Oh no Mike, your wife is in this too. There is no hope.Hey congrats on your anniversary. My 32nd is coming up Aug. 4. Wow where does the time fly?
[OP]
Member
Oh no Mike, your wife is in this too. There is no hope.
Alan T. Thank God for every pain free day you live.
Guest
Oh, we're totally doomed! As you can guess from what I said here wood is, she's a turner. Makes beautiful vessels.Originally Posted by Alan Tolchinsky
A year or so ago I bought her a Jet mini lathe so she could make some pens. The it was the Jet 1442. Of relavance to our discussion though, is she stresses about the sharpness of her tools, how thin a shaving she can pull off the piece she is turning. I tell her the same thing. In part it is the tool, in part it is the user.
For a turner, it is less about the tool's sharpness than the user. For handplanes it is more about the tool than the user. Nonetheless, those two things work hand in hand. For us, the sharper the blade, the flatter the plane's sole and the tightness of the mouth combine with us, the user in our ability to adjust the tool and use it consistent with its intended use.
It's coming up quick. Congrats to you and yours.
Mike
Member
Yes. Not only in the feel of the wood (generally) but in the increased effort in taking a larger shaving. Thicker = Harder
Generally, increased effort is required for a thicker shaving, but I have to wonder about how much more effort it requires to take 25 ten thousandths as opposed to 15 ten thousandths?
I do agree that you need to work down to the point of taking those finish shavings as it might take a while at even .0025 inches to remove any amount of material around even minute depressions in the wood.
Chris,
You mean you don't have one of the layest supersonic lazer calipers that measure to molecular thickness levels?
Someone said the real test of a craftsman is his ability to recover from his mistakes. I'm practicing real hard for that test.
Guest
I suppose it depends on the wood as regards "feeling" the difference in effort. As I use mostly woods like cocobolo, bubinga, et al, I cannot take a deep cut--at least not many. It's not worth the effort. More strokes are easier.
The planes I use for leveling/thicknessing are set to take not a very deep cut. I resaw pretty close to final. Once the bench planes being used to level get past the BS marks and take full shavings it gets a lot tougher.
When I then switch to the first smoothers, which take half the thickness of shaving, there is a difference. When I switch to the final little smoother, there's a heck of a difference.
Part of that is the difference in width of cut, I'm sure. But it is also a finer cut.
Mike
Moderator
Shaving thickness is and of itself not really important in most uses. For a scrub plane I try and take off thick shavings to get rid of the waste more quickly- sometimes up to .03" thick or more. As I move to four square and produce a planar surface on the board, I go for thinner shavings the closer I get to my finished thickness. The goal here is to take as thick a shaving as you can without getting tearout. Remember, the thinner the shaving the more strokes you are taking and the longer it takes to get the job done. As I approach final thickness I start to worry about the finish and the final surface, THEN I start to take those really thin shavings. Most of the shavings for my ready to finish surface run from .0015 to .0005 depending on the wood and the grain. Burls, crotches, curly figure, ribbon stripe, and other reversing and irregular grain require thinner shavings and a really sharp blade to prevent tearout. You might have to sharpen as many as 4-5 times just to complete one board 12" x36". You are also probably going to have to experiment with which blade pitch works best on a particualar sample of wood. This is definately NOT "one size fits all."
Dave Anderson
Chester, NH
Contributor
Tyler, been waiting on you to chime in here about the lack of pics.
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