Does this surface look right?

[Bob Jones]

I am just getting started using 3 old planes that I bought on ebay - a Stanley #5, #4, and a Millers Falls #22 (like a #7 Stanley). I tuned them and used them as described on this website and The HandPlane Book (Hack). My blades are very sharp and I am taking very think shavings.

I am using cherry - building a bed. Is cherry easy to plane?

I love planing, but I was wondering why my Jet jointer gets a cleaner looking surface than my planes...? I guess this is chatter? One one of these pics I planed one surface by hand and then jointed the other 90 deg to it. The machine side looks more uniform....

Also note the plie of practice that I made this weekend - - it is about 6-8 inches deep :)
Any help would be appreciated.

[Dan Forman]

Bob---The area you show looks like you are planing against the grain, which often leaves that sort of rough surface. Is it rough all the way along the stock, or just in areas. If just certain areas, there could be some grain reversal there. On second look, it appears that roughness of which you speak is only seen of one of the two boards you have joined together. In that case, those two boards likely have grain oriented in opposite directions. If so, you will have to run the plane one way on one side of the joined pair, and the oppoosite direction for the other side. Or you may just want to sand.

The anser to the other question, cherry is generally plane friendly when there is no visible curl.

I'm no expert though, so hopefully someone will come along and offer a second opinion.

Dan

[Hans Braul]

Bob, ditto what Dan said. I have found cherry difficult to plane when it is wavy (of course, that's the most beautiful part!). It definitely doesn't like being planed against the grain. The key is to use a very tight mouth opening and the highest attack angle you have. The higher the angle, the less tear-out you will get.

Regards
Hans

[rick fulton]

Bob,

I'm also a neander newbie, just a little bit ahead of you on shavings. I filled a 13-gallon trashcan before I started getting consistantly good (OK, so-so) results. I've filled a couple more trashcans since then and still accidentally read the grain wrong.

Sometimes you will have to plane part of a surface in one direction, and the rest of the surface in another direction.

Also it helps a lot to skew the plane at an angle (power slide) as you push it over grain that is changing direction.

And as Han's noted, planes with higher angles (50 deg York pitch or 47.5+ deg infill) will have less trouble with highly figured grain. But that route may require you to search eBay again.

Thanks for posting your pictures. It is a relief to hear that someone else has gotten less than perfect results when wandering into the handplane experience. I'm too embarrassed to show some of the tear-out that I've created. Let us know how you progress.

rick

[Terry Bigelow]

What Hans said about the throat is very important too. You mentioned "thick" shavings(or was that a misspell?). If your intention is to remove a fair amount of material, an open throat might be what you need. However, if a nice smooth finish taken off in whispy tissue thin shavings is what you're after, you need to move the frog foward, pull the blade up a bit and give it a go. Also the advice of skewing the plane while moving it helps with tough grain. If all else fails you can turn to the trusty scraper!
By the way, you might consider your next plane upgrade to be turning one or all of those Stanleys into "hot rods". Try swapping out the iron AND the chipbreaker with thicker replacements such as the one made by Hock. It made my 604 1/2 unstoppable!!!

[Nick Clayton]

Having gone down a similar path to you a few months ago don't fret. I found a lot of it is trial and error at first. Finally, I would second what Terry mentioned and invest in a thicker blade and chipbreaker in you #4. Hock, Lie-Nielsen, Clifton as well as others make some nice replacements, but I must admit I've had good luck with Hock.

[Stan Suther]

I plane a lot of funky walnut and have had some tearout problems like this. One thing I'm going to try is something I've read about awhile back- honing a small back bevel on the iron to effectively increase the angle of attack. This would be like creating a York pitch which I'm told works better on difficult grain. It can't be too large, or the chipbreaker will have to be set too far back. In the meantime, after getting my best from my planes, I switch to a card scraper which can cure many grain ills.

[Bob Jones]

Thanks for all of the help. I will try going the other direction on the bad spots. I think I need to adjust my #4 to have a thinnner cut too. This raises more questions about scrapers.... I need to do more research.
Thanks!

[Nick Clayton]

Bob,

Haven't discovered scraperes yet? Go pick a couple card style up; I believe the Lie-Nielsen set is even only $14 for two. Learn to roll a hook, don't over complicate this as I found it's the one thing that is pretty straight forward, Garrett Hack covers this in his book. Find a piece of troublesome wood and start scraping. You will pick up the thumb pressure and angle of the card quickly and have curls that look like they came from a plane;)