Plane wax... with a twist

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

Hi folks, normally I post questions, but today I want to share a useful tip I came up with (I'm not saying no one though of it before me, just that I had the idea on my own).

It started with my buying and disliking beeswax - for me it wasn't soft enough, and would smear well on the sole. I tried Jojoba oil which worked well for 5 seconds. frustrated I looked online and saw a video from WoodByWright on Youtube who suggested a mixture of 2:1 beeswax to BLO. I didn't have any oat hand but I did have Jojoba.

The "twist was that I am not a fan keeping a greasy chunk of wax in my pocket or in an opened container where it can get dirty. I looked for and eventually found empty twist deodorant bottles for sale - they come with a cap

here is the result:

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I can now carry it in my pocket, mess free, and only the part used is exposed to dirt. Very pleased. the diameter comes to 1-1/2" so it is a decent size for plane soles (when I started looking I considered lipstick containers).

So in case anyone finds this useful here are some tips: The container is for 2 oz., I mixed up 2 oz. jojoba oil and 4 oz. beeswax, and melted it in a small pot. I suggest you keep an eye on the pot, once it melts and is stirred let it cool to around 75°C (167°F). Beeswax melts at 65°C (150°F). Plastics have a varying melting point. on my first try I did an amazing job at melting the mechanism and creating a mess on the counter. on my second attempt I prepared a bowl of ice water, and let the wax cool on the stove (while mixing) until I was under 90°C (194°F)
I pored a little bit of the wax into the container and plunged its outside into the cold water. this let the wax harden and create a better seal against leaking. after that I filled it up with the rest of the wax and let it cool until hardened.

Works great! the downside to this was I tried using the wax on my No.8 and it flew so fast I lost balance and dropped it. had to file down a corner to get the sole flat again :(

Cheers!
Assaf

[Scott Winners]

This is an awesome thing Assaf.

Beeswax should ordinarily be melted in a double boiler. Flash point for beeswax, where it spontaneously bursts into flames in the presence of oxygen, is only 400dF (about 204 C). With a double boiler the risk of the beeswax just catching on fire all alone with no spark is dramatically reduced, reaching 400F/204C is fairly easy with direct heat on the top of a cook stove. I flashed canola oil once when I heated a Dutch oven above 700F on a camp fire, that was an exciting evening.

I will save my next empty deodorant container and give this a try. This might work well on the plates of handsaws as well as plane bodies.

Thanks

[Joe A Faulkner]

Clever idea. Who knows, it could inspire a Veritas version? The plastic disposable model, and the premium, refillable, stainless steel version with a walnut or flaming maple skin.

[Rob Luter]

Clever, but that seems like a lot of work. For me, beeswax is way too soft and sticky. I've been using household paraffin for years. A one pound box will last you forever. There are multiple slabs in the box. It's not greasy at all and doesn't attract dirt. Just rub a few swirls on the plane bottom and it makes it very slick. It's effective for a long time too. I'm not sure if this brand is available in Israel but I'm sure you have something similar.

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[Tom M King]

I have never waxed the bottom of a plane, other than maybe to try it once, but I really can't remember doing that. If you're pushing down on the plane hard enough for it to matter, you're using force you don't need to.

[mike stenson]

Really? It is a noticeable difference. Especially if you're taking off a good chunk of thickness.

[Mike Brady]

Very well thought out Assaf. I have tried most everything mentioned in this thread and concluded that canning wax (exactly as shown in Rob's post) is the best (for me). Bee's wax in solid form is really sticky, and good for helping drive screws into hard wood. I found it to be not as good for making planes glide on wood. in fact, I have the same beeswax sticks in my shop, literally gathering dust for years, which they do, easily.

[Warren Mickley]

I agree with Tom. I used wax for a little while when starting out, but then I read that oil was nicer for an iron plane. I usually don't use anything, but occasionally use a drop of oil for some woods.

When I bought a nice beech trying plane 43 years ago the previous owner told me to use wax and it would go "Whoooosh". I planed the bottom with a smoothing plane and have used it on every board since, but no wax or oil or grease.

[Tom M King]

This is one of my many planes. It is a wooden one, but the wear on it is from sweat, and use. It never had wax on the sole. You might notice that most of the wear is from shavings going up in front of the iron.

I had a friend watching me plane some boards once, using no. 6's if I'm remembering correctly. He asked why I didn't pick it up when I pulled it back. I told him I did. He said it didn't look like it. I asked him to listen for any dragging sound when I pulled it back. He said there was none. Efficiency is not doing any more than you need to.

The force using a plane only needs to be almost all forward. That "almost all" is hard to describe with words. None is needed down. If you notice a difference, you are pushing down too hard.

[mike stenson]

Wooden planes need no wax, that I agree with. I'm talking about iron fore and trying planes. I don't bother with smoothers much either, unless it's a big piece. With that said, taking an eighth of thickness on multiple 2'x3' boards, with a no5, waxing the bed is noticeably easier.

Edit: all of this is why I haven't bought an iron plane since the first wooden one, but most of the iron ones I use now were my grandfathers or my great uncles. So there's some sentiment.

[Tom M King]

Here's a video of me using no. 6's to flatten a panel. These have never had wax on the sole. If it mattered, I'd wax them. There were 32 of these for exterior shutters. They didn't need to be as flat as for a table top, but this was plenty good enough for what they were for. Plane track surface texture was to match other original work in this 1850 house. None of these planes have ever had their soles waxed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SED7B65cppM

[Jim Koepke]

This sounds like a job for someone with a fishing type pull scale.

Try a few passes without wax pulling a plane using the scale and a cord.

Then wax the sole and again try a few passes in the same manner without changing anything else.

Not sure if Candy has a fish scale in her tackle box.

jtk

[mike stenson]

Well Jim, to be honest I don't care how hard others choose to work. Or how they choose to work in general. The coefficient of friction exists, none of us can deny that. I'm also not thicknessing with a machine most of the time.

[Jim Koepke]

Well Jim, to be honest I don't care how hard others choose to work. Or how they choose to work in general. The coefficient of friction exists, none of us can deny that. I'm also not thicknessing with a machine most of the time.

Please don't get me wrong Mike. My planes & saws get waxed more often than me. :eek:

Simple logic tells us a lubricated plane will pass over a surface with less resistance than an unlubricated plane.

The scale challenge would prove the point.

jtk

[Tom M King]

The pull test is not a valid one. That puts the weight of the plane on the board. The weight of the plane is in my hands. It barely kisses the board.

I'm not suggesting that everyone not wax a plane. I'm just saying it's not worth the time to me, and it should not be considered a necessity.

edited to add: Using taking the hump off of those panels as an example. Since you only want to take the hump off, you don't want the iron touching the sides that you want to leave, so pushing down on the plane would make it a lot more complicated. The iron is in the wood only where you want it to be.

[Frederick Skelly]

Clever, but that seems like a lot of work. For me, beeswax is way too soft and sticky. I've been using household paraffin for years. A one pound box will last you forever. There are multiple slabs in the box. It's not greasy at all and doesn't attract dirt. Just rub a few swirls on the plane bottom and it makes it very slick. It's effective for a long time too. I'm not sure if this brand is available in Israel but I'm sure you have something similar.

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+1 ........

[Bob Jones 5443]

I have no doubt that Tom is right –– we don't need downward force. I still find myself pressing down hard, but only with my left thumb, in front of the blade. It gives me some confidence that I'm not going to lift the plane up and "miss a spot." I freely admit I am a hand-plane user of little skill, but using the steps I've been shown I get the results I envision nearly every time. So I wax.

I use a squiggle down the sole, from a 5-inch-long block of white wax, about 3/4 x 3/4 square –– about the size of a Snickers bar. It probably came from Ace Hardware 25 years ago, and it seems like it will last forever. I also use it on wood screws before driving them in by hand, and sometimes on the glides of our sliding glass doors.

[Luke Dupont]

Just one question: considering that BLO dries and becomes hard, is this not a problem using it on tools? I imagine that if you put some on the sole of your plane and let it sit around a while, it might start hardening and gum up the sole of your plane. But, that's purely my imagination, not based on experience in any way.

I usually just use mineral oil or beeswax + mineral oil (often sold for cutting board finishes and the like)

[Jim Koepke]

Just one question: considering that BLO dries and becomes hard, is this not a problem using it on tools? I imagine that if you put some on the sole of your plane and let it sit around a while, it might start hardening and gum up the sole of your plane. But, that's purely my imagination, not based on experience in any way.

I usually just use mineral oil or beeswax + mineral oil (often sold for cutting board finishes and the like)

BLO isn't really the best lubricant for a plane sole. It might be okay on wooden planes but it can turn black in time.

Most often my plane soles get swiped with a hunk of candle wax that rests on the bench. Other times my planes are wiped with a rag saturated with Howard's Feed 'N Wax, a blend of beeswax, Brazilian carnauba wax, mineral oil, and orange oil.

There is no affiliation between me and the makers of Howard's wood finishing products. It is a good product in my opinion.

jtk

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

there is a good chance I misremembered BLO, if you watch the WoodByWright channel, he uses it for everything. I just checked. he uses regular linseed oil, not BLO. still a drying oil...

[chris carter]

For the people who say that waxing the soles of their bench planes didn’t help, I’d be curious to know what kind of wax you used. Beeswax is not exactly slippery. Paraffin canning wax, however, is slippery as heck. I remember when I first applied Gulf wax (from the grocery store canning section in most U.S. stores) to a metal bodied plane and it was shocking how much easier it was to push. Granted, there are certainly operations where it’s not worth the effort to grab the piece of wax from your tool tray or pocket or wherever you store it. But if I need to do a lot of planing, I will always use it on a metal sole. Particularly if I’m tired. I should point out that I’m not a pusher-downer on my hand planes. I’ve never understood these guys bent over in half over their hand planes. My bench height is halfway between my wrist and my elbow and I plane pretty much standing straight up – force comes from how I stand with my legs and feet, not by bearing down.

Most of my bench planes have wooden soles and they also benefit from waxing. It’s not as dramatic of a difference compared to metal soles as wooden planes already have dramatically less friction. But I’ve experimented a lot with paraffin wax on wooden soles and it does make a difference – they go from slippery to a hockey puck on ice. But because the wooden sole grabs onto the wax, you don’t need to do it very often – once a month as opposed to every 5 minutes with a metal sole. That said, I wax my wooden soles more often than that for one good reason: wear. Wooden soles wear with friction and every once in a while they need to be tuned up. Waxing them greatly increases the time between sole flattening sessions. Not that I’m concerned about wearing out my woodies before I die; I just don’t like flattening them.

[Christopher Wellington]

I can't imagine getting good results with a hand plane just barely "hovering" over the workpiece such that there's no frictional force between the sole and the workpiece. The sole is the reference surface, after all, and needs some amount of weight on it. Not bearing down hard, just enough for a solid reference.

I use paraffin wax and find that it makes a substantial difference.

[Jason Lester]

My wife gave me some old candles when she switched out to LED's for decorations. I take one and just zigzag down the sole. It makes a noticeable difference in effort. My dovetail saw has very little set and I sometimes hit it with some too. The metal expands a little when it's heating up and the wax really helps it not stick in the cut. I did both for years without it, so it's definitely not needed, but it does help in my experience.

[Kevin Jenness]

taking an eighth of thickness on multiple 2'x3' boards, with a no5, waxing the bed is noticeably easier.

That's what I call a two cans of spinach job. The weaklings taking whisper thin shavings can just sit over in the corner and cry.

[Tony Wilkins]

We have a lot of plain white candles from our wedding (22 years ago). I’ve been using one for a long time and it works well.

[Tom M King]

I can't imagine anyone getting good results with a plane hovering over the surface either. The only time any of mine do any hovering is on the backstroke, or for something like straightening, or flattening a board, and then only on the part that you don't want to take any off of. I never said I knew what I'm doing. Maybe in some number of more thousands of square feet of planing, I'll learn. Anyone who can plane while hovering the plane over the surface is better than I am. I'm too lazy to push down enough to get any more work against the plane sole than I have to though, so wax doesn't matter enough to take the trouble.

[chris carter]

The pull test is not a valid one. That puts the weight of the plane on the board. The weight of the plane is in my hands. It barely kisses the board.



I can't imagine getting good results with a hand plane just barely "hovering" over the workpiece such that there's no frictional force between the sole and the workpiece. The sole is the reference surface, after all, and needs some amount of weight on it. Not bearing down hard, just enough for a solid reference.


Christopher, I'm assuming you were referring to Tom's post? I found that curious also. Tom, maybe you can clarify. It SOUNDS like you are saying that you are actually lifting up on the plane so as to counteract the force of gravity pushing down on the plane. So the plane is touching the board, but the plane is only using a fraction of it's weight (plane down 4lbs, you pulling up 3lbs, net of one pound, for example). Is that correct? I can certainly understand not pushing down, but I always at least let gravity do it's work. It seems like it would be a lot of additional work to also pull up against gravity the whole time planing. Can you explain your technique further?

[EDIT] Tom, looks like you posted at the same time I did. So it sounds like you aren't actually reducing the weight of the plane. You are just not applying any EXTRA downward force. That's what I do most of the time, but I still find that paraffin wax makes a very noticeable difference. But I keep my wax in the tool tray. If I had to pull it out of a drawer or walk over somewhere and get it, I might be far less inclined to use it as much. Or if I was using beeswax, I would feel like it didn't really make a difference because beeswax isn't very slippery.

[Tom M King]

Probably less than one pound. Only touching ever so slightly for a reference. It's not something I think about until someone is asking me while I'm doing it. I don't know at what point this comes though. I've spent more than a few whole working days hand planing boards. Not every week, or even every month, but since the early '70's. I used to use a lot or recycled Heart Pine beams, and wood out of them even when I was building new houses from 1974, to 2007. Since then, I've only been working on historic museum houses.

I don't teach lessons. I get paid to produce work.

[Christopher Wellington]

Okay, letting the weight of the plane maintain the reference without adding any additional down force makes sense. That's similar to how I use a plane too.

I suppose whether wax makes a difference to you is a matter of personal feel/preference. Nothing wrong with differences there!

[Tom M King]

I'm talking about using Way less than the weight of the plane on the wood.

I thought of a way to simulate what I'm talking about. Put a board on the bench, and back the iron up out of the way, so that only the plane sole will touch the board. Take several passes with the plane like you would normally use it. Are you pushing down? Now take 20 strokes like that. Do you feel like it took effort?

Now do it my way. Holding the plane in your hands, only let it touch the board enough so you know it's in contact. You have all the weight of the plane in your hands, but it's still contacting the board. Take 20 strokes like that with as little down force as you can apply. I'm talking about light enough for that whether the sole had wax on it, or not, should make no difference.

Why do you need to push down harder than that? The iron does not try to rise out of the cut, and now you can put all your effort into the iron cutting, but still have a feel for when you need to lift the plane out of the cut.