Panel Raising Planes

[Jerry Thompson]

I am confused about raising panels with planes. I have never seen one in real life. The appear to have a fence on one side. This would allow one to do the ends and one stile side with the grain. The other side would be against the grain.
I watched a short clip of a man using a panel raiser and he did both ends and on side and said how great it was. The plane had a permanent fence on one side precluding him from doing one side of the panel, or so it seemed, because he would have been planing against the grain.
Would someone please enlighten me?

[Johnny Kleso]

You would do your end grain cuts first then your sides..

You woud always plane right to left as the skewed blade would pull your fence tight against the stock...


Opps I got what your saying, YUP one side will be against the grin direction but planing the end grain would bean even bigger bear......

[Mark Stutz]

Yuo are correct. Traditional panel raising planes required you to do one direction against the grain. Modern makers will make you a R & L pair however. MY OPINION, is that traditional joiners used these planes mostly instraight grained woods, and used lots of mahogany, which made the task easier. I suspect that some of what we use today would have only made the burn pile back then.

Raising panels is not that difficult with a bench rabbet, a skew rabbett or two, a saw or plow and a chisel or two. If it's not fielded, it can even be done with a standard bench plane. If you want something other than the flat profile, though, you have to do to a specialty plane.

Mark

[Mike K Wenzloff]

Even in panels where there is runout on one side--no matter the wood species--a panel fielding plane works fine. Mostly due to the heavy skew and the fact that one doesn't use a very rank cut. At least I don't. It goes pretty fast.

On something like wooly Pine, the side where one is cutting into the grain can become a little fuzzy. A couple swipes with a cabinet craper going with the grain pretty much removes it.

Ideally one could have a L/R pair. A FWW article from several years ago shows how to make a pair.

Take care, Mike

[Barry Vabeach]

I made my own panel raising planes from an old article in FWW. I have a left hand plane and a right hand plane and the short story is that I don't have to go against the grain. The true story, and I still can't believe it, is that the toughest part is cutting the skewed block that the blade will rest on and even though I spent a ton of time laying it out, in the first plane I laid it out backwards and so it ended up being a left handed panel raiser and I had to make another one to make the right handed one I was trying to get. I almost never use the lefthander - for some reason, the planing against grain usually isn't that much of a problem in the stock I use - which is usually walnut. Barry

[Robert Rozaieski]

As everyone else has already said, you plane against the grain with a standard panel raiser. The skew and a sharp iron make it easier going against the grain. I don't have a panel raiser. I use a 2" wide skew rabbet plane. It works just as well, you just have to field and bevel in two steps instead of one and you need to clamp or nail a fence to the stock being planed. However, a skew rabbet is way cheaper than a panel raiser. I think mine was $10. I haven't yet found a panel raiser I can afford.

When using a skew rabbet, first plane the field:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2043/2467793860_349fe3ac2a.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3019/2467793866_948abd672e.jpg?v=0

Then plane the bevel with the same plane:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2170/2467001551_dc7bdf5933.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3186/2467001555_57f85a9702.jpg?v=0

You can do this with a regular straight rabbet plane as well but a skew works much better across the end grain and against the grain.

As Mike said, pine can be a little fuzzy against/across the grain but a real sharp iron and a little sanding takes care of this. I would rather not sand but I've never had much luck scraping pine due to it's softness. YMMV. Harder woods scrape much better.

[Jim Koepke]

I don't have a panel raiser. I use a 2" wide skew rabbet plane. It works just as well, you just have to field and bevel in two steps instead of one and you need to clamp or nail a fence to the stock being planed. However, a skew rabbet is way cheaper than a panel raiser. I think mine was $10. I haven't yet found a panel raiser I can afford.

Robert,

Thanks for this. I bought a skewed rabbet to try this. Good to see someone has already come up with the procedure.

jim