Newbie question on bench plane use with hard wood

[Ron Walkup]

Hello, new here to the site, and have a question for all the hand tool experts. I'm new to the use of hand planes, but needed one to help flatten a table top, so just acquired one. The plane I selected is a 5 1/4 Veritas bench plane, which is a beautiful tool. I've done a fair bit of reading and am pretty sure it is set up correctly. Initially, I just honed the microbevel (35 degrees per the instructions), and it would cut soft wood nicely. However, my table top is white oak, very hard, and of course that means full-width shavings. Initially, I could not get the plane to budge, just wanted to dig into the surface, even with a very minor amount of exposed blade. So the instructions said to add a shallow back-bevel to the blade (I used 10 degrees). Now I can get results, but have to use short, very forceful strokes, with a bit of a "running start"; definitely not a smooth continuous stroke. There are lots of videos out there showing guys making smooth surface planing strokes for several feet without stopping, mostly on walnut or some unknown stock. And this size of plane ("jack plane", "fore plane") is supposed to be good at hogging out wood as opposed to super-thin shavings.

So here are my questions:
1. Should I have been able to make a continuous face shaving out of the box with this plane, with no back bevel ?
2. I realize that the back bevel increases the force necessary by increasing the effective planing angle, but even with that, should I be able to make a continuous stroke on this stock?
3. What do you think is most likely my issue (e.g., blade *still* not quite sharp enough, no camber on blade edge, technique, other?)

I have the chip breaker between 1/32 and 1/16th back, the mouth opening about 1/16, and am taking shavings between .002 and .008. I am fairly strong, or at least that has never been my issue with the use of a tool before.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Prashun Patel]

You don’t need a back bevel normally. I suspect you just had the blade too far projected. It might be easier to dial it in on a softer piece of wood.

Also, the chip breaker should be set closer to the edge. This will help prevent the blade from diving in and tearing out.

[William Fretwell]

Ron, I’m sure you will get lots of advice on blade angles and use. I’ve never had an edge tool ready for use out of the box, except my Barr chisels. Many on here don’t use back bevels, myself included. I sharpen my bevel down planes at 25 degrees. Most of my work is hardwood.
So to answer your questions in order: Yes you should not need a back bevel, no it won’t work out of the box. Yes even with a back bevel you can get good shavings, depending on the wood and how sharp your edge.

Your main issue is learning to sharpen your edge. It takes time to sharpen well, good technique essential, good stones nice to have but even simple oil stones can get a good edge. As for bevels, experiment; decide for yourself. Back bevels are a pain to remove to regain a good edge.

Your plane is capable of very fine results, long shavings, full width. You just need some time and sharpening practice. I would practice with the chip breaker very close to the blade edge, it will have to be behind the back bevel until you remove it.

[Andrew Seemann]

You generally don't hog white oak unless you have a scrub plane or a jack with a heavy camber. Your looking to do more of a finish planing, which is going to be a full width shaving. I'm still pretty strong for my age, but even I tend to prefer a #3 on white oak (the same width but shorter than you 5 1/4) over a #4. My guess is that you are either are trying to take too thick of a shaving, or you rounded the edge when you did your secondary/micro bevel. This is much easier to do than most folks new to sharpening realize. I generally don't do any back bevels, short of slightly raising the blade when flattening the back so the force is directed at the edge of the blade. When you do your secondary/micro bevel, realize you are only doing the very edge of the blade somewhere around 30 - 35 degrees and you only need to do it for a few seconds on the stone. Each time you touch up the blade, it will take a little longer as you are removing more material. You redo the primary bevel when it takes annoyingly long to touch up the secondary bevel.

Sharpening isn't hard, but it isn't easy to pick up from a video or book or blog. If possible, have someone experienced show you how. If you give your location and are nearby, one of us old salts would probably be happy to show you (it makes us feel useful and knowledgeable).

The same thing goes for planing, it isn't hard, but it takes a little while to get the hang of it. I wouldn't start with a table top you want to be nice while you are learning, particularly a white oak one especially if it has any vertical grain. You are going to tear grain out, leave ridges, and possibly chip out the edges. If you have a random orbit sander, break down and use that, and gradually work your way into hand planing.

[Dave Parkis]

Do you know of any good woodworkers near you? Most would he happy to teach you how to sharpen and set up the plane. One other thing I would suggest is to double check and make sure you're going with the grain. Just my $.02

[Gary Focht]

Having never planed white oak, take this with a grain of salt.

-No back bevel, unless needed to prevent tear out, but chip breaker should handle that if set closely.

-There is what you think is sharp when new to planing, and then there is really sharp. Really sharp makes a difference.

-Ease the the corners of the blade or put a slight camber on the blade.

-Wax the sole of the plane. It is amazing how much difference wax makes in how easy it is to push the plane. Apply wax often.

[Tom Trees]

Have you got a decent reference for working to?
A long straight edge, spirit level, or two long planks that you can joint the edges on, making both absolutely parallel so you can check them against each other.
I.e... Flip one over to double the error if there's any spooning happening for want of a better word.https://i.ibb.co/F3JYBx4/pic-2.jpg

I use a temporary bench top of composite material and shim accordingly, the testing beams should be the length of the bench if you are doing the same,
or if you are making a straight edge long enough to get reference for your table top, make sure its the length of the work.
A long reach angle poise regular old school lamp with 60w bulb is the tool for the job, none of these horrible LED lamps, they are not very good for the job atall.

Bearing in mind I haven't seen the shavings...
To me it sounds like you were taking too heavy a cut, and going by technique alone.
To take a shaving at the depth you are cutting now probably requires more camber (timber permitting)
Saying that you can get into bother a lot faster if you had such a setting without decent reference.
Either way you need the reference in the end, and to be productive and accurate


I don't know what size your table top is, so unsure if you can use the bench as reference for spotting high spots in contact with the bench.https://i.ibb.co/LJ0cyyb/Candling-2.jpg
But you get the idea that you would advance the cutter working on the ends of this example shown.

Not so easy with a tabletop, so you will need the straight edge and rely on the lamp, along with checking
if the straight edge will spin like a propellor in the middle or pivots from each edge whilst checking from the other end.
Look up David Charlesworth for stopped shavings as it explains it better than anyone "full stop."


The flatter things go your cut will get slightly heavier as your not just skimming over the high areas.
This might not be that noticeable but maybe a factor also.


I don't know if your frog is set forward, which is much less effective than using the cap iron and makes it real real hard to push
You have a back bevel now, so have temporarily disabled the cap from working until its gone.
I hope the bevel isn't that large.
The back bevel technique is only suitable for thin shavings, compared to a more versatile cap iron what you can set at a reduced influence setting and set it closer when/if needed.
Set the frog all the way back and experiment with the cap iron if you're getting tearout it will eliminate it completely.

Get some candle wax or canning wax will make the plane take off when you get things right.

It would be nice to have two planes for the job here, one with a bit more camber than the other
Have you got another plane?

Tom

[Tom Trees]

Another thing is material deflection, ,make sure the work is supported if needed.
Easing the corners is absolute blasphemy I say :rolleyes:

[steven c newman]

Meh....
419451
Wood is ash. Plane is a Millers Falls No. 14 (#5 size)....jointing two edges at once, for a glue joint..
419452
Other plane is a Stanley #5-1/2....
419453
Panel was then trimmed and then raised..
419454
End grain with a #3 and #4....long grain was with the jack plane.....

[Jim Koepke]

Howdy Ron and welcome to the Creek.

As others have stated, sharp cures many ills.

If the blade frog and all are tight and securely in place, then it might be the depth of cut causing your problem. One way is to sneak up on the setting by retracting the blade until it doesn't engage the wood. Then while moving the plane over the work slowly advance the blade until it just starts cutting. After this you may have to adjust the lateral setting of the blade.

An old post on the subject might be of help > https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?148076

There is a post at the end with more information about setting the cap iron closer to the edge. What is in the original post has worked for me in most cases. Setting the cap iron super close is best used when the wood has a shifting grain.

It is from the Neanderthal archives > https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?103805

jtk

[Robert Hazelwood]

Face planing can be pretty tough, especially at first. A lot tougher than planing a 3/4" edge like most demonstrations show. It's real work!

The issue is the shaving width. A full width shaving for that plane is 2" wide. For a hard wood like white oak, if you are taking a 2" wide shaving even at 0.002" thick, it is going to be very difficult to push. It's just going to stop you in your tracks at 0.008". I like to take full width shavings for my final passes, with a smoothing plane (same 2" width), but I am probably taking shavings that are 0.001" or less. So that's one approach, to take full width shavings but keep the shaving depth very small.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that if you set up for a very thin shaving and the surface is not very flat, you will not be taking shavings except in a handful of high spots. It will feel like basically nothing is happening. The temptation is to think you don't have enough blade projection, so you increase the setting and then all of a sudden get stopped in your tracks. What you need to do is stick with your very conservative depth setting, and work down those high spots until they become larger and merge into the general table surface. Eventually you will be able to get those long shavings.

Now if you have much material to remove, that will be very slow. And you have to keep the blade very very sharp to take 1 thou shavings, so you will be sharpening frequently. There is a way to take thicker shavings, and that is to narrow the shaving width by shaping the edge of the iron into a curve. The more curve on the edge, the narrower the shaving. With a dramatic curve you can take very thick shavings, like almost 1/32", even in white oak, but the shaving will be maybe 1/2" wide.

Typically you have about three bench planes in your arsenal to deal with face planing, and the most important difference between them is the amount of camber (curve) on the irons. The jack plane has the most, and is used to take heavy shavings on rough lumber to remove the worst of the high spots and twist. The try plane has a modest camber, and takes wider shavings. It takes the scalloped surface left by the jack plane down to something flat, where it can be followed by the smoother taking very thin shavings with an iron that is just barely cambered.

So, what kind of shape is your tabletop in? If this is your only plane, I would go ahead and put a modest camber on it. Assuming you are sharpening with a jig, you add the camber on your medium stone by alternating the pressure from side to side. So 10 strokes with the pressure concentrated on the left, then 10 concentrated on the right, followed by a few strokes where you move the pressure from side to side to blend everything together. Repeat this on the finish stone. Now set the plane for about a 0.002 shaving (I would set this by planing an edge of a test piece in the vise, that's the easiest way. Use the lateral adjuster to center the curve, so the deepest part of the cut is in the center. Now see what happens on your table top. The shaving should be a bit narrower, and it should be easier to push. Maybe you can even increase the depth some. If you want to go even deeper, add some more camber next time you sharpen. If you decide at some point that you want less camber, just sharpen normally without the alternating pressure, instead keeping the pressure in the center only.

[Robert Hazelwood]

About the back bevel- get rid of it. It's just going to add to the force required. Hopefully you kept it very small, so you just need to work the bevel side on your stones until its gone.

Set the chipbreaker at around 1/64". I wouldn't bother trying to measure that, but its going to seem very close. If you have a modest camber on your blade, the straight edge of the chipbreaker should be almost touching the edge at the corners of the iron, with the center of the iron protruding a bit more. That should be in the right ballpark. If the shavings are getting crinkled and accordion-like, the chipbreaker is too close. When its set just right the shavings will seem to jump straight out of the plane instead of curling up. For now I would err on the side of having it set back too far, rather than too close. My suggestion above should mitigate egregious tearout but not require too much extra force. White oak is usually not too bad about tearout, so you shouldn't need a super close setting (I don't consider 1/64 to be super close, though this varies with shaving thickness. At 1/32 the breaker isn't doing much of anything). Just try to plane with the grain as much as possible, should be doable on a tabletop.

[Tom M King]

I was going to post something, but I read Robert's posts before I started. I don't need to add anything to what he said, because I absolutely agree with every point he made. All the information needed is already in good posts in this thread.

[lowell holmes]

https://www.hidemysearches.com/images?eq=8DC1uy6a7dFFxoFCnqJKQ0rCNUCf2k%2baWc1Qr8 0Jy9A%3d&ett=1&ptc=://mail

[Nicholas Lawrence]

Lots of good advice above. My only observation is that if the panel is not flat, you are not going to get full width, full length shavings with a plane. The full width, full length shavings are one of the indicators you are getting to flat.

Start with the iron retracted, and advance little by little until the iron catches. Keep in mind that if it is catching on a low spot, it can be too aggressive when you get to a high spot.

[Lee Schierer]

One point not mentioned above was grain direction. In my experience every piece of wood will plane easier from one direction than it will from the other. You need to read the grain and plane so the grain ends exposed on the surface are leaning --> /////// not --->\\\\\\ . Also take a paraffin candle and scribble on the sole of your plane every few strokes. You will be amazed at how it reduces the friction and makes planing easier.

[Ron Walkup]

Wow, what a great site! I'm amazed at all the good info here ... especially from a bunch of "neanderthals". :)
Seriously, all these tips are great. It's especially comforting to know not to expect anything but thin shavings with oak and a straight-across blade.
After reading the responses, I re-honed the blade, trying Robert's technique to give it a little camber. I made sure the chip breaker was set as close as I could (given the back bevel; haven't quite gotten rid of that yet.) Then I waxed up the sole, and dialed the adjuster down to give very thin shavings. Now it seems a *lot* better! It still will catch sometimes, but not as often or as bad as before. I think after I get rid of the back bevel, give it a bit more camber (right now I can't even really see much when sighting across the blade width), and refine my sharpening technique (better stones too), things will improve even more.

A big thanks for all the replies. I'm looking forward to being part of the site, and learning more from all you experts. :)

[chris carter]

Sounds like it's working well. The only thing I would add is that with white oak (which I hate, btw), is that it can help a ton to skew the plane diagonally from the direction you are pushing. This allows the blade to make more of a slicing cut than a pushing cut. Slicing is always less effort than pushing. The downside is the width of your cut will be less so you'll have to do more strokes to cover the same area as there's no such thing as a free lunch. But whenever I'm having a tough time with really hard stuff and I don't want to reduce the cutting any further, skewing the plane works wonders.

[Robert Hazelwood]

Glad it's working better. The learning curve is kind of steep at first. I remember my early ventures with a plane, and one of the biggest revelations was just how little blade projection you actually need, and how flat the surface needs to be before it starts to work like you think it should. As you gain experience and develop muscle memory/coordination for the planing motion, you'll probably be able to push a bigger shaving than you can now. But for now just try to set a shaving where you can easily control the plane. The next hurdle will probably be figuring out exactly where to plane to make it flat, and figuring out why you can't take shavings at certain spots.

[Marinus Loewensteijn]

I've not read the whole thread, for what it is worth if I need to remove a lot of materal I start out with planing diagonally to the grain and only towards the end start going more with the grain. First in one direction diagonally, then in another direction diagonally. Being afflicted with arthritis I am fond of using the old Stanley #5-1/4 Junior Jack plane which is the same width as the #3 but longer. The other item is that during manufacture the sole of a plane gets ground and that is not as smooth as a plane that has been used a lot, candle wax is your friend. FWIW there was even a short period that Stanley made a plane that had an "oiler" in front of the knob!

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Where do you live? Someone may live near you. I am in the center of Ohio; for example. If you lived near me, I could provide another opinion on "is it sharp" and also provide a few extra planes that we could try against the wood.

[Jim Koepke]

Where do you live? Someone may live near you. I am in the center of Ohio; for example. If you lived near me, I could provide another opinion on "is it sharp" and also provide a few extra planes that we could try against the wood.

If you are in the Pacific Northwest you have the same offer as Andrew's from me.

jtk

[Gerald Schram]

ron if you wanted thicker shavings to remove more wood plane diagonally across the board, but you'll have to clean it up by going with the grain.

[Stew Denton]

Hi Ron,

Of course you will get good advise "from a bunch "neanderthals"".....that is when the topic is flint napping a flint spear point. (Or, getting a woodworking bench plane to work well.)

Regards,

Stew

[Ron Walkup]

Well, by really learning to dial in the blade projection and keeping the blade sharp, I've finally finished with the planing of the table top (top/visible side) and most of the sanding. I was able to see for myself how these tools actually flatten using the diagonal stroke plan. Kind of amazing, really: run your hand over an area and discover some minor undulations, then after about 30 seconds of diagonal strokes, it's all flat. Equivalent of tons of sanding but more more controllable, and fun (I hate long-running sanding jobs). Table top may not be perfect, but overall it's pretty nice.
Next topic will be how to deal with minor tear-out or other blemishes, but I'm headed to the "finisher" forum for that one. :)
Thanks again!

[Robert Hazelwood]

Fixing minor tearout might be best done with a bit more planing. Are you sure you were planing with the grain? Assuming the table is made up of several boards, each board might have a different grain direction. If you notice this you can change planing directions for each board. Sometimes a board has wavy grain and the grain direction changes along its length. Also if there are knots, or if there is any wood that was near a knot, the grain will change direction dramatically around that.

Assuming you can't simply plane with the grain, there are three ways to avoid tearout (not including having a sharp blade- that should be a given). First is to set a very thin shaving, second is to set the cap iron very close, third is to increase cutting pitch. I don't think you need the third here. But a combination of the first two should get you there.

So sharpen as good as you can, then set the cap iron to where you can just barely see a reflected glimmer of light from the iron, about as close as you can without going over the edge. That's about the setting you want for final smoothing. Then set the plane for a very fine cut- retract the blade and then make planing strokes on a test piece while slowly advancing the cutter until it just starts to cut. At this point you should be able to plane just about anything- knots, curly figure, etc, without tearout and without regard to grain direction.

If your table is nice and flat, then the idea with smoothing is to take a few passes along the grain with the goal being to get a thin full width shaving from beginning to end of each board on each stroke, with each stroke overlapping the previous by half. The surface has to be very flat to do this, and it usually takes several passes at least to get there. But once you get to that point you are done unless there are any flaws or lingering tearout. If so just keep doing more passes. Don't be surprised if you have to sharpen every few passes- you'll start getting dust instead of shavings. The thinnest shavings require the keenest edge. When you master the chipbreaker you can take thicker shavings to speed this up. For now I'd stick with the thinner shavings to be safe.


Another approach is to do spot removal on the areas with tearout. A #5 plane is a bit large for this- usually the lingering tearout will be in a low spot and the plane can't reach it. So a card scraper might help, if you know how to set up and use one. Be careful not to dig too deep a hole with it. A finely set smoothing plane can help even out after you're done with the card scraper, and you can blend everything in with sanding. If you avoid a glossy finish you will probably not notice the little low spots.