Got Some Planing to Do!!!

[Jim Koepke]

This piece of rough 16/4 poplar was purchased last week. The first step was to get the edges smooth(ish):

405175

This was fairly easy to do on a couple of saw benches with a hand screw clamp used as a stop. A #8 plane was used with a light cut. If too heavy of a shaving was being taken the front saw bench would want to move.

Next was trying to devise a way to hold a 7' piece of work on a 5' bench. Cam action clamping seemed to be the way to go:

405176

A couple of 5" disks were cut from some scrap 2X construction lumber. The clearance between the two cams wasn't quite enough. The dog holes are ~11" from edge to edge and the piece being worked is 10-1/4" The out board cam was set in the vise to give a little more room. It seems the cam has to rotate about 1/4 of the way to start having any holding power:

405178

It also appears this could have been done with a single cam and a couple of dogs on the other side of the piece being held. There is a dog on the inboard side at the far end to hold the piece laterally to use the scrub plane:

405179

The piece has a high center on this side. The scrub plane was used to bring that down and to get the process started.

Next in line was a #6:

405180

This is the oldest Stanley/Bailey type metal plane in my kit. It is a type 4 (pre-lateral). It is a bit less tiring for this part of the job than trying to push around a #7 or #8.

This part took awhile:

405181

Not much more to do:

405182

This is likely going to be the underside so it doesn't need as much work as the other side.

One needs to be careful when handling a piece like this. It was fairly easy to move it around by sliding it over the saw benches to get it out of the car and into the shop. Then it wasn't too difficult to slide it off of the saw benches to stand it up on end. Then it was fairly easy to walk it across the floor over to the work bench.

The cam holding worked quite well. My plan was to try attaching sandpaper to the cam's face if it had slipping problems. That wasn't needed.

Note: The dowel/dog in the cam was made of ash turned on the lathe for this purpose. A screw was run in from the side to keep it in place.

jtk

[Tom M King]

I like your stops.

Gloves make my hands get tired quickly. I never have been able to do much work with gloves on.

[Mike Cornwall]

Really cool! Those cams are a great idea, especially since all my work is weird contours, I’ll be revisiting these photos I’m sure!

[Phil Mueller]

Well done. So, what are you planing to make with that?

[michael langman]

I like cams Jim. I was laying in bed the other night and deciding between cams and tapered battens for my bench. I'll probably do both and see which I like best.

[Jerry Olexa]

Like your Cam idea Jim....What are you building?

[James Waldron]

While planning for planing, an idea cam to you? Nice work. Half a bench top? Dedicated planing bench? Vibration damping top for lathe stand? Give it up, Jim.

[lowell holmes]

Jim,
I noticed your saw bench. I have one and I made a saw horse the same height. It is a tee bench made of 1 x 4. I use it to support
long boards when I am using the saw bench.

[Jim Koepke]

Like your Cam idea Jim....What are you building?

Hopefully this will become half of the top for my long put off bench project.

The other half is a piece of 12/4 beech.

With a tool tray down the middle my hope is the different thickness of material won't be a problem.

jtk

[James Waldron]

Hopefully this will become half of the top for my long put off bench project.

The other half is a piece of 12/4 beech.

With a tool tray down the middle my hope is the different thickness of material won't be a problem.

jtk

Aha! Ahaaa!

[Jim Koepke]

Taking on this piece a few hours at a time. One side is getting pretty flat:

405441

Having a light behind the winding stick helps to find then mark high and low spots. This face was made square to one edge.

Next step was to square up and straighten the other edge. The cam set up didn't hold as well with the piece on edge. It would hold for a few passes then the piece would shift, come loose and slide out of the cam. A couple of clamps were rigged up to hold it still:

405442

This is one good reason to have at least a small apron on a bench.

Still a lot of planing to bring the edges flat and square to the faces.

After looking at this the hand screw clamp could likely have been held in the tail vise for this work. It seems there are always a few ways to get a job done.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Jim,
I noticed your saw bench. I have one and I made a saw horse the same height. It is a tee bench made of 1 x 4. I use it to support
long boards when I am using the saw bench.


These are two from a set of three. There are other saw benches and horses around. Mine tend to all be the same height. Here are four of my 'outdoor' horses supporting a beam being worked:

405443

It is kind of handy to have a few saw benches and horses. If they can work together they are even more handy.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

The last edge is pretty much square to the faces. Now the straightness is being addressed.

Here is a string and three blocks method being used:

405483

Stanley Covington described this in one of his posts.

It is three blocks cut to the same size. A few shavings are taken off the 'test' block. A string line is strung taught over the other two blocks, one at each end of the work to be tested. Then the high and low spots will be easily revealed.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

With many things to do in the garden and greenhouse my time has been limited in the shop. Worse yet when there was a few hours available my camera and computer decided to not play nice together.

An image was taken of planing away the scrub plane tracks, it was lost in translation.

Then since it is almost natural to end up with a piece that is cupped an image was taken of a #8 being used across the grain to cut down the outsides of the cupped surface, it was lost in translation.

Anyone who has done this will know the sound of the plane taking a shaving at the first edge, then going over the low spot without the blade engaging, then taking a shaving at the far edge. After a few passes it will take a continuous shaving which tells the operator to move about a plane's width to the next cupped area.

At least an image of a #4-1/2 doing the final smoothing wasn't lost:

406027

It is beginning to look like a nice piece of wood:

406031

There is some work to be done along the left edge. It may need a piece inlayed to get rid of the cracked area and the divots. This will be the edge against the tool well.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

My first thought was to use a piece of European beach that was acquired not long ago. It seems it may be better used for a different project.

My neighbor cut down some trees and set up his Alaskan chain saw mill. Before he moved closer to Idaho he gave me a couple of planks.

This one looks like it will work as half of a bench top:

406204

This did have bark on it. My chain saw was used to rip the edges.

There is a lot of planing to do on this one. The faces are not parallel over the length nor side to side.

jtk

[James Pallas]

Jim, I don't think the plane pictured will do it. You may need a broad axe to start with :) Nice looking piece of timber.
Jim

[James Pallas]

The last edge is pretty much square to the faces. Now the straightness is being addressed.

Here is a string and three blocks method being used:

405483

Stanley Covington described this in one of his posts.

It is three blocks cut to the same size. A few shavings are taken off the 'test' block. A string line is strung taught over the other two blocks, one at each end of the work to be tested. Then the high and low spots will be easily revealed.

jtk

i use a string method also. I think I described it in a past post about plumb bob use. I usually take the wind out of the ends first and than lay a flat stick at each end. I can than evaluate the situation across the whole width easily.
Jim

[Jim Koepke]

Jim, I don't think the plane pictured will do it.

The #5-1/2 was mostly being used to clean up the edge a bit. Draw knives were also used on it some today. My intent was to get it somewhat straight and vertical to the bench. Then it was marked out to approximate the finished dimensions:

406312

A level was used to mark out how the end will eventually appear:

406313

Using a pair of dividers the vertical height of the piece was transferred to the far end. The level was used to mark out the top line. From there a chalk line was used to mark the side:

406315

A scrub plane was used to make a flat area along the higher side of the length:

406316

Sighting from the end there were some high spots to take out. The scrub plane was used to go with the grain to knock down the high areas:

406314

My plan is to get this straight and square enough to allow it to be run through the bandsaw to speed up the dimensioning. Our daughter and boyfriend are coming over for the weekend to help around the place. Hopefully two of us can handle feeding this through the bandsaw.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

My daughter's boyfriend, Matt, was very helpful getting the biga hunka wood cut today. A pair of saw horses as tall as the bandsaw table were built to assist in this endeavor:

406472

There are shims attached to the horses to get to the exact height. My first thought was to feed the work over the length of the horses. That didn't work. So this set up was to allow the beam to rest on the horse and the bandsaw. The horses were positioned a little further away from the bandsaw than the center of the beam on both ends. This helps to keep the beam from becoming unbalanced and trying to lift itself up.

The first cut was made by attaching a 1X6 past the edge of the beam to run against the fence. The weight of the beam caused a bit of flex on the fence. Clamping a block against it fixed that. A 1X1 was also attached to the beam on the inside of the cut to help balance the work as the first edge cut was made. That allowed us to make a face cut using the part that was planed to ride against the fence:

406473

This side received a bit of planing before deciding removing as much as an inch in some places was better done with a bandsaw.

For anyone who is interested the bandsaw had a new 3/4" blade installed before starting.

Also remember when using a push stick on a band saw, if it is above the table and in-line with the blade, at the end of the cut the blade is going to grab it and knock it against the table. DAMHIKT! :eek:

Oh joy, now there is a whole lot more planing to do.

jtk

[bill epstein]

A stout wall and a pair of sawhorses works for me.

I begin planing at one end and butt the other against the wall, working a little more than half way down. Then turn it around. The Central Pacific and Union Pacific are then joined with less troublesome lighter shavings on the bench top.

[Jim Koepke]

The edge opposite from this edge has been flattened and squared with the face. Before removing the saw marks and smoothing this edge it is checked for the amount of out of square. There is a meaning, at least to me, as to what the markings mean as to where and how much wood needs to be removed:

407193

This can also be helpful finding any high/low areas on the face.

After cleaning up the edge and planing it square to the face the piece was checked for parallel edges using an Odd Jobs as a depth gauge:

407194

This plank’s edges were out of parallel by ~1/8”. This was fairly easy to remedy with a little bit of planing and checking.

The thinest part of the plank is about 3”. This was set on the Odd Jobs and lines were drawn on the edges in preparation for working the last face. Since on the high side this was about 3/8” a #5-1/4 was used to chamfer the edge as a gauge for how far the work is progressing:

407195

After this it was time to scrub away:

407196

By dinner time the shavings were piled on the bench as high as the work. Even more were on the floor. There are still some spots as much as 1/8” high to take down.

May have to get out the winding sticks to keep it flat.

jtk

[ken hatch]

Jim,

You the man. My back hurts just looking at the photos. One of the reasons I may have built my last workbench is wrestling that size timber, it's too much for one OF to handle.

BTW, the slab is looking good.

ken

[Jim Koepke]

The chamfer mentioned in my last post was a little less than 1/8” from the scribed pencil line. When the bottom edge of the chamfer was reached the final chamfer was taken down to the line. The chamfer area was marked with an old dull carpenters pencil. This lets me see when the desired depth is being reached:

407293

There are many ways to make a point on one of these flat pencils. They can be cut to a razor edge to track in pin and wheel gauge marks. They can also be left very dull to make heavier marks.

Using a #6 reminded me of a recent thread about leaving marks with a plane. It also reminded me of something read long ago about ‘reading the shavings.’ Notice the difference of the shavings:

407292

The one on the right is a short shaving typical when planing over an area taken down by a scrub plane. It is full or nearly full width.

The shavings in the plane are narrow ribbons. That indicates a lot of nicks in the blade. If there is a constant area where the shaving is coming out split, it is likely due to a nick in the blade.

This hunk of wood does have a few knots which are hard on a blade. This plane was being used for a lot of heavier transverse work. Shaving across or at an angle to the grain tends to peel shavings as much as slicing. Also when the shavings are heavier the nicks do not have as much of an effect on them.

Before a chance encounter with someone wanting to sell a #40, my scrub plane was an old beat to heck and back #5-1/4. So after using it today, something made me dig out a spare blade, put a camber on it and try out a #5 as a scrub plane:

407291

From the bottom they are, a #40, #5-1/4 and a #5 set up as scrub planes:

407290

These are the blades:

407289

Each of these seems to have its own particular usefulness in the progression from heavy hogging of wood to taking down the rough areas getting ready for the smoothing.

The cambers were done by eye without any thought given to the radius. The #40 is cambered as it was when purchased.

jtk

[William Fretwell]

Yes Jim that is a good work out. I’ve been planing up some poplar also (4x4 and 4x6). What is surprising is how light it is after it has dried out. Bench tops are better heavy so your combined wood top will add more weight.
What style of bench are you planning?
The massive single stretcher leg design with wedges gets my vote, half way between the floor and bench top. The bench does not move or vibrate even, it just sits there.

[Jim Koepke]

Yes Jim that is a good work out.

It seems to be a good cardio workout. With everything else going on my shop time is limited to a few hours on days not consumed doing greenhouse or garden work.


What style of bench are you planning?

It will be kind of a cross between a split top Rubo and a Nicholson bench with a short apron around the top. The plan is for a twin screw tail vise across the full width. For one face vise my plan is to make it so it movable. One idea rolling around in my head is to make it so it can be moved from the back face position to the front face as a second vise to help support long pieces in the main face vise. The main face vise will be a modern copy of a pattern makers vise.

As far as weight goes, the two main pieces for the top are each heavier than my current bench without the bucket of cement that holds it in place.

Over the years some decent 4X6 material has been acquired for the legs.

There will at least be a shelf under the bench. Haven't decided if there will be some drawers or a second shelf. One of the problems that seems to plague every shop is space to store things like holdfasts, shims, sanding blocks, bench hooks, shooting boards and all other sort of things.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

This hunk of wood is finally getting close to the finish line. After the scrub planes removed a lot of the excess wood planes sized from a #5-1/2 to a #8 were used to work on flattening the surface. As the work got along, the far end was checked for square to the edges. Being found square and flat the winding stick target was set at that end and the sighting stick was set toward the close end. It revealed a bit of tilt:

407346

The image isn't real clear. It indicates the left side is still a bit high. Also while moving it away from the target it revealed a high spot running down the center. This was fairly easy to take down with the #8 traversing the piece.

Then it was time for smoothing:

407347

The traverse planing leaves a slightly fuzzy surface. Set to take a light shaving, the #3 is one of my favorites for smoothing. At times a #4-1/2 was also used.

The scrub planes left tear out around some of the knots more than 1/8" deep. Going over this area with try planes and jointers skewed help to reduce the tear out. Very light shavings and skewing the smoothers helped to remove the tear out:

407348

After some final checks on this piece it will be time to start working on the lumber for the base.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Today allowed some shop time. The 4X6 pieces for the legs were dug out of the wood pile.

Using the cam set up to hold the longest took a little redesign to get it to hold:

408350

There is a block and a shim between the cam on the left and the back fence on the bench. The piece of scrap in the face vise is pressed against the right cam. At the far end some blocking was rigged up to prevent lateral movement. Later it dawned on me to just put the sanding blocks in the end vise to hold the tail end of the work.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Took a little time from yard, garden and greenhouse work today to make some shavings.

When working with older lumber or pieces stored for a while, it may be a good idea to run a scraper or piece of broken saw blade over the surface. This will rid it of dust, sand, pitch or other nasties wanting to foul your plane blades.

The shorter pieces are easier to hold:

408753

With two rows of dog holes, this is a convenient stop to use. The work can still shift from side to side. If the plane isn't lifted on the back stroke you may develop a theory on why lifting planes on the back stroke got started.

In this image a second stop is in the tail vise. This helps to keep the work from shifting when using a hollow to round the corners.

This is the post where they were first used:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?261911

They have come in handy for a few projects.

jtk

[James Pallas]

Good deal Jim. I remember that post and have adapted it for use a few times. Work holding is part of woodworking that is an art in itself. Having lots of methods solves lots of problems that can become huge obstacles. Sage advice on scraping first too. Wind blown sand has ruined many a perfectly sharpened edge.
Jim

[Jim Koepke]

Sage advice on scraping first too. Wind blown sand has ruined many a perfectly sharpened edge.

And it only took me a couple of spoiled blades to figure it out. :D

Some of these have been sitting in my shop for a few years. They came from the Home Depot markdown wood piles at different times. All together they cost me less than $10. That is pretty good for a little more than 12' of 4X6.

When time becomes available the base layout needs to be drawn out.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Wow, it has been awhile since much work has been done on this project. Two decks, a few of other small projects and many other things to pull me away from 'the big one.'

My first plan for this bench was to use hunks of 4X6 acquired from the reject bin at the Orange Borg. The sight of some 6X6 lumber at Wilco being used in displays instilled a little lumber envy. It got me to consider laminating some ash to the 4X6.

The final adjustment of one piece to remove a localized hump:

416028

The final fit had a few thousandths of spring in the middle.

Holes were bored to use dowels for aligning the two pieces. A depth gauge was used when boring the 4X6:

416029

One has to be careful to stop when the gauge touches the surface. Continuing will pull the auger in and cause the gauge to move up the bit. If doing a lot of boring to the same depth it is wise to have a quick way to check the gauge after each use. This is also a good idea if one is using a piece of tape as a gauge.

With the holes bored the dowel pins are inserted. Here a clamp is holding pieces of scrap to guide the ash lamination into place:

416030

The piece to be laminated is carefully aligned and lowered on to the dowel pins. When it is in place it is pressed down on to the pins, making an impression for setting aligning a drill bit.

In this case the gauge used during the boring of holes on the 4X6s was set at one inch. One of my habits is to count the number of turns of an auger bit once the cutting edges start removing shavings. In this case it was ~30 turns. When boring the ash, only 10 turns were used so the lead screw wouldn't penetrate. The dowels were cut to 1-1/4" and tested in a dry fit.

As much as folks hate junk mail, it is one of the best sources of free glue spreaders:

416031

These can also be used as shoe horns. They come in handy in the kitchen when scraping gunk off of a plate or cookware. Keep a couple in the car for scraping frost off the windshield. They can be used once and tossed or they can be cleaned and used again. Titebond® is easy to scrape off when it dries.

416032

No brush or roller to worry about.

Got close to using all my clamps:

416033

There was still about a half dozen to go.

So much more to plan and do before this project is done.

jtk

[ken hatch]

Jim,

Your description of moving big hunks of hunking wood brought a smile. It ain't easy for us OFs.

ken

[Jim Koepke]

Jim,

Your description of moving big hunks of hunking wood brought a smile. It ain't easy for us OFs.

ken

My folks used to have a furniture and appliance store. My father taught me a lot about getting something to move without hurting myself or over expending my efforts.

Though trying to move a leg being laminated off the bench with all those clamps was one of my harder movings of a hunk of weighty wood in awhile.

jtk

[Jerry Olexa]

Nice work, Jim....Looking good.

[Charles Heaps]

I chuckled over your "I Love Lucy" reference in the thread title.:) I appreciate your thorough description of each step and technique that you employ. For example, I had never seen the string leveling technique before. Glad to have that one filed away for future use now.

[Jim Koepke]

I chuckled over your "I Love Lucy" reference in the thread title.:) I appreciate your thorough description of each step and technique that you employ. For example, I had never seen the string leveling technique before. Glad to have that one filed away for future use now.

Howdy Charlesm welcome to the Creek and thank you for your reply on the "I Love Lucy" reference.

Stanley Covington used to post some great tutorials and how to pieces that many enjoyed. The string technique was one he shared. Others also posted how they have used string in similar ways.

It was discussed in this thread:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?258087-Ancient-Tools-The-Stringline

It is possible to find some of a person's old posts:

416147

Click on a person's name on one of their posts, then click on "View Forum Posts."

It will open a page with the person's posts.

Beware, reading Mr. Covington's posts can keep a person engaged for hours.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

It has been awhile for me to add anything to this project. Hopefully a deal more can be done before most of my time has to be directed to other projects around the property needing to be done.

One of the vises for this bench will a pattern maker’s vise purchased from Woodcraft. Often these are mounted proud of the front edge of the vise. My preference has been for a vise flush with the front. A piece of scrap was used to see how far back into the top of a bench the vise could be set and still maintain its full range of movement:

426833

The layout on the bench top was initially done using a copy of the template in the installation instructions:

426834

The set back was then incorporated in to this as the work was being done.

First was cutting a channel for the vise’s screw and its housing:

426835

For jobs like this it is nice to have a large back saw. There were two dogs on the side seen here. The other side was secured by a pair of wedges clamped agains two more dogs:

426836

This is where having some big chisels comes in handy:

426837

When cutting through dados it helps to avoid unwanted blow out by chamfering the waste on the far side down to the bottom of the dado:

426838

One of my rabbet planes (Stanley #90 ’steel cased’) came in handy for cleaning up the dado. A lot more cutting, chopping, paring, slicing and checking:

426839

Having removed the hinge from the vise made it easy to test the fit:

426840

The hinge originally had a little play in it. It probably doesn’t matter much in use but it kind of bothered me. That was my original reason for removing the hinge so the pins could be shimmed a little to remove the wiggle.

If anyone is interested images of removing the hinge can be posted. It was already included in a different thread about a pattern vise. It is unknown to me if other pattern maker’s vises use two pins instead of one through pin. This vise uses two.

More to follow as time allows.

jtk

[Jerry Olexa]

thanks for posting....GOOD PROJECT WELL DONE!!!

[lowell holmes]

I don't know why, but this showed up on my computer today. I am glad it did.
I always thought Jim is a bit of a show off and now I know he is.;)

[Jim Koepke]

After some more sawing and a lot of chisel work the vise mounting mortise was finished:

426870

Yesterday some time was spent working on the apron:

426871

This is the surface that will be on top. Some folks prefer a bench without an apron. That is fine. This bench will also have a tool tray, another ‘bad idea’ in the minds of many.

The glue edge was smoothed up a bit before final fitting:

426872

This image is mostly to show the set up to secure the piece while it was being worked. The squeeze clamp at the close end with a couple of dogs on the right and dogs & wedges clamped on the left. This allows for planing along the length as well as transverse planing while preventing the work from sliding around.

Part of my plan for the apron is to be able to include a sliding dead man when desired. The edges of the 3/4” slot were lain out with a gauge and then plowed:

426873

This is something that can be made easier with a liberal application of wax. A sharp blade is also helpful.

As the slot is becoming established it might help to loosen the screws on the movable skate and pinch it a hair. This will help alleviate binding of the skates, a common problem with the Stanley #45.

Another common problem is mis-registration. With deep slots and even with beads a moment of inattention can spoil the work.

The instructions suggest starting at the far end of the work, then gradually working back toward the beginning of the detail being cut.

For easier registration it may be helpful to set the plane into the work and then pull it back until the blade is at the start of the work:

426874

Then proceed forward.

After the slot was cut, the sharp corners were smoothed with a #2 hollow:

426875

Hopefully more work can be done on this soon. There are a few things on the base that need some thought.

jtk