........."

Money for nothing and chips for free?

Seriously, this stuff (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=31213&cat=1,42207) works better for me than a Band-Aid (as you suggested in you other post).

[Tom M King]

That's funny. Pam said to just get a strip of Vet Wrap out of the barn. It looks like the same stuff. It didn't blister, and there's a callous there now, so it might not bother me anymore anyway. It was not used to being a working finger. I thought the tote on the 6's was the same as the smoothing planes, but it must be a little different. There's not enough room for the little finger to wrap around the tote, but it has to go somewhere. I don't remember ever spending that much time mostly with the no. 6's.

[Jim Koepke]

There's not enough room for the little finger to wrap around the tote, but it has to go somewhere.

Some of my larger planes have had the totes modified with a rasp and sandpaper to press less against my little finger. It is more comfortable than having my little finger sticking out.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

Neat stuff Tom. Look forward to seeing the finished results!
Fred

[Tom Vanzant]

Tom, the totes are the same but the plane cheek is higher on the #6/7/8.

[Tom M King]

Makes sense. I don't know what it was rubbing against. I've used smoothing planes for that much time, and more, before without any problems, but never steady hours with the larger planes.

[Tom M King]

Today, I just flattened a few when I had a little time in between periods of overcast working on a white standing seam roof. No trouble with the little finger. Only ten left to flatten after today. I'll run them down to a common thickness on the big bandsaw/resaw, and hit the backs with a smoothing plane. It works really good, without building up a sweat doing a few at a time, so that's the plan to finish the rest of them.

[Tom M King]

I thought to buy a battery for the micrometer today. The thicker cutting no.6 shaving was a bit thinner than my estimate, and the thinner cutting one was a little thicker.

On a full width shaving the coarse cutting no. 6 takes a shaving .014350 at the thickest part in the middle of the shaving. The second cut no.6 takes .00880 in the middle of a full width shaving. I had estimated the first one at 15 thou, and the second one at a little less than half that. It definitely takes way less than half the effort using the second one.

I just stumbled into this setup, but really like it. I bought the first no. 6 because it was in good shape and cheap, but needed a few parts. Sometime later I bid on a couple of other no. 6s on ebay, and ended up winning both of them. It's been long enough ago that I don't remember what I paid for them, but since I bought them, it couldn't have been very much. I did no rust removal on any of the parts, since they were in pretty decent shape. Out of the three planes, I ended up with two complete users. I have no idea, and don't care what the type numbers are, or when they were made. It really does work out to be a good combination for rough flattening though.

[Phil Mueller]

A good days work indeed. Being a hobbyist, just looking at that production volume makes me tired...it's like staring at 4 weeks of weeknights and weekend work. I envy the restoration projects you do...seems very rewarding.
Look forward to seeing the progress and final results.

[Jerry Olexa]

Planing/flattening large panels can be v satisfying...But the blade better be sharp!!! good work!!

[James Pallas]

Tom, I find this very interesting. I'll be following to check out the hardware and also how the shutters are finished. Working shutters take a real beating weather wise. I don't have to deal with them now but I have in the past. Thank you for posting this.
Jim

[Tom M King]

Hardware will be reproduction Acme hinges. There are some surviving pieces on the house, but most of the originals were broken, and a bunch of different types of cobbled up hinges there that will have to be replaced. http://www.houseofantiquehardware.com/shutter-hinges-6-1-2-inch-acme-mortise?utm_source=froog&utm_medium=cse-nc&utm_campaign=gdf&partner=froog&gdffi=acd9967c52ff4737a3a3e0a43a275a41&gdfms=34E03CC8091F44818B988FC5A1089C30&gclid=Cj0KEQjwzZe8BRDguN3cmOr4_dgBEiQAijjVFqA73hLk Yzwzekljd6-JKz2w3BEAV3K_jbFcxN6llw4aAmK98P8HAQ

They'll just be painted. Stiles and rails will be mortised and tenoned, and pegged, and hand planed of course. This will be put on the back burner for a while, so it might be a few months before we get them up. We have to fix all the sash. A case of cylinder glass should be here any day. We only have 18 original panes that survived on the whole house. Then we have to reinstall the sash after glazing and painting, and fit the stops.

New parting stops, out of White Oak, are already made and waiting. The main stops will be installed with brass threaded inserts in the jambs, and screwed in with plain slotted, flat head machine screws, so the sash can be taken out the next time they need to be painted. The screws won't quite be as original, but I've done it like this before, and it makes it easy to keep the sash operating behind a painter.

We also have a couple of standing seam porch roofs that are in process waiting on other issues.

So, long story shortened, it won't be next week when the shutters are even finished, much less go up. I just had a little slack time in this project waiting on parts for the standing seam roof. Plus, it's just been too daggone hot to work on a roof, so this was something I could do in air conditioning.

Video lights are supposed to be here Friday, so I'll save the last few waiting on the video setup.

This is all for the house we put the Cypress shingle roof on that you can see on my website.

[James Pallas]

Thanks for the reply Tom. Interesting project. Keep us updated.
Jim

[Patrick Chase]

I thought to buy a battery for the micrometer today. The thicker cutting no.6 shaving was a bit thinner than my estimate, and the thinner cutting one was a little thicker.

On a full width shaving the coarse cutting no. 6 takes a shaving .014350 at the thickest part in the middle of the shaving. The second cut no.6 takes .00880 in the middle of a full width shaving. I had estimated the first one at 15 thou, and the second one at a little less than half that. It definitely takes way less than half the effort using the second one.

That's darned good for estimation. Within 5% and 20% respectively. From eyeballing my handy graph for 2-3/8" blade width your camber radii are about 35" and 55" respectively.

The radius corresponding to any given depth goes approximately with blade width squared (assuming cut_depth is much smaller than blade_width) so you often end up with really high radii on wide planes like a #6. For comparison the same cut depths would correspond to radii of 14" and 24" in a 1.5" scrub.

[Tom M King]

Thanks for that Patrick. I was wondering today why someone hadn't come up with a rig for a grinder to easily grind different radiuses, but I see now why. That would take a really long arm for a smoothing plane. It would be a handy thing to have though.

[Patrick Chase]

Thanks for that Patrick. I was wondering today why someone hadn't come up with a rig for a grinder to easily grind different radiuses, but I see now why. That would take a really long arm for a smoothing plane. It would be a handy thing to have though.

It would be possible to create a short[er] linkage with a virtual pivot point, but it would be complicated and the range of radii you could implement that way with good "circularity" would be limited.

Also (and I realize this will be hysterically funny coming from me) the "circularity" of the camber isn't all that critical IMO, provided it's even side to side and doesn't have kinks that might cause visible depressions/humps in the wood. For smoothers I actually prefer a profile with a flat center and relief on the edges.

For scrubs and jacks I use a set of phenolic templates to scribe profiles in Dykem and then grind to those, and my profiles are pretty close to circular (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?244746-Framing-Slicks-for-Leveling&p=2575645#post2575645), but I think that's OCD-driven overkill.

[Mark Gibney]

Funny thing is I was reading thru the thread and thinking I like the large photographs, I don't have to click on something to view it. However you did it, maybe keep doing it.

[Jim Koepke]

Funny thing is I was reading thru the thread and thinking I like the large photographs, I don't have to click on something to view it. However you did it, maybe keep doing it.

Mark,

The big images are another way of posting images that are off site. The problem is if the person stops their membership or links change the images are lost to future viewers.

340737

The icon indicated by the arrow is the one for inserting images. I am not sure if it hosts images here on SMC. I may have to give it a try.

Just my 340738 but it seems to work.

Maybe a bigger image should be tried.

340739

Looks like that leaves it as a thumbnail. May be the only way to get the big images in the body of text is to post an embedded URL.

jtk

[Tom M King]

I posted first on another forums that has more updated software which automatically downsizes pictures. Then I just copied and pasted it here. It's a LOT less work than having to downsize pictures.

[Warren Mickley]

It would be possible to create a short[er] linkage with a virtual pivot point, but it would be complicated and the range of radii you could implement that way with good "circularity" would be limited.

Also (and I realize this will be hysterically funny coming from me) the "circularity" of the camber isn't all that critical IMO, provided it's even side to side and doesn't have kinks that might cause visible depressions/humps in the wood. For smoothers I actually prefer a profile with a flat center and relief on the edges.

For scrubs and jacks I use a set of phenolic templates to scribe profiles in Dykem and then grind to those, and my profiles are pretty close to circular (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?244746-Framing-Slicks-for-Leveling&p=2575645#post2575645), but I think that's OCD-driven overkill.

To play the cello one does not need a jig to make marks on the finger board. Nor is it necessary to hook up a machine to tell you that your C# has a frequency of 277.18 or 275 or whatever. Your ear can tell you what sounds best.

I think it is more profitable to judge camber by how the plane performs rather than doing calculations or making jigs. If the camber is too little or to great, make a small adjustment when sharpening the next time. And if you don't have too many irons, it is easy to keep track of this kind of thing.

For a smoothing plane I think a circular camber is best. That way if the lateral adjustment is slightly off the plane will still yield the same surface quality even though the shaving is not quite centered in the mouth of the plane. A camber that is rather flat in the middle will leave odd tracks, even more so if the lateral adjustment is off.

On Tuesday I dressed some 3X8 white oak joists for an 18th century historic site with the wooden jack plane I have used since 1978. At the end of the day I measured the shavings at .009 to .010. I am not sure I ever measured a jack plane shaving before. For a jack plane, we generally take lighter cuts for harder woods.

[Tom M King]

I was just dreaming about an easy way for the average woodworker to create a camber. All my bench planes have a specific intended purpose, and it's all dependent on the camber. All of mine have been created mostly by trial and error as Warren was talking about, but I expect the vast majority of people buying new planes from LV or LN are not quite to the point of being able to know what they want, much less being able to produce it.

It seems like those of us who actually use hand planes to make a living are using older planes. It seems like most hobbyists just getting into it buy new, relatively expensive planes to bypass having to do any fettling to have something to use. You see people posting about buying one that will work right out of the box. That might be true if all they are going to work on is board edges. Just talking about bench planes, a straight edged iron is only good for working on an edge. Otherwise, it's pretty much useless unless you are going to spend time finishing with sanding.

That's where I was thinking about a foolproof way to make a camber. If new planes were offered with a useable camber to start with, the buyer would be in a much better place to start producing some work.

When I originally set up the two no. 6's, I was expecting to set one up for softwood, and one for hardwood. It just turned out by luck that using one after the other ended up being a very efficient system. For the majority of these shutter panels, the light cutting no. 6 did the job as the finishing plane just fine. I could crank the iron back up a little, taking a lighter bite but still reasonably wide, and it worked like a long smoothing plane. I like the 18" length for feeling for flat. I doubt for one out of six did I pick up a smoothing plane.

I can see no use for a straight iron with rounded edges. The tilt would be just too critical to suit me. I'm sure it would work okay like that, but I can see a bunch of time being wasted to get it aligned to suit me. For those that do this for a hobby, time in the shop is different than for those of us doing it for a living. I'm always thinking about efficiency, and spending extra time on something becomes an aggravation.

[Jim Koepke]

I was just dreaming about an easy way for the average woodworker to create a camber. All my bench planes have a specific intended purpose, and it's all dependent on the camber. All of mine have been created mostly by trial and error as Warren was talking about, but I expect the vast majority of people buying new planes from LV or LN are not quite to the point of being able to know what they want, much less being able to produce it.

It seems like those of us who actually use hand planes to make a living are using older planes. It seems like most hobbyists just getting into it buy new, relatively expensive planes to bypass having to do any fettling to have something to use. You see people posting about buying one that will work right out of the box. That might be true if all they are going to work on is board edges. Just talking about bench planes, a straight edged iron is only good for working on an edge. Otherwise, it's pretty much useless unless you are going to spend time finishing with sanding.

That's where I was thinking about a foolproof way to make a camber. If new planes were offered with a useable camber to start with, the buyer would be in a much better place to start producing some work.

When I originally set up the two no. 6's, I was expecting to set one up for softwood, and one for hardwood. It just turned out by luck that using one after the other ended up being a very efficient system. For the majority of these shutter panels, the light cutting no. 6 did the job as the finishing plane just fine. I could crank the iron back up a little, taking a lighter bite but still reasonably wide, and it worked like a long smoothing plane. I like the 18" length for feeling for flat. I doubt for one out of six did I pick up a smoothing plane.

I can see no use for a straight iron with rounded edges. The tilt would be just too critical to suit me. I'm sure it would work okay like that, but I can see a bunch of time being wasted to get it aligned to suit me. For those that do this for a hobby, time in the shop is different than for those of us doing it for a living. I'm always thinking about efficiency, and spending extra time on something becomes an aggravation.

Most of my blades are only cambered due to wear on the stones. A few have purposely cambered blades.

Blade cambering doesn't have to be rocket science. From light to heavy camber it should be something one's eye and use should be able to determine.

My experience with the premium planes has been pretty good. Maybe some honing, very little fettling required. But I have met people who have had difficulty getting them to work out of the box. Rehabilitating old planes taught me a lot about getting them to work well and efficiently.

The problem for companies like LN, LV or any others with selling cambered blades is the cost of custom grinding plus keeping a lot of different blades in stock.

My #6 often gets to do the smoothing work. It can be dialed down on the thickness of the shaving after the rough stuff is done and smooth a panel or board without leaving tracks.

Aggravation? I will tell you about aggravation... Spent the better part of an hour on hold trying to get through to a state office to renew my business license. They have a "new and improved" web site that the representative told me a lot of people are having problems dealing with it. Of course they can not take payment over the phone. Then after walking me through restoring my account and filling in all the blanks the site has an error and wants me to start all over.

If you want REAL AGGRAVATION there has to be a bureaucracy and a computer involved.

jtk