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Thread: Hickory end grain help. It appears to be impenetrable!

  1. #1
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    Hickory end grain help. It appears to be impenetrable!

    I'm fairly new to the whole woodworking and hand tool world, having only really been at it for a year or so.... And I've mostly made only spoons/spatulas and the Paul sellers workbench.

    Anyway, finally got around to a shooting board and was playing with it with both my #4 and #5. Pine was great on end grain and long grain, same with cherry.

    Cool, I thought, and then I threw on a piece of hickory I intended to turn into a dovetail template... And nothing... So advance the blade a little - wack/thud/jar. I fiddled, resharpened, and brought the blade back but at best I'd get tiny dust or the thud at worst. Long grain was hard but worked...

    Is this just the famed hickory hardness, or something else? I got it closer to square but still has judder marks in it...

  2. #2
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    It sounds like your blade isn't sharp enough so its not "biting" and taking a shaving at a thin setting. This causes you to need to thicken the cut, but then its too heavy plus not sharp enough and so you get the THUD.

    Have you tried shooting anything other than hickory on it? Same issue or not?

    One other possibility that I can think of other than edge keeness is if that if the mouth of the plane is fairly open the corner of the piece could be going too far up into it when you enter the cut IF you're not quite holding the work piece in place or if your plane stroke is a little wobbly.

    Rehone, and then go slow. Not super slow you need some force but Yyu do not need to slam the plane through the cut. Even if the mouth is open you can leave that as is, just make sure your are aligning the workpiece properly with the plane sole before you start the stroke, that you are holding the piece ight against the fence, and that your stroke is straight and true. Also stick with the 5 for this, the weight compared to the 4 will be of benefit here.

    Shooting hickory is very doable. It's not necessarily going to be easy with a standard vintage bench plane (just because gripping it in a way that gives enough consistent force can be challenging), but unless you are shooting a very wide or thick piece (how big is the workpiece BTW) you should be able to do it with a no. 5. There is likely something going wrong with you plane, setup, or technique.

    Keep at it, and you'll get it working in no time.
    Last edited by Chris Griggs; 11-01-2013 at 6:59 AM.
    Woodworking is terrific for keeping in shape, but it's also a deadly serious killing system...

  3. #3
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    Sounds like my experience trying to clean up the ends of my hickory workbench top. It took me two days of sharpening, swearing and more sharpening to get the ends planed down. Man that was a pain!

    Granted I was working on 3" thick material over a length of about 28", but I found I had to sharpen my low angle block at 30* and take the thinnest cut possible to get it to work. Even then I'd only get about 10 clean swipes before I'd have to go back to the stones.

    Shooting hard woods like Hickory with a standard bench plane can be difficult. I used to shoot with a #5, which did work, but not all that well. A low angle plane of some configuration will work end grain better.

  4. #4
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    Addendum to previous post.

    I just went down to the basement and shot some hickory with a vintage no 5. I'm so used to shooting w/ my LA jack that I forgot how much harder it is (for me anyway) to shoot with a BD bench plane. Just for comparison, I shot some other species too...hard maple wasn't all that fun either with the vintage BD plane. As big of a fan I am of vintage BD plane for most woodworking tasks...shooting is not one of them, especially when it wide, or thick, or hard material.

    Can you shoot hickory or other hard material with a vintage 5? Absolutely, but you'll probably have a much easier time just striking a line around the end grain, putting the board in a vise and planing to the line.
    Woodworking is terrific for keeping in shape, but it's also a deadly serious killing system...

  5. #5
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    I would try softening the end grain a bit with mineral spirits.

  6. #6
    Ditto the last suggestion. End grain on hickory and locust is never going to be that easy to work.

  7. #7
    Check out the specific gravity of hickory, it is very dense for a domestic species! The planes you are using will have to be razor sharp and the smallest of shavings must be taken if you hope for success. I would suggest that you try a BD plane, a BU plane with a 3/16" thick blade etc. to try to reduce deflection. The task you have set for yourself is challenging regardless of skill set and experieince, good luck.

  8. #8
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    Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaa. . .

    After making a 6'x3' workbench from hickory, I can say good luck shooting that endgrain. It's doable, but as Mr. Griggs said, make sure you have a sharp plane. IMHO, it's worth it to look at the Veritas/LN shooting planes if you plan to be doing this more than once. Your shoulder and wrist will thank you later and you will notice on other woods that the cuts are even easier.

    You're almost better off just marking a square line around the piece and trying to cut the desired angle with a saw. I thought about "shooting" the end of my workbench for all of about 10 seconds, then said "screw it", marked a line, and went at it with the X-Cut saw.

    There's a reason I make most of my own "tools" out of hickory; you can abuse the stuff without hurting it too badly. I'd much rather work Jatoba and friends as opposed to hickory.
    The Barefoot Woodworker.

    Fueled by leather, chrome, and thunder.

  9. #9
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    Impecable sharpening and a bit of wet . . . you will be surprised.

    Yes … wetting the end grain makes a huge difference. I used water because I don't have enough ventilation in this shop to use paint thinner or alcohol but those work even better as far as not rusting your planes. If water then dry and oil your plane as soon as you take a break or stop for the day.

    In this photo I have set up to plane the end grain of this bubinga table. I will stand on the bench to get to it. Note in the second photo the glassy surface left with a nice blade edge. No finish on the wood, that is bare wood a minute or less after taking the final passes.








    One problem you run into that dulls the blades is if the end grain has dirt and grit in it. Doesn't take much to dull your plane blades. The end of the board must be cut off with a saw so there is no junk in the end from standing in the dirt on the floor or from the lumber yard etc. Then keep the end grain clean before planing.


    When sharpening the edge geometry needs to be impeccable meaning no rounding of the downward facing facet of the edge by hand held honing or stropping on a soft strop. At least for end grain try a sharpening jig and when touching up the blade same goes.


    You could experiment with a toothed blade to get the worst off then finish up with a regular blade but not really necessary for a small amount of wood to be taken off. This is more for a large area.


    http://www.lie-nielsen.com/lie-niels...blade-toothed/


    On the hardness chart, for what that is worth, this bubinga is 2690 ( lb ) roughly and hickory is not rated on the same chart but I assume it is similar to rock maple but harder than rock maple some what which is rated at 1500 ( lb ).


    Every plank is different more or less. The info is from this book page 8
    http://www.amazon.com/Nick-Englers-W...s=Nick+englars
    a terrific book to have by the way.


    The test is the engineers drive a metal ball half way into the wood and this is how much force it takes to do it.

    Lets assume the ball is 1/4 inch. Then to drive that ball 1/8 inch into the bubinga it would take the equivalent of putting the entire weight of a sports car all focused onto that little ball. Good stuff huh ?
    Last edited by Winton Applegate; 11-02-2013 at 1:43 AM.
    Sharpening is Facetating.
    Good enough is good enough
    But
    Better is Better.

  10. #10
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    Thanks everybody for the big pile of replies. I'm guessing my problem is probably somewhat sharpness (masked on the cherry/oak/etc I've been able to do book with) combined with my somewhat awkward setup...

    In this case it wasn't critical (dovetail template "tenon" end) so I ended up leaving it.

    Thankfully I'm not planning on shooting much hickory. The hickory dining table top I just Glued up will simply be cut to a line... I'll cross cleaning up that cut to a knife line when I get there I suppose....

    Thanks again, glad to have joined the site!

  11. #11
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    Is your shooting board one with the sloped table?
    Bill
    On the other hand, I still have five fingers.

  12. #12
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    Peter,

    Before I got seriously into hand tool woodworking, I felt that I knew how to sharpen. I even went out a got a couple of "tier 1 tools" (L-N & LV) to ease the transition. Upon receipt I did as everyone said and honed those brand new blades. Then I started working with my freshly sharpened tools and found working wood was HARD, taking much more force than it appeared to take others on the videos.

    Then came the day I joined my local WW club and attended a hands-on class and watched how easy it seemed for a few of the others. Talking to them and trying out their planes and chisels, I learned that what I thought was sharp wasn't even close to what was needed to bring out the full pleasure of hand tool work.

    Once I had someone show me what I was doing wrong and what to do right, it was a different world. With a "sharp" #6 you can place the plane on the edge of a piece of 8/4 hard maple, wrap two fingers around the front knob, and quite easily pull the plane through while cutting a full shaving. Once you experience this, a whole new world opens up to you.

    I'm not saying hickory isn't a beast compared to many other woods, because it is. What I'm saying is the difference between sharp and SHARP is amazing.

    Also, I'm not talking "extreme sharpening", where people spend hours honing an edge. For me and a #6, starting with a hollow ground edge from a grinder and the back of the blade polished to 8k-18k (one time ordeal), spending 20-30 seconds putting on a secondary bevel using a 1,000 grit Shapton and another 20-30 seconds or so putting a tertiary bevel on a 16K Shapton, and I'm done. There's many ways to get there, that's just mine.

    IMO, the importance of really LEARNING to sharpen cannot be overstated. Once you are getting your tools razor sharp you can focus on techniques, which were actually generally easier for me to learn than the sharpening.

    This is just my $0.02.. YMMV.

    Jim in Alaska
    One can never have too many planes and chisels... or so I'm learning!!

  13. #13
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    Jim, noticing you are in AK as well if your in Anchorage, maybe at some point you'd be willing to either show me some of your "sharp" tools or take a look at mine.

    Never really having had anything to compare to, I can only compare to my own prior results (I. E. Out of the box eBay damaged edge, to what I'm at now)...

    Along those same lines, I really want to put my straight edge to someone else's planes and compare... Mine is "pretty flat" and seems to work, but you get online and people oscillate between "0.00001 flat" and "good enough".

  14. #14
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    Winston (and others) - On the wetting, just apply with rag (like a light waxing) or some other amount?

    The stand the edge up and stand on bench method looks like what I'll be doing in a few days... That will be the true test, as I just Glued up the hickory table top... I'm definitely going to practice on some off cuts first though.

    I'm thinking the extra leverage of not using the shooting board will help greatly, but we'll see.

  15. #15
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    How to get the wet on the wood
    I use a largish cheep paint brush. Plastic black bristtle.
    If you go with water you could use an atomizer; you know like for spraying window cleaner on a window.

    The atomizer is not the best idea for applying paint thinner etc., too many fumes to breath.
    I don't like using a rag, it snags on the cross grain planed, splintery, face grain but i supose would be fine for end grain as far as that goes.

    I get kind of finiky and don't want to use any thing that might add grit to the surface like i imagine a rag laying on the bottom of a semi dirty bowl would. Where as a brush can be layed across the top of a jar and dipped in the water and the grit settle to the bottom.

    I know , I over thunk it once again.

    Winston
    hey that's something. Maybe I should change my name to Winston. Ha, ha, I just can't see my self answering to that name even though it is a cool name.
    Last edited by Winton Applegate; 11-02-2013 at 9:28 PM.
    Sharpening is Facetating.
    Good enough is good enough
    But
    Better is Better.

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