Wooden Planes

[Jerry Thompson]

Does anyone have any hands on experience with wooden planes such as those offered by The Japan Woodworker? I am looking at the ebony longe plane. It is 18" long and says I can be used as a jointer or a smoothing plane. At 18" it seems a little short for a jointer. It does not say how wide the mouth opening is. I wonder if I would not be better served by just getting the iron/chipbreaker and making one myself. I want a jointer and 18" seems too short.
Are there anyother options for a wooden jointer out there? Or a metal one would do. I just can't cost justify a LN with my planing abilities what they are at this time.
If I get or make a plane what would be the most practiacl BU or BD?
Thank you.

[Brian Kent]

Jerry, I have not tried their ebony jointer, but have been extremely happy with the rosewood smoother, jack, and high angle polish planes from Japan Woodworker.

Having said that, rather than spending $159 on their 18" jointer, I bought a Hock Blade made for Krenov-style planes. I'll make a 24" jointer out of Paduak with a Brazilian Rosewood sole. The blank had been glued together and sitting in my shop for a year just to make sure everything is stable.

If you can get just a blade from Mujingfang / Japanwoodworker, do it. The steel is just amazing.

Here is Derek Cohen's review of the Lee Valley Bevel Up Jointer.
http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/handtools/articles_731.shtml

Derek Cohen also made the most beautiful wooden jointer I've ever seen. I am looking for it online but haven't found it yet. It was about 28" long, if I remember correctly, high angle for Australian hardwoods, and has some beautiful handwork.

I have a Stanley #7 so I will also go the direction of a high blade angle to handle different woods from the #7's 45 degree blade angle.

Good luck.

[Wilbur Pan]

Brian,

Just out of curiosity, why are you using Brazilian rosewood for the sole, given how desirable this wood seems to be these days?

Unless, of course, this is a stealth gloat about your ginormous stash of Brazilian rosewood. ;)

[Dewey Torres]

Go do a search in the threads (Neander Section) and you will find a lot of stuff referencing these planes. To save you some time they usually get good to great reviews. Japan WW is a top notch company.
Dewey

[Mark Singer]

I don't recommend that plane as a general purpose jointer. It is light and lacks the mass that is desirable . The Veritas la jointer is quite good!

[Brian Kent]

Sorry, I wish it was a stealth gloat, but I bought a 24" x 3" x 1/4" piece from Rockler just for this. It wasn't much for the slice and I love rosewood. My Marimba bars are made of Honduran Rosewood.

[Casey Gooding]

Just a note. 18" isn't terribly short for a wooden jointer.
Asian and Krenov style planes tend to be a bit smaller than traditional Western planes.

[Frank Drew]

I'm not familiar with this specific tool, but Japanese planes in general certainly aren't too light for whatever kind of handplaning you want to do. There are no planes in the world with as thick, heavy blades; those alone give the tool fabulous cutting power but I think they're probably best used for finesse rather than hogging. Properly adjusted, the good ones are easily the match for any plane made, at least any I've owned and used (including Norris and Spears.)

In the right hands they're great tools, very great tools, but (and this is a very big but), they require a great deal of attention to get the best out of them, and not just a one time fettling, but continuously.

Because the planes are designed to have the blades wedged in tightly with a hammer, the wood bodies are made with flat-rift grain soles and tops (vertical, quarter sawn, grain would wear the best but would split from wedging in the irons.) But flat grain wears, and moves, so you've got to frequently tune up the sole of the plane, ideally with the special small scraping plane. On a smoother (maybe 10-11" long), you relieve the sole of the plane except for a narrow strips at the toe and another right in front of the mouth; the rest of the sole doesn't ride on the work. With their longer planes (16-17"), you'd also leave a stip back at the heel of the sole in addition to the ones at the toe and mouth. If you're planing all day, which they do, you're also fooling with the sole of your plane several times (and resharpening your iron.)

Long story short, in care and feeding these tools bear really no relation to typical Western metal bodied planes, and, though beautiful, might be more work than most of us want to do unless we're really into them and using them all the time. I've got three good ones but never used them once I was no longer doing that kind of work.

Your mileage may vary.

[Frank Drew]

Jerry,

Japanese planes are used bevel down; there's a chipbreaker that would interfere with bevel up, I'd think, and the chipbreaker is necessary to help wedge the blade in the plane body, under the rod that crosses the mouth.

[Pam Niedermayer]

....there's a chipbreaker that would interfere with bevel up, I'd think, and the chipbreaker is necessary to help wedge the blade in the plane body, under the rod that crosses the mouth.

Not true, I seldom use the subblades, instead relying on the abutments to keep the main blade in place. This works wonderfully.

Pam

[Brian Kent]

Just for the record, the company is Japan Woodworker but I think this particular ebony plane is a Hong Kong style Mujingfang rather than one of their Japanese planes.

Incidentally, I found the post by Derek Cohen on building a Jointer. I was wrong about the length. It wasn't 28", it was 30".:eek:

http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=555416#poststop

[Frank Drew]

Not true, I seldom use the subblades, instead relying on the abutments to keep the main blade in place. This works wonderfully.

Pam

Pam, do you mean with a traditional Japanese plane? If this works for you, it works, but it would seem that you'd get a tighter fit with the subblade (pressed up against the pin), as the tool was designed. You still use the blade bevel down, don't you?

Since posting I've looked at the Japan Woodworker ebony plane and see that, as Brian points out, it's actually a Chinese plane and so maybe doesn't follow the same rules or need as much TLC as Japanese oak bodied planes.

[Dale Osowski]

Japanese planes do not require the pin and sub blade to hold the main blade. The main blade is a precise wedged fit. Japanese blades also have a slight curve to help hold them in place. Japanese planes originally only were single blades. The sub blades were added later to help less experienced users achieve a better finish. Check out these video, it is a single blade. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28zgQS1eXfg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGlEIcotjcg

I use my planes single blade as well.

[Pam Niedermayer]

Pam, do you mean with a traditional Japanese plane? If this works for you, it works, but it would seem that you'd get a tighter fit with the subblade (pressed up against the pin), as the tool was designed. You still use the blade bevel down, don't you?

Since posting I've looked at the Japan Woodworker ebony plane and see that, as Brian points out, it's actually a Chinese plane and so maybe doesn't follow the same rules or need as much TLC as Japanese oak bodied planes.

Yes, I mean traditional Japanese planes. I would expect the Japanese oak to perform at least as well as ebony and the hon red oak is probably superior to ebony. The ebony is just to lure westerners. In fact I'd expect it to chip, a bit brittle in larger sizes.

And I agree with Dale. It's also easy enough to try. Buy a Japanese plane and remove the subblade.

Pam

[Frank Drew]

Interesting; maybe I'll tune up one of my planes and give that a try. I know that the blade fits tightly in the side channels but I assumed that every little bit of blade stability would help, thus the sub blades. None of the carpenters I worked with ever left out the sub blades, but, whatever, you learn something every day.

[Dale Osowski]

None of the carpenters I worked with ever left out the sub blades, but, whatever, you learn something every day.


The sub blade is usefull at times for preventing tearout. Perhaps this is why the carpenters you worked with used them? If they used them to help hold the main blade, the main blade may have not been fitted correctly or the dai is worn.

Dale

[Wilbur Pan]

This is probably more of an indication that I need to do some more tune up for this plane, but one of my Japanese planes works better without the subblade than with it.

[Dale Osowski]

Here is a good example of a good fitting blade, video 2608 http://www.pbs.org/wws/schedule/26season_video.html

The plane shown does have the sub blade and pin removed. It easy to see and hear how well the blade fits. It's a great video.

Dale

[Dale Osowski]

This is probably more of an indication that I need to do some more tune up for this plane, but one of my Japanese planes works better without the subblade than with it.

Perahaps the sub blade is to tight and putting to much tension on the main blade. Or are you having problems with clogging or shavings getting inbetween the sub and main blade?

Dale

[Chris Padilla]

I have an ECE 701 Primus Jointer plane...I think it is about 24" long. It has a hornbeam sole on it and mechanical adjuster for blade depth. I absolutely love it....

Here is a thread with some pics of it: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=13547

[Wilbur Pan]

Perahaps the sub blade is to tight and putting to much tension on the main blade. Or are you having problems with clogging or shavings getting inbetween the sub and main blade?

Dale

What's happening is that the gap between the subblade and the surface of the mouth of the plane above it is tight enough that shavings get caught up as they come over the top of the subblade. The only way I can think of to fix this would be to shave away at that part of the plane to open the mouth up a bit, but I'm not ready to try that yet. There's other tune up I need to do first anyway, so in the meantime it's easier to just leave the subblade out.

[Dale Osowski]

I leave my subs out as well. Just recently I did fit them all in case I need to use them.

Dale

[Doug Shepard]

If I were looking for a wooden jointer, I think I'd go here first
http://www.knight-toolworks.com/wooden.htm#Jointer
I've got a couple smaller Knight planes I picked up thru an SMC classified, and they work extremely well.