Hand plane

[David Bassett]

... Is there a book or DVD....

Thought about this some more. Two less task specific resources came to mind. They might give you context as well as a start on general and specific skills.

First is The Naked Woodworker video by Mike Siemsen. (That's naked, as in starting without anything, not nudist! Also, the DVD seems to be out of print.) He starts with buying and rehab'ing used hand tools, continues with using them to build a couple saw benches and then a workbench. Even if you don't follow his path, e.g. I've never found a tool swap meet like that out here, it will give you a background and context of traditional woodworking.

Another resource about working with hand tools, is The Joiner and Cabinet Maker. It is a reprint of book written in the 1800's as a guide to boys considering an apprenticeship. Joel Moskowitz (TFWW) owns an original copy, provided updates to the English, and supporting historic background. Christopher Schwarz completed each of the projects and provides detailed instructions to duplicate each project in Thomas the fictional apprentice's training.

[David Bassett]

Hmm, I have some concerns about some of his claims about technique in that article. ...

Hmm, teach me to read something before suggesting it. I was surprised when it popped up in my search results and passed it along. Given Kieran's rep, that is a little disappointing.

OK, OP stick to my original suggestion of Chris Schwarz's article as an overview. (Especially since it's been posted online now and you don't have to be buying reprints or back issues. Oh, overview. Don't take Schwarz's chip-breaker advice as gospel or another round of religious war might breakout around you! ) PS- Sorry.

[Jim Koepke]

For example, his assertion that "domed" (convex) boards can only be worked end to end until almost flat leads to a needlessly inefficient working style.

Anyone trying to claim there is only one way on just about anything is wrong right out of the box.

Not sure if this is the Christopher Schwarz article mentioned before, but it is a good primer on hand planes.

https://www.popularwoodworking.com/a...ystem-of-three

Try again, your location update didn't take. (I'm assuming you mean northern northern California, not SLO town and up as so many in our southern population center think about it. Honestly, looking at a map, I'm not sure why I'm in "northern" CA. More like middle.) Anyway....

The naming of different areas of California can be confusing. Southern California to some is south of the Tehachapi Mountains and everything else is northern California. Central California breaks down into Valley or Coastal. Northern California is everything north of the Santa Cruz Mountains. To the east it is still "The Valley." Way up north along the coast some don't even think of it as California and will let you know it when they fly the state flag with a big XX for Jefferson, but that is a different state altogether. That is what a gas station attendant's response was when at about age 10 my quest was to find a map of Los Angeles. When enquired about what he meant about it being in a different state, he said, "yes, it is in a state of confusion." That was back in the day when almost every gas station had free maps. Though most stations in the SF Bay Area didn't carry maps of Los Angeles.

jtk

[Jon Wolfe]

Jim and David,
Thanks so much so sharing the terrific Christopher Schwartz articles. I have just started using and acquiring planes and I have a smoother, jack and a number 7. I have a few extra blades so I now have a much better idea of what I am trying to do for different set ups with each of them.
Anyone that hasn't read that article really should and should also bookmark it.
thanks again Jim.
Jon

[Jim Koepke]

You are welcome Jon and welcome to the Creek.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

Anyone trying to claim there is only one way on just about anything is wrong right out of the box.

Indeed :-).

I tried to be careful not to imply that you *couldn't* flatten the convex side with lengthwise strokes, just that IMO it's not a terribly good idea to limit yourself to that.

[Pat Barry]

Hmm, teach me to read something before suggesting it. I was surprised when it popped up in my search results and passed it along. Given Kieran's rep, that is a little disappointing.

OK, OP stick to my original suggestion of Chris Schwarz's article as an overview. (Especially since it's been posted online now and you don't have to be buying reprints or back issues. Oh, overview. Don't take Schwarz's chip-breaker advice as gospel or another round of religious war might breakout around you! ) PS- Sorry.

What the guys says in the article that was referenced is correct. He is describing an efficient way to flatten a particular type of cupping in a board. He notes that making lateral planing passes (following the contour) leaves much more potential for doing unnecessary work. Going as he describes in the article fits the conditions he outlined and photographed very well. I have no idea why some others are finding issue with the article (except just to be contrarian). In fact, it would be ludicrous to try and balance the toe of your plane on a high-spot such as the cupped board in the article and attempt to do cross-grain or diagonal passes to level it. Sure, after the worst of the cupping is removed then by all means revert to the cross-grain method as needed - note that for a narrow board this isn't very efficient either. I think you can do good by taking your time, identifying the high-spots, working those down, and repeat as needed to get the surface flat. As far as planing direction - working with the grain to avoid tearout is much important, otherwise, do what is comfortable for you.
Also, I would give the guy who wrote the article credit for being proficient and knowledgeable and not dismiss things due to negative feedback from other 'experts'. I would bet that he has much more practical experience than some others who have offered arguments to what was written.

[Warren Mickley]

It seems as if what we have here is Pat telling us to listen to Kiernan about stock preparation. However Kiernan, a lawyer, only three years earlier took a class in this stuff with Chris Schwartz who teaches a workshop in hand work, then goes home and prepares stock by machine. Blind leading the blind. Kiernan pretends to have read Moxon, but obviously missed the section where it talks about planing both the concave side and the convex side cross grain. Moxon only wrote three sentences about cross grain planing. Planing a convex side cross grain is not difficult.

Moxon actually recommends planing cross grain only for boards that are both somewhat warped and also rather wide. I would say like ten inches or more. It is clumsy and inefficient to plane narrow boards cross grain. The great bulk of our rough planing we do with the grain. I am not sure I have ever seen diagonal planing mentioned in historic texts or seen the evidence on historic pieces of woodwork.

"And if the Stuff be broad you are to plane upon, and it warp a little with the Grain, or be any ways crooked in the breadth, you must then turn the Grain athwart the Work-bench and plane upon the Cross-grain. For, if your work be hollow in the middle,you must Plane both the bearing sides thinner, till they come to a Try with the middle. Then turn the other side of your work, and working still Cross-grain'd, work away the middle, till it come to Try with the two sides."

[Patrick Chase]

Moxon actually recommends planing cross grain only for boards that are both somewhat warped and also rather wide. I would say like ten inches or more. It is clumsy and inefficient to plane narrow boards cross grain. The great bulk of our rough planing we do with the grain. I am not sure I have ever seen diagonal planing mentioned in historic texts or seen the evidence on historic pieces of woodwork.

Hmm, sounds like I have an adjustment to make. I would guess that I'm switching from lengthwise to traversing at 8" or a bit less right now. I wonder if there's something inefficient about my lengthwise work that's causing me to think that's a good idea. As you say traversing gets cumbersome on small boards.

When you refer to "diagonal planing", are you talking about the alternating-45-degree roughing strokes that Schwartz preaches, or the practice of planing from high corner to high corner along the diagonal axis of the board after initial roughing? I don't see the point of and don't do the former, but I sometimes do the latter.

EDIT: This is probably obvious, but the amount of stuff that needs to be removed to joint a cupped board with any given curvature radius is roughly proportional to the *cube* of the board width. This is so because the depth of the cup is proportional to width squared, and the amount of stuff is proportional to width*depth ~= width^3.

[Pat Barry]

It seems as if what we have here is Pat telling us to listen to Kiernan about stock preparation. However Kiernan, a lawyer, only three years earlier took a class in this stuff with Chris Schwartz who teaches a workshop in hand work, then goes home and prepares stock by machine. Blind leading the blind. Kiernan pretends to have read Moxon, but obviously missed the section where it talks about planing both the concave side and the convex side cross grain. Moxon only wrote three sentences about cross grain planing. Planing a convex side cross grain is not difficult.

Moxon actually recommends planing cross grain only for boards that are both somewhat warped and also rather wide. I would say like ten inches or more. It is clumsy and inefficient to plane narrow boards cross grain. The great bulk of our rough planing we do with the grain. I am not sure I have ever seen diagonal planing mentioned in historic texts or seen the evidence on historic pieces of woodwork.

"And if the Stuff be broad you are to plane upon, and it warp a little with the Grain, or be any ways crooked in the breadth, you must then turn the Grain athwart the Work-bench and plane upon the Cross-grain. For, if your work be hollow in the middle,you must Plane both the bearing sides thinner, till they come to a Try with the middle. Then turn the other side of your work, and working still Cross-grain'd, work away the middle, till it come to Try with the two sides."

Thanks for the brilliant observations oh wise one. I stand by my comments regarding the article. When you write one of your own please let us know.

[Patrick Chase]

Thanks for the brilliant observations oh wise one. I stand by my comments regarding the article. When you write one of your own please let us know.

Because it has literally all been said before, and about all that can be done by writing yet another article at this point is to add confusion? I imagine that's why he quoted directly from Moxon instead of providing his own "interpretation" a la Schwartz/Kiernan/etc.

[Warren Mickley]

I tend to argue the most for techniques that I have used for decades and are also documented in historic literature. In this case, the idea that one could not plane cross grain on a convex surface contradicted years of experience of mine and what Moxon said 340 years ago. The strange thing was that this Kiernan fellow suggested he was following what Moxon said.

Patrick, from just my experience, routine 45 degree planing is not helpful, especially when it is in both directions and done blindly without regard to the actual wind or warp of the board. For minor adjustment of wind with the trying plane, I use 1) just planing the high corners (straight with the grain), 2) planing slightly diagional, high corner to high corner, and parallel strokes along the same angle, 3) straight planing through the middle of the board with shorter stokes along the edges to avoid planing low corners. I like to finish with full length strokes and then, at the end, test with straight edge and winding sticks. A well thought out routine is helpful, but one does not have a flat board automatically because of a routine.

[Hasin Haroon]

Hi Brian,

I would strongly recommend you look up 'Paul Sellers' on YouTube. A lot of woodworkers, myself included, learned much of the basic knowledge of hand plane use through Seller's videos. He can be a little dogmatic in his views and some here don't regard him very highly, but his content is undeniably valuable to a beginner woodworker just starting out with hand tools.

All the best!

[Graham Haydon]

You can trust Warren's reasoning on this topic for a few reasons. He's taken the time to study the text of the time where conversion by hand was the only option. More importantly, he's put it into practice for decades. Now, by sheer evolution, it's likely he would end up with the most effective process even without the text.

If you want to do this process effectively, Warren should be your resource. You should listen and put into practice what he says. People like Sellers and Schwarz are very skilled but they they are very low in experience when it comes to timber conversion. There is a video of Sellers on YT converting some wood by hand. It's clear with the time taken and method shown he does not convert timber by hand. He is like most people, he does all the hard work on machines and then does the joinery by hand.

[Patrick Chase]

Patrick, from just my experience, routine 45 degree planing is not helpful, especially when it is in both directions and done blindly without regard to the actual wind or warp of the board.

That's my experience as well, though I have a theory as to why some people like to do the 45-deg thing: It compensates for sloppy roughing technique. If you don't pay close attention to what you're doing when traversing then it's possible to plane dips into the board. Alternating at 45 deg can somewhat cancel those out (provided they're not too wide) for obvious reasons. Also, going at 45 deg makes the work ~1.4X "wider" and may help some folks balance the plane, though that doesn't justify *alternating* 45 deg strokes.

The obvious downsides of diagonal traversing are that they require extra work fixturing (stops/dogs at both ends plus the back if you prefer to "work loose" as I do, or full-on clamping) and it forces you into potentially unfavorable stroke directions w.r.t. grain.