Plane Adjustment Questions

[Rob Luter]

Greetings to all,

Is anyone aware of a resource for guidelines on plane set-up and adjustment? As I am getting back in to the hobby I find that tweaking my planes for a particular task is often taking longer than the task. I'm looking for some rules of thumb on mouth to blade clearances for particular woods, reasonable expectations for depth of cut, performance, etc. All my irons are sharp enough to shave with, but the amount of effort it takes to get the job done makes it seem like something ain't set up right. :confused:

I found that a little mineral spirits on end grain helps, as does skewing the plane diagonally.

I'm using a bevel up block plane (Older Stanley 60 1/2), a #4 Smoother (Older English Stanley), and a new Veritas Medium Shoulder plane. A new addition is a transitional wooden joiner plane shown in a recent thread.

Maybe it just takes more time and practice. Any and all input that can move me along the learning curve is welcomed

[Andrew Williams]

I cannot say that there is one definitive reference to this. I think it is a complex art since there are so many variables that can come into play. I have looked at just about every internet info site that I could find, and bought a few books as well.

I think the easiest way is to get to actually use a well-tuned bench plane and feel what it should feel like to have the blade slice off thin shavings without catching or skipping.

I was having a tough time with my first bench plane, also an English Stanley and really did not ever get it to work well. It has since become a dust-collector. What I did was to buy a LV plane. They tend to take shavings right out of the box with no additional tuning. Once I felt that, I knew basically what my other planes should do and commenced to fixing them up.

I guess, as long as you have a sharp iron and a flattened sole there would be three things to check first...

1. Frog bedding.. Is there any play in the frog at all, under any type of pushing. You can "joint" the bottom of the frog by making a jig out of a piece of plywood with a groove cut in it, sandpaper glued on top. You can remove the paint from, and flatten the frog bosses with flat mill files as well. The contact should be bare metal to bare metal, and no wobbling at all, even when the screws are out.

2. Mouth opening. For fine shavings the mouth should be tight. Just enough space for a shaving to slip through without binding in the mouth. I just look for a sliver of light.

3. Chipbreaker. The chipbreaker needs to fit onto the iron seamlessly. If there are any gaps they will fill with crud very soon. the rounded edge should be smooth and not catch shavings at all. The chipbreaker should be set extremely close to the edge of the blade, otherwise it's pointless to even have a chipbreaker.


If you do all this stuff and the plane still doesn't take a decent shaving then it is possible there are major problems with it, like my late-model Stanley 4 dust-collector. By the way, end grain will always be about 3 times harder to push a plane through than face grain. It's just one of those things.

[Brian Kent]

I am just a one-year newbie with handplanes, so I am responding out of limited attempts, frustrations, and successes.

Are you starting with the blade backed all the way off, then just moving up to the first resistance from the wood and adjusting from there?

I think it is good you have several different kinds of planes. Just when I get an old stanley working well, I'll move to a piece of wood that I can't plane at all. After awhile I'll try something else and find a high angle mujungfang or a low angle LN 102 or a home-made Krenov-style that hits the sweet spot.

Most of my woods are oak or exotic hardwoods. Unfortunately, I love curley grain and knots, too. I never assume the first plane will do the job. With your four different kinds of planes you are increasing your odds of success.

Let us know what works as you go along. I know I am on the same search.

[Eddie Darby]

This is why someone who does a lot of planing has a lot of planes.

The time to set-up and tear-down makes it worth it to have more than one plane, of one type.
Say a #4 bench plane at 45 degrees and then a #4 at a York Pitch of 50 degrees.

The attraction of the bevel up planes is that you can make one plane do the work of many by swapping out the blade for another, but with a correct bevel for the job.
Say for instance, a low angle Jack plane with a 33 degree blade ( 33 + 12 = 45 ), and the same plane with a 38 degree blade ( 38 + 12 = 50 ).
This is a fairly quick procedure with a block plane.

The mouth opening of a plane only needs to be set tight if the wood you are working has wild or figured grain. The compression of the wood just before the cut helps to keep the cut from running ahead of the blade and giving an unpredictable split, instead of a cut type of shaving.
Of course this is a fast adjustment on a bevel-up block type plane as well.

[Rob Luter]

Thanks for the responses. As you would expect, I have a much easier time with Softwoods in general, and with Maple and Mahogany Hardwoods. My taste in grain runs to the curly side and when you combine that with the White Oak I like to use I start to have problems.

I've taken great care to set the blade square, align the chipbreaker (bevel down only) with the cutting edge and offset it about 1/32", and set the mouth opening fairly close to eliminate tear out.

The typical scenario I see is when attempting light cuts. I dial the blade in starting at zero and try to "sneak up" on the correct amount of blade projection with 1/4 turn adjustments. Sometimes it seems like the cutting action is on/off. When it turns on, it often cuts much deeper than the last 1/4 turn seems like it should make it cut. I've wondered about blade stiffness and frog stability on the Brit Stanley being the root cause. The 60 1/2 seems to work well most of the time except for end grain. I wind up having to dial it back so far it just produces dust rather than the "gossamer curls" that the plane company marketing guys talk about.

The Veritas Shoulder plane has been a good gut check as it performs pretty much flawlessly on all types of grain. I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on another plane here pretty quick, and I've had my eye on the Veritas low angle/bevel up models, either the Jack or the Smoother, with a couple of spare blades for versitility as Eddie suggests. Most of the lumber I use has already been planed once so it's not like I need to take rough sawn wood all the way down to finish quality. Taking 1/32" or so will generally eliminate all saw and mill marks. I'm contemplating a scraper as well, along the lines of the Veritas Scraping Plane. I think the Bevel Up Jack Plane combined with the Scraping Plane should cover me for most anything I'll encounter.

[Ken Werner]

Rob, I make my adjustments in much less than 1/4 turn increments. That may be where you're having an issues. Try advancing the blade by just enough rotation that you can feel, in other words, just enough so you know you've advanced the blade. Also, and you probably know this, only adjust the blade forward, if you have to withdraw it, go too far, then go back in a bit, this stabilizes the frog's support of the blade. Garrett Hack's book is a good resource for tuning.
Ken

[Andrew Williams]

I've been using the LV bevel up smoother with a combined angle of 62 degrees on curly maple. There has not been appreciable tearout when planing in either direction. I also have a 50 degree blade, and that one is good too, but not quite as clean on the curly maple.

[Rob Luter]

Thanks again for the tips.

Ken - I'll try a little finer touch. I always take the backlash out like you suggest.

Andrew - Any regrets on the Smoother? Is it big enough for everything you're using it for? Do you ever wish you had the Jack instead (or also :D )?

[Brian Kent]

This is the $50 Rosewood Polish plane, with an A2 blade, that leaves my curley maple beautiful and un-torn:

http://www.japanwoodworker.com/product.asp?s=JapanWoodworker&pf_id=98.107.2155&dept_id=13602

[Andrew Williams]

Andrew - Any regrets on the Smoother? Is it big enough for everything you're using it for? Do you ever wish you had the Jack instead (or also :D )?


I have no regrets whatsoever about the smoother. The jack would be a great addition, especially as a shooting plane.

[Rob Luter]

OK, I've cracked the code :D

I was attempting to take too heavy a cut. It was just about that simple. There were minor tuning issues too. When I was tuning the Bailey #5 Jack I got this weekend (see "pawnshop prize" post) I made special care to get the mouth set close, the frog square to the bed, the chip breaker dialed in just right, then just snuck up on a cutting depth by turning the depth knob a few degrees at a time. In no time I was peeling off .002 thick curls from the red oak stair tread I use for tryouts. I repeated the process for the #4 Brit Stanley, the old woodie jointer, and the 60 1/2 block plane. All are working great. Next time I buy wood I'll take it rough sawn and see if I can't use the old school approach to bring it in to dimension.

[Fred Gross]

Another thing to keep an eye on is flatness of the sole. About 90% of the old handplanes I have tuned up needed the sole lapped in order to work right. Even if you have the mouth set for fine work, if the leading edge of the mouth isn't compressing the fibers you are going to "dig in" making it take a lot of effort to move the plane. Make sure the toe, area around the mouth and heel are all on the same plane. Also, I wipe down the soles/cheeks with little camilla oil before going back in the tool box. They seem to slide a little easier for me.

[Ron Brese]

Rob,

You mentioned that your taste in wood is toward the curly side. It could just be that you're asking a bit too much of your Stanley planes in terms of the effort required to push them thru these woods. I'm not by any means saying that these planes can't be tuned to cut these woods, but in terms of having planes that are easier to use in these woods you may have to look to planes with more mass. When I am doing a lot of smoothing of parts I typically use a 2 tool approach. I use a Lie-Nielsen bronze #4 to take down the high spots and then do the last passes with an infill plane. The infill is much heavier than the #4 but I find myself looking forward to changing to the infill because it's mass provides more leverage against the cut and this makes it easier to use in terms of the effort required to do the work. You may not have gone far enough down the slippery slope to be considering infills, but if your taste in figured woods prevails you may want to consider them in the future.

Ron Brese

[Rob Luter]

Ron -

The effort is not so bad now that I'm taking a curl of reasonable thickness. I can appreciate the mass issue. The #5 plane is certainly a little easier than the #4. The inertia of the moving mass seems to power through the tough spots. After blade sharpness, the proper balance between mouth opening, cut angle, and depth of cut seems to make the biggest difference.

[Zahid Naqvi]

Rob, where do you live? I am a very visual learner and if someone shows me how to do something I will probably learn more from it than reading several books. Creekers are spread ll over the US, I am sure you will find someone close enough.

[Rob Luter]

I'm in Northern Indiana near Michigan. Elkhart/South Bend Area