plane advice needed

[Bill Carey]

I have no great experience with planes, and am in need of some intel. I have a Stanley #3, a Stanley #4 and a #5, a block plane and a shoulder plane. None of which were any good at all for planing this piece of walnut I got from a slab cut off. Is there a plane that would work? Low angle? Or is this grain mess just too crazy to try planing it. I set up the #3 to take a nice thin shaving off a piece of scrap maple, but it was a disaster on this. Dug in, chattered, skipped, etc. And the plane iron is plenty sharp.

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[Kory Cassel]

Not the expert either but I'm thinking high angle, like scraper plane, rather than low angle.

[Kory Cassel]

If you have any extra blades lying around for your bench planes, maybe putting a 10 degree back bevel on one could do some good.

[steven c newman]

May tru at 90 degrees to the grain? Going across instead of trying to go with the grain...or, tune up a #80 scraper plane....

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Bill

If your plane "Dug in, chattered, skipped, etc. And the plane iron is plenty sharp", then part of the problem likely lies with the plane itself. My thoughts are either that the blade is not secure (i.e. is loose), or that the mouth is not coplanar with the toe and heel (that is, with the plane blade down on a flat surface, the mouth is not touching. This forces one to extend the blade further than desired to make conttact with the work piece).

Assuming all is well, however, then I would plane with a closed up chipbreaker. That will definitely avoid any tearout.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Andrew Seemann]

That thar piece of wood is scraper territory. Someone really skilled with a really good plane could maybe tackle it, but you've got figure, vertical grain, and wave among other things; it is almost a crotch cut. I'm pretty good with planes and mine are pretty well tuned up, but I probably would have reached for the scraper, or more likely the random orbit sander, for grain like that.

If you really want to go the plane route, check your plane as Derek mentions, make sure you don't have rounding on the bevel causing the blade to skip or dig in, use a fine set, take as light a shaving as you can, and skew the plane about 45 degrees. Or just grab the random orbit. No need to do everything the hard way.

[Albert Dao]

It's funny, I just finished working on a piece like that. I made it 45 minutes into a scraper before I said, "screw it, Rotex time". Sometimes, it's not worth the effort to cling to your guns when you have a flamethrower.

[Jim Koepke]

with the plane blade down on a flat surface, the mouth is not touching. This forces one to extend the blade further than desired to make conttact with the work piece).

Related to this is the blade can be taking a light cut, then grabs and flexes the plane body so it is taking a much thicker shaving until the wood gives and the plane body springs back.

Bill, as others have noticed that is a very gnarly piece of walnut. Sometimes there is no right way to run a plane over such a surface.

jtk

[James Pallas]

There are times when it gets to the point where you are trying to take shavings so thin that you are just burnishing with the sole of the plane rather than planing. At that point it’s abrasives or nothing. If a card scraper tears out I’m done with blades.
Jim

[Bill Carey]

Thanks all for the suggestions. The plane I was using is an old Bailey #3 which has some pitting on the sole - looking for a new one, maybe that has something to do wit it. But I think it's the wood, as several have pointed out. Scraper worked to an extent, but I finally went with the ROS. I guess that'll be the way I deal with it, and I have lots more from the same source to deal with. I have 3 sets of book matched pieces big enough for cabinet doors that I need to figure out what to do with, so Ill be scraping and sanding. And I'll be more careful with Dewalt planer, because if I take shallow cuts it gives me a very nice finish. The reason I had to plane this was that I cut it to size - 9" - before I noticed that a corner of the underside dipped about a 1/16" and was not planed - enough to be noticed.

Thanks for the help kids.
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[Kory Cassel]

Gotta love that curl and shimmer. Beautiful! She'll break your heart trying to work her with hand tools. I've got a good bit of highly figured live oak riven from a neighbor's felled tree that causes me the same kind of grief. Good luck with it.:)

[Warren Mickley]

Wood like this piece of walnut can be planed easily with your double iron planes ( #3, 4, 5) Double iron planes were designed to deal with this type of figure and will give the finest results. If you aren't getting beautiful results here, something is wrong with the way the planes are set up.

[Kory Cassel]

PM me and I'll send you a piece of my live oak and you can post some before and after shots of how it planed up easily.

[steven c newman]

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Made in England Stanley 4c....vs..Ash....today

[Tyler Bancroft]

If you really want to go the plane route, check your plane as Derek mentions, make sure you don't have rounding on the bevel causing the blade to skip or dig in, use a fine set, take as light a shaving as you can, and skew the plane about 45 degrees. Or just grab the random orbit. No need to do everything the hard way.

Doesn't skewing the plane reduce the effective cutting angle? This seems like high-angle would be called for. For what it's worth, with a sharp blade and an effective angle of 63-64 degrees on my Veritas LAJ, I can plane hard maple even against the grain fairly effectively.

[Stewie Simpson]

A bd toothing plane is another effective option for eliminating stubborn tear-out.

Stewie;

http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af219/swagman001/toothed%20surface/DSC_0181_zpsi4hoxmfs.jpg (http://s1009.photobucket.com/user/swagman001/media/toothed%20surface/DSC_0181_zpsi4hoxmfs.jpg.html)

http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af219/swagman001/toothed%20surface/DSC_0182_zpsag7wjazx.jpg (http://s1009.photobucket.com/user/swagman001/media/toothed%20surface/DSC_0182_zpsag7wjazx.jpg.html)