wooden plane storage/preserving flatness

[Zahid Naqvi]

I have a wooden jointer (razee style) that is my go to jointer for most uses. It lives in my uncooled/unheated garage and experiences all the extremes of mother nature. Is there any thing I can do to limit the movement which might make the sole go out of flat. I think the plane itself is beach, but I have added a purple heart sole to make up for the material I had to remove to bring it to flat when I initially purchased it.

[Johnny Kleso]

Cabinet, Drawer or even a Cardboard Box

All or these them help keep the plane out of extrem changes..

[Robert Rozaieski]

Zahid,
Unless you put it in a moisture impermeable container, there's nothing you can do (sorry, my real job coming out). Drawers, boxes, socks, what have you, really offer no real protection over the long term. The environment inside of these "containers" will equilibrate to the outside environment in short order. Rather that try to fight it or prevent it, it's better to accept it and work accordingly, i.e. check and adjust the sole from time to time. I think this is why most old woodies have wide mouths to begin with. Not from wear but from the occasional adjustment that is simply part of keeping the tool in good working order. Wood is a dynamic material and as such, it's better to plan for the movement rather than try to prevent it. No different than building a piece of furniture. No matter how much you may try and keep a board from moving, you can't (or you run the risk of failure) so you plan for it in your design.

Bob

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Zahid

My 30" jointer simply rests against the back of the cabinet. The other woodies here have an angled base on which they are supported. No ill effects found.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Workbench%20and%20Workshop/Newworkshopwoodies1.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Greg Crawford]

Zahid,

There is a type of kitty litter (I buy it under the HEB house brand name) that is simply dessicant, not clay. I take an old sock, or even a new one, and put about 1/4 cup of the litter in it and put it in my cabinets, drawers, etc. I don't know how much it helps, but I feel better about it.

I'm also single, so some of my stuff winds up in the kitchen cabinets. That way it's all climate controlled.

Greg Crawford
Ike Survivor

[David Keller NC]

Well, adding dessicant to a closed container in which a tool's placed will certainly help with the rust aspect, but not so much when it comes to protecting/stabilizing a wooden plane. In fact, it could be very detrimental to an antique. These planes were made with air-dried lumber, and the equilibrium moisture content in the wood was quite a bit higher than it would be in an extremely dry atmosphere.

That's why it's not uncommon to find a British wooden plane in the States that has a permanently wedged-in iron from the wooden body shrinking around it. The other possibility is worse - the cheeks of the wedge mortise are cracked clear through the sidewalls of the plane from the unyielding iron. You're also potentially subjecting the plane to end checking. If it's absolutely necessary to store a plane this way, I'd suggest removing the iron and storing it separately.

Zahid - If it's not possible to store your wooden planes in a humidity-controlled environment, one thing you could do is heavily wax the plane (with beeswax if you want historical correctness, with car or furniture paste wax if you don't). That will not prevent the eventual re-equilibration of the plane's wooden parts with the ambient humidity, but it will slow it down some over unfinished wood.

[Zahid Naqvi]

I use the tools I own, nothing I own is a collectors item. so if I can't use it it's of no use to me. The only problem I have with wax is that it gets on your hand and then to the wood you are working on and can interfere with the finish.
I haven't checked the flatness in several moths so I don't know how far off it is, if at all. Movin tools in and out of the house is not an option either they have to live in the garage. I guess I can stick some sand paper on an MDF board and keep it handy as a sole rflatness "enforcer":eek:

I am using the Derek approach right now, but it's not as pretty.

[David Keller NC]

Well, when I used the word "antique", I didn't necessarily mean "collectable". A lot of us use antiques, in the sense that they were made by men that are long dead.

It's not impossible that wax might interfere with a laquer finish, but it will cause you zero problems with shellac, polyurethane, oil/varnish or oil finish. And, of course, you need not apply the wax so thickly that it visibly comes off in your hand. In fact, most of the old carpenter books assume that you're waxing the bottom of a wooden plane as you work - there are lots of antique wax and linseed oil wicks out there that were intended to be on the bench as you plane, and you occasionally wipe the plane bottom on them on the return stroke.

[Michael Faurot]

I haven't checked the flatness in several moths so I don't know how far off it is, if at all.
...
I guess I can stick some sand paper on an MDF board and keep it handy as a sole flatness "enforcer":eek:


I keep my wooden planes out in my garage/shop also. No air conditioning, no heating, just a really large fan. I haven't had too much difficulty with the soles getting uneven. It does happen, but not so often that I need to keep some sort of flat sanding block around all the time.



Movin tools in and out of the house is not an option either they have to live in the garage.
Moving stuff around wouldn't work for me either. For stuff that I might only use occasionally, it's okay to have to stop and dig out of some type of storage. But for my planes, I use those all the time, so they need to stay within easy reach.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi again Zahid

What I meant to say in my previous post (too late at night to remember it all) is that my planes are also in an unheated/uncooled attached garage. The construction is brick-and-tile so is reasonably insulated. Still, I get the highs and lows.

In my experience the best method of looking after your planes is a combination of keeping moisture out, and waxing the important parts. My planes are all in pine cabinets. I like the pine for two reasons - firstly it is cheap (I reserve my furniture grade timber for furniture) and secondly it is a better "blotter".

I have been re-building my workshop (following an office addition over the the top, that required removal of the roof and, hence, the contents of the workshop. I have just got to the stage where I have cabinets but am still building doors. It is important that all cabinets have doors to keep out moisture. The best doors will be solid. I am going to add a few with glass fronts, just because it is convenient to see what is where ..

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Ray Gardiner]

I recently purchased some spanish cedar with the idea of someday building a cigar humidor.

What has this to do with wooden planes you ask?

One of the interesting properties of spanish cedar is the ability to control moisture (relative humidity) once conditioned, the timber absorbs and releases moisture to provide a somewhat stable relative humidity for storage (of cigars) in this case (pun intended).

Perhaps some keen student with access to research materials could find out if there are other timbers with this property and what would be the ideal relative humidity for storage of wooden planes, so that a tool storage cabinet lined with an appropriate timber would act like a humidor for planes..

Regards
Ray

[Zahid Naqvi]

David, I have some Minwax paste wax that I got from Home Depot, I use that frequently on metal surfaces as protectant. I suppose that would be a good protective coat for planes all around.

[David Keller NC]

Sure - just about any paste wax will work fine. The only thing you want to avoid is wax that's been formulated with silicone, which will indeed interfere with many wood finishes. Most of these will say something like "silicone wax" on the outside of the container. And most of the so-called "liquid waxes" are formulated with silicone.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

you can make them from an oily wood like Ebony, Teak, or Cocobolo, that will resists the ravages of moisture.

I'd put 'em in a case like a took box and put 'em up on little standoffs so that what moisture found 'em was able to get at them from all sides and hopefully wouldn't cause one side to get wet and swell more than the opposing sides.

[Michael Faurot]

I'd put 'em in a case like a tool box and put 'em up on little standoffs so that what moisture found 'em was able to get at them from all sides and hopefully wouldn't cause one side to get wet and swell more than the opposing sides.

A friend did something similar, but he took it a couple of steps further. He built a wall hung cabinet for his planes and other tools and made the doors so they would close with an air tight seal. Inside the cabinet he put one of those low wattage heaters (about 16 watts I believe) that are sold for use in gun cabinets. The idea being that if you keep the small volume of air in the storage cabinet above the dew point, it'll prevent condensation from forming on stuff. Supposedly this can also be accomplished with a light bulb.

Seems like a good idea for metal based tools. I'm not sure if it would be a good idea for wood based ones.