Cleaning up face frames

[Keith Hooks]

I've been putting together some face frames made from cherry, using a simple bridle joint. The faces aren't quite even after glueup, so I need to level them out. I've tried some approaches with the block plane and hand scrapers, but the 90 degree change in the grain is giving me problems. When the plane passes from one board to the other, I'll pull out small slivers from the piece I'm cross-planing. Does anyone have recommendations that don't involve sanding? (we hates it)

By the way, I'm using the LV low angle block plane set to thin shaving with a small mouth opening. The blade is very sharp.

[ralph cox]

Keith, you've probably thought of this;how about a light touch with a single cut flat smoothing file followed 0000 steel wool. We doesn't like sand paper either!
:D

[Rob Luter]

I've had to deal with this before. The best approach I've found is block planing as you are, but moving from inside to out in the direction of the corner such that the grain runs 45 degrees to the direction of cut. The angle of attack is the same for both frame members. I finish with a freshly burnished card scraper.

[glenn bradley]

I'd say Rob's got it if you've already glued up. I try to do those adjustments during dry-fit. This eliminates the crossgrain problem.

[Wendell Wilkerson]

Are the slivers tearout? If it's tearout, try increasing the bevel angle of the block plane blade. This will give you a higher effective cutting angle which might help.

Wendell

[Keith Hooks]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm going to work on my technique with the block plane first and see if I get improvement (since it's the easiest and most direct way I can affect a change). If not, I'm going to try the other approaches suggested.

The slivers are tearout, for sure. I only have one blade for my LA, so I'll have to get a new one if I decide to change the blade angle. What is it about a higher angle that reduces tearout? Is that a general principle?

[Wendell Wilkerson]

Keith,

Here's my simplistic explanation of higher cutting angle. Think of the plane blade as wedge you are using to drive under the surface of the wood and peel a shaving off the surface in a very controlled manner. The lower the cutting angle, the more you're driving the wedge parallel to the grain which makes it easier for the "split" you're causing with your "wedge" to go further than you want. If this happens, you get tear out. Raising the cutting angle help prevent the "split" from getting out of control but at the cost of making the plane harder to push.

Wendell

[Ron Brese]

I think you will find that a well tuned steep pitch smoothing plane will do a better job of this type of work than a block plane. Even on cross grain strokes this type of plane will do more smoothing than tearing. We probably will never be able to eliminate sanding altogether but with proper planing technique we can certainly greatly reduce the amount of sanding required.

Ron Brese

[Rob Luter]

I second Ron's remarks, and should have been a bit clearer in my earlier post :o . The block plane I use for this type of application is an old #9 1/2 that I've ground a steep angle blade for. It works out to about 50 degrees. The plane is pretty much a one trick pony but it does the trick pretty well.

[Tim Sproul]

Camber the iron. You're getting cross grain tearout because the corner of the iron is digging into the cross grain. For more info, IIRC, Chris Schwarz or another fellow from Woodworking Magazine went over this in one of the issues.

[Andrew Williams]

If you get a chace take a look at Frank Klausz' vid Dovetail a Drawer. After glue-up he demonstrates how to plane the frame of a box in one smooth motion.