New to hand planes

[Gene Liebler]

I've just started tinkering around with woodworking and I've started working on some shoji screens for a closet window. I have Stanley #4, 5, 6, and 8 planes. They are tuned up and sharpened with a water stone and cut through wood nicely.

However, when I've tried to flatten and straighten the bowed edges of a 1 3/4 X 2 1/2 X 48 board, I just make it thinner, not straighter/flatter. I've been running the planes the entire length of the board, should I run it over the high spots first? If anyone can give me a good description of the best way of doing this I would appreciate it.

[David Weaver]

To start, mark your high spots, and you can work them individually if they're really bad.

The thing you're missing is "stop shavings", meaning that instead of running the full length of the board, you from some point in from the edge (even if it's just an inch or so), and you stop short of the other edge.

If your planes are flat, at some point, they will quit cutting, and you can then take a through shaving or two to clean it up and you're good to go.

Doing that, you're basically cutting a very gradual hollow between the two high points (the ends you've left untouched), and if your planes are well tuned, that hollow will only be several thousandths, and it will aid your joint strength with most joinery.

That leaves lateral flatness across the width to deal with. If you have a try square to check that with, you can then mark the high spots and then take care of them by putting pressure of the plane during a stroke on the side where the high spot is.

If the board is generally close, I try to do both at the same time. I mark the high spots and then take care of them by alternating pressure left to right on the plane - if you're edge jointing or if the face of the piece is less than the width of cut. May not be in this case.

There is a David Charlesworth video about this whole process that would be well worth your woodworking $ - a demonstration is worth much more than a post, and you can watch it over and over if you need to.

[Don Pierson]

I agree with David...Charlesworth's DVD is as good as it gets. I have his other DVD's too. I can now sharpen my planes so I get 0.001" shavings and end grain shavings. This is big improvement over what I could do before his DVD's.