I tried the chipbreaker trick...

[Patrick Chase]

Well,when you set yourself up as the greatest expert,and write your every thought down in magazines and blogs,you can get trapped!! but,his fans probably disregard it anyway.

You can also get trapped by being too close to or dependent on advertisers with an agenda of their own.

The whole "cap-iron revolution" came at a deeply inopportune time for the industry, inasmuch as everybody (manufacturers, magazines, etc) had recently jumped on the bevel-up bandwagon. A lot of advertising space and editorial column-inches were being spent pushing the idea that 62-ish planes made conventional BD designs "obsolete".

[george wilson]

i suppose you could get entangled with them. But,how do you suddenly turn around and say that you've been using the chip breaker for many many (19) years? Re: post #14? I'm taking Warren's word that that was what Chris said. I don't read his blog. I'm not a "blogster",I guess! And,I'm not active enough right now to start my own blog. It would die of boredom if I did!!! When I DO work,it is most frequently in making something out of metal rather than wood. One of the last things I did in wood was to make a wooden(mahogany) plug for the funerary urn of a friend's grandmother. A big responsibility,i thought,since it was her eternal resting place. Made a guitar(possibly my best sounding ever) a few years ago. Most often I do work that I am commissioned to do.

Well,I have admitted that I was not aware of the PROPER use of the chip breaker myself. Still managed to do decent work by planing straight across the grain,and scraping. Many instruments are made of very curly maple. The small thumb planes that violin makers use also come with toothed irons with flat ended teeth that break up the chips into many very narrow ones. Different action from the near vertical blades of the larger cabinet maker's toothing planes. On those tiny planes(of the violin maker),and with them being pushed with only the thumb and forefinger,a regular,closely set chip breaker would be impractical. None of them come with tiny chip breakers!! With my want and my job to make musical instruments for many years,I was sort of working outside of the field of cabinet making. I don't know how far back these little violin maker's planes go,but I have seen examples from the 16th. C.. They missed out on the advancements of larger planes,being too small to have chip breakers. Some have 1/4" wide blades.

But,I can tell you that no one in the cabinet maker's shop knew about the proper use of the chip breaker either. And may still not since they don't post on this forum,or on the other forum where David or Warren post.

[Derek Cohen]

... The whole "cap-iron revolution" came at a deeply inopportune time for the industry, inasmuch as everybody (manufacturers, magazines, etc) had recently jumped on the bevel-up bandwagon. A lot of advertising space and editorial column-inches were being spent pushing the idea that 62-ish planes made conventional BD designs "obsolete".

At the time, without using the chipbreaker, high angled planes were all there was. High cutting angles were easiest on BU planes - the reason I used them so much.

Today there is a choice. I now predominantly use BD planes with the chipbreaker, nevertheless nothing has changed the fact that BU planes work extremely well with interlocked hard woods. Further, they are far easier to master than the chipbreaker. I have no doubt that Industry has likely not felt the impact of the chipbreaker "revolution".

Regards from Perth

Derek

[lowell holmes]

I've been using Stanley and similar planes for years. I've had no issues with chip breakers. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

I don't do a lot with exotic wood, but have used substantial amounts of curly maple. I have gone to bevel up planes on occasions.

I currently have Lee Valley irons and breakers in my Bedrocks. My 605 has stock iron and breaker in it and it does a great job producing fine, translucent shavings in most wood.

[george wilson]

Derek,our Millwork Shop bought a nice new Northfield thickness planer. It planes the curliest wood like magic! It does this by having nearly vertical carbide cutters about 3/4" wide,which scrape the wood. WITH the help of a 10 H.P. motor!!

It is not like the numerous segmented blade cutterheads now optional on Grizzly and other home shop type machines.( The carbide cutters in the Northfield are ground in place with the sharpening attachment supplied with the planer. But it cost $30,000 dollars!) They (The Byrd type cutterheads) will plane very smoothly too. Their carbide inserts cut at a very steep angle . But,they apparently leave slightly scalloped grooves in the wood. You rotate them 4 times to use all 4 surfaces of the carbide inserts. Then,you sell your car to buy new inserts!!!

Some of the more clever wood workers used to adapt their normal HSS blades to cut with a scraping action,by grinding a back angle on the front edge of the HSS knives. That worked,too. Takes a lot more power to scrape,though. Not sure if my 3 HP planer could handle that.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi George

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Those carbide inserts are not THAT expensive. I bought some extras a while back, but cannot recall the price. I have a Hammer A3-31 combination jointer-thicknesser/planer. It is pure magic! No scalloped surfaces. Smooth as a baby's bottom. I've had the machine about 2 years and have not yet rotated an insert. The four sides could last me 10 years or more. I am not sure whether the cutters work because they are high angled, like the Northfield, or because they are skewed.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[george wilson]

That was an exaggeration on my part,if you had to replace ALL the cutters at once!! And thank you!!

[Patrick Chase]

Derek,our Millwork Shop bought a nice new Northfield thickness planer. It planes the curliest wood like magic! It does this by having nearly vertical carbide cutters about 3/4" wide,which scrape the wood. WITH the help of a 10 H.P. motor!!

It is not like the numerous segmented blade cutterheads now optional on Grizzly and other home shop type machines.( The carbide cutters in the Northfield are ground in place with the sharpening attachment supplied with the planer. But it cost $30,000 dollars!) They (The Byrd type cutterheads) will plane very smoothly too. Their carbide inserts cut at a very steep angle . But,they apparently leave slightly scalloped grooves in the wood. You rotate them 4 times to use all 4 surfaces of the carbide inserts. Then,you sell your car to buy new inserts!!!

Some of the more clever wood workers used to adapt their normal HSS blades to cut with a scraping action,by grinding a back angle on the front edge of the HSS knives. That worked,too. Takes a lot more power to scrape,though. Not sure if my 3 HP planer could handle that.

I use a Byrd Shelix head in a DW735 lunchbox planer. As somebody else said, the replacement inserts aren't expensive at all - $25 for 10, and the 13" head in my DeWalt only takes 40 in total. Sharpening your own HSS blades is cheaper in terms of dollars spent, but the inserts look pretty good when you take time/productivity into account.

w.r.t. the scalloping: It's real (and easily seen by holding the piece up to a grazing light source), but it's on the order of 1-2 mils deep and very easily removed. Presumably anybody on this forum would follow up with a smooth plane anyway :-).

EDIT: Happy Birthday!

[Patrick Chase]

At the time, without using the chipbreaker, high angled planes were all there was. High cutting angles were easiest on BU planes - the reason I used them so much.

Very true. I was in the same boat.

The thing that I find interesting is that with hindsight it's easy to spot references here and there from people who, like Warren, were obviously clued in all along. IMO what happened a few years ago wasn't so much a matter of discovery (the information was literally out there for centuries) as of critical mass - those voices finally started to be accepted instead of disparaged. It's something of an exercise in groupthink and mob psychology, and therefore more in your professional balliwick than mine :-).

The other thing to consider is that high-angle irons in BU planes are much less finicky than close-set cap irons. I suspect that partially explains why the mass periodicals continue to advocate that approach.

[Jim Koepke]

The other thing to consider is that high-angle irons in BU planes are much less finicky than close-set cap irons. I suspect that partially explains why the mass periodicals continue to advocate that approach.

It may be that people are always in a hurry. They will try setting the chip breaker close with a tight mouth and get jammed shavings and feel that proves it is nonsense.

Some woodworkers might look at it and try to troubleshoot the situation.

Some may try it in a plane with an open mouth and find there is something to this "chip breaker stuff."

The chip breaker can be very finicky. Any slight crack or even a burr can cause shavings to catch and jam. In my opinion, the parts most likely to suffer abuse and have need of correction on a double iron plane is the blade and chip breaker. Not many of my planes came with these piece properly mated.

jtk

[george wilson]

At the Toolmaker's Shop,I had several LN planes. One was a BU smooth plane. If I got it very sharp,and finely adjusted,I could be able to plane reasonably curly maple without it chipping out. But,the tightly curled maple I'd use on the back of a musical instrument was another matter. However,I was in costume at that time,and could not use modern BU planes back then,even if they had been available at that time.

[Derek Cohen]

.... The other thing to consider is that high-angle irons in BU planes are much less finicky than close-set cap irons. I suspect that partially explains why the mass periodicals continue to advocate that approach.

Patrick, I've said the same for the past few years. Some hear this comment as negation or rejection of the chipbreaker. That would be incorrect. I support both strategies, perhaps all strategies that get you there, while acknowleding that some work better (for some) than others.

We on the fori are a small community of woodworkers. The experienced segment are a smaller percentage still. The vocal voice are likely not representative of those that do or don't. My impression, having visited many fori, is that most do not use woods that challenge planing technique and that, for the most part, a common angle plane in either BU or BD (sans closed chipbreaker) would suffice. Which is easier to set up? That answer is obvious.

This is why BU planes will continue to flourish. But also equally why vintage Baileys will do so as well. There are just too few who will test the limits, that is who actually need a high angle or a closed chipbreaker to produce a clear surface. It is from this very select group that feedback would be valuable in regard to matters of practicality and preference.

I am more inclined to use the closed chipbreaker on my BD planes than a high angle on a BU plane, however I am one of those gung-ho types that is prepared to persevere in order to succeed. Not all see the need or have the willingness to take this path. When I do use the BU planes, I am reminded that they work exceedingly well and require little set up skills, however they do tend to require a honing guide to sharpen the blades ... and it is this factor that sends me back to the BD planes.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

Patrick, I've said the same for the past few years. Some hear this comment as negation or rejection of the chipbreaker. That would be incorrect. I support both strategies, perhaps all strategies that get you there, while acknowleding that some work better (for some) than others.

I agree 100%. The problem is that that's a rather subtle argument by forum standards, of the sort that doesn't go over well with the "you're with us or you're against us" crowd. To make matters worse folks have built up a lot of "scar tissue" around these contentious topics (and on a *completely* unrelated note, I've made a mental note to never, ever diss Spyderco stones again... :-).

It also sounds fairly arrogant when we say things like "I prefer a close-set cap iron but I tell my less obsessive friends to just use a high-angle blade on a BU plane", even though the underlying logic has more to do with OCD (specifically the fact that I have it more than most) than ability...

[Brian Holcombe]

We on the fori are a small community of woodworkers. The experienced segment are a smaller percentage still. The vocal voice are likely not representative of those that do or don't. My impression, having visited many fori, is that most do not use woods that challenge planing technique and that, for the most part, a common angle plane in either BU or BD (sans closed chipbreaker) would suffice. Which is easier to set up? That answer is obvious.

This is why BU planes will continue to flourish. But also equally why vintage Baileys will do so as well. There are just too few who will test the limits, that is who actually need a high angle or a closed chipbreaker to produce a clear surface. It is from this very select group that feedback would be valuable in regard to matters of practicality and preference.

Derek

I certainly prefer perfect lumber, but even that offers its challenge. The challenge of clear lumber is how perfect a sheen you can apply to it. I've seen an absolute mirror surface applied to old growth cypress. That is a challenge in the same way that planing grain reversals is a challenge.

The reality is, however, that perfect lumber is a particularly rare bird and even junk pile walnut is going to offer a good challenge to most. So I feel situations calling for proper setup are common enough, probably more common than clear stock.

[george wilson]

I'm also a gung ho type,and will spent great amounts of effort on things that interest me. I spent hundreds of hours experimenting with old recipes of varnish. A fair amount of money,too,on the ingredients,some of which are very difficult to find these days.

I wish I had taken my notes with me in a trip to Italy. I found an incredible art store in Florence that sold hundreds of types of resins and pigments. But,all in Italian,of course. There must be many artists there experimenting on the techniques of the old masters. And,plenty of ancient work to see there,too! A very interesting place. I could not afford to live there these days. My director sometimes got on my case,as much time as I spent on varnishes. Being a non builder,he failed to fully see the importance of violin varnishes. But I still persevered as he wasn't about to take any serious effort to prevent my experimenting! At least,he was a non craftsman who did appreciate a good piece of work. The only director out of maybe 5 successive ones who seemed to do so. That includes Jay Gaynor. Jay never said anything,so I never knew what he thought of a finished project that he might have asked me to do.

About polished wood: Finishes may not stick to them as well as to a finely sanded surface,so be careful. Especially on woods like cypress,containing a little oil.