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Thread: Flattening the sole of a cast steel hand plane?

  1. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Stewie Simpson View Post
    Andrew; you may find the following article of interest; https://www.kinexmeasuring.com/downl...oodworkers.pdf

    regards Stewie;
    I must have a read of that later.
    I have been able to get thinner consistent shavings with the close set cap iron, so would argue that a plane what's truly flat will have a more noticable effect in use compared to using other techniques like back bevels, or higher pitch.
    I don't think its worth its salt on the scribble test, if this is not the case.
    Don't know if hes still using BU planes, or if he's wrote the article since then, but I see shavings indicative of this being the case.

    Tom

  2. #32
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    Or...just watch Paul Sellers....He just MIGHT know a thing or two.....

  3. #33

    Talking

    Quote Originally Posted by steven c newman View Post
    Or...just watch Paul Sellers....He just MIGHT know a thing or two.....
    About the worst person on youtube in regards to planing IMO
    Planes timber unsupported and states its spot on, no surprise he won;t show you, advises folks to throw out the accuracy of their planes by lapping the edges.
    Dismisses use of the close set cap iron, hacks up his bench and more.

    Beware of these things if you strive to do fine work.
    Not keen on shooting folks down, but that plane restoration video is truly awful advice, and will fool newcomers to the craft that are intending to restore their newly acquired tools.


    Tom

  4. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lasse Hilbrandt View Post
    On YT there are a lot of videos that show how to flatten the sole on hand planes. It seems fairly easy, but I wonder if there are anything that can go wrong if the tecnique is not right?
    Can one accidently be "rounding" the sole instead because of more gringding at the ends than in the middle of the sole ?

    Is a granite plate from a window usually flat enough for the job ?

    What grit size should I end up with ?

    Thanks..
    It is essential to evaluate the sole for twist. Merely rubbing the sole on a flat surface stands as much chance of making twist worse as it does fixing it. Most planes that cut poorly for no other discernible reason do so because the sole it twisted, and it doesn't take much to wreck a plane's performance. If you identify twist, you should spot stand the high corners with emery paper wrapped around a cork block constantly checking progress. Once you've removed twist, then you can attack convexity and concavity in length and width being careful not to reintroduce twist. It's just like planing a board flat, the order of work is for all intents and purposes the same.

  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lasse Hilbrandt View Post
    I have a friend who has a milling machine. Would that work ?
    Definitely yes, if the machinist knows how to fixture the plane and use the proper cutter. I'm fortunate to have a complete machine shop in my manufacturing plant, as well as employing a few tool makers. I gave a Millers Falls smoother to one of my guys about a half dozen years ago, to gring the sole flat. He gave it back to me the next day, but not ground, but milled. It is one of my sweetest planes. Another guy was great on a surface grinder.

    If your friend is a full time machinist and has fixturing to hold the plane, as well as the proper cutter, then yes. If a hobbyist, you might be sacrificing your plane to the scrap pile. Length of time to do, if you pay a machinist? At least several hours and typical shop rates here in PA, start around $50/hour.
    If the thunder don't get you, the lightning will.

  6. #36
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    So sayeth yet another Sellers hater.....maybe do a youtube vid to show how YOU do this? Didn't think so...

    3 points on a plane's sole NEED to be co-planar..toe, heel, and around the mouth opening....as long as the rest of the sole is not higher than those 3 points..plane is ready for use...trying to get the entire sole within a feeler gauge of perfectly flat is a fool's errand, and a waste of time. Area along the outside edges of the sole can be "relieved" a bit, to keep from marking the surface of the wood...about like the iron needing a slight camber at the corners...to avoid leaving "tracks". Just have to learn when it is "flat enough" to do it's job....K.I.S.S.
    Last edited by steven c newman; 08-22-2019 at 8:26 PM.

  7. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by steven c newman View Post
    So sayeth yet another Sellers hater.....maybe do a youtube vid to show how YOU do this? Didn't think so....
    Might do some day, been thinkin bout making youtube videos.
    It's very difficult to make videos incognito, i.e not showing your face, nor your shed off to the world.
    No fifth amendment where I'm at, plenty of cartel folks round here do tool transportation for a living and are above the law.

    It won't look good without a known precision brand surface plate though.
    Don't think my machine beds suffices, nor my surface plate for youtube.
    The incognito is my single biggest concern.

  8. #38
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    Paul Sellers has its place, he is a teacher and teachers have their quirks. I read reccently an article from Paul that pointed me in the direction of some affordable chisels: I had some Luban (same stuff as Woodriver) in the past and they were convex on the back. After examining all other options I ended up ordering a 12mm and a 22mm Ashley Iles Mk2 bevelled chisel. Cannot see me having a need for more, besides that I rather have (and use) two decent ones than have half a dozen pieces of junk that are dangerous because they cannot keep an edge and are blunt all the time.

    There is also David Weaver who does good research but lacks practical experience - He has a video of planing a thin piece of timber held at one end in a vice and then puts his plane down on the blade. He also adjusts his plane while planing and not looking past the sole and/or using the side lever. But he has published some worthwhile research and then we can take it from there. His research showed me the importance of having the chip breaker in the right spots (depending on what you want to achieve).

    I also have some other endavours and if I read a book on the subject and I get one good idea out of the book then it is time and money well spend.

  9. #39
    What would you call practical experience Marinus...
    Does refined planes in both wood and metal not count?
    Been doing that for a while, made his kitchen from some cherry, and a guitar or two recently.

    The man knows a whole lot about stones and tools from all over the world.
    It should be no surprise that good research often stems from experience, strong opinions comes afterwards, otherwise you wouldn't be reading his blogs if he had nothing or little to say on the matter.

    Might be seen as impractical having a bit of a stone habit, I suppose.
    He ain't no spring chicken, and has a wealth of information in certain areas should you stumble across him researching something else.
    David posts his stuff on the UKworkshop forum these days.
    More on his videos than there is on a lot of folks channels, some quite important tips mentioned in passing that is very subtle, and you won't find the same content over and over again, which is a breath of fresh air.

    If you use a close set cap iron, you will end up doing the same in regards to advancing and adjusting the cutter without looking down the sole.

    I suspect that many folks omit the use of the close set cap iron, because they can't get that huge camber off their irons, to enable the cap to get close enough.
    I hardly, if ever hear advice on hollowing the middle out to eliminate nearly all of the camber, this i do on the corner of the oilstone, or a high spot elsewhere on the stone.
    The cap iron makes a good tell tale sign of someone worth watching, there's only about five folks on youtube who use it.
    None of which would describe or present themselves as teachers, they just do it to demonstrate.
    Yet still there is many many videos on how to disable this all important feature on your plane.

    To make a metal surface flat, the same principles apply as with wood.
    Stop shavings like David Charlesworth demonstrates, i.e... hollowing out the work, so a quick pass over the entire area will produce a flat end result.

    I keep up watching every skillful woodworker on YT I can find to attain more knowledge.
    Its a bit silly that folks are still getting tearout on finished boards although they have a press full of planes.
    No excuse for that, unless you like torn out grain.

    Nothing is a match for the cap iron.

    Tom

  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Trees View Post
    What would you call practical experience Marinus...

    ......

    Tom
    Tom

    My grandfather was the ships master carpenter on the last clipper to go around the Cape. His grandfather was in charge of the military dockyards in Amsterdam. My parents had a wharf and I've built a couple of clinker boats besides a couple of times a whole houselot of furniture. I do not view myself as having practical experience: in the days of my forebearers it would take at least 15 years before being regarded as a tradesman. In that respect I view myself as only a hobbyist, a tyro.

  11. #41
    Don't know how much precision metalworking that calls for, but nothing would surprise me, what work might have been needed on a ship, might have been a skilled gunsmith also.
    I will say that I think your definition of practical experience must be quite comprehensive, if you do not view yourself as having much of it.
    I doubt you will find the likes of that much information on one channel, so you might have to delve into metalworking ones aswell, and so on.

    Pity there's not much machine restoration or metalworking relating to woodworkers on YT yet.
    A few like Jack Forsberg, but I don't recall him doing much with hand planes for example, he mainly demonstrates his beautifully restored Wadkins and such.

    I have lapped enough metal enough times to know what happens when you don't leave the edges proud.
    Wouldn't have learned if I wasn't into restoring machines, making tools and other components.
    I still call myself a woodworker though, although I have spent as much or more time on metalwork.
    the other could be called bodger but that words allready taken by the woodworking folks, bad mechanics or builders

    I'm not really that concerned whether someone has crediantals or not, the less talk about anything unrelated the better,
    Not interested in their life story or what papers say about their expertise.
    You gotta find who's the best at what they do, doesn't matter if they haven't done much else
    I just wish to learn the skill that someone is demonstrating.
    Plenty of folks making videos on their own, so those skills would nearly have to be encompassed
    as being savvy with computers also would be applicable, if you were to try and find someone willing to show you real world work,
    i.e, Not cut scenes and the likes,
    unless the presenter has a very broad spectrum of viewers to be able to afford a cameraman.
    That route always revolves around money in the end of the day, and less about demonstrating the best work that they can do.
    He who dares to teach and learn in real time video, is who I'd rather watch.

    Tom

  12. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Trees View Post
    Don't know how much precision metalworking that calls for, but nothing would surprise me, what work might have been needed on a ship, might have been a skilled gunsmith also.
    I will say that I think your definition of practical experience must be quite comprehensive, if you do not view yourself as having much of it.
    I doubt you will find the likes of that much information on one channel, so you might have to delve into metalworking ones aswell, and so on.

    Pity there's not much machine restoration or metalworking relating to woodworkers on YT yet.
    A few like Jack Forsberg, but I don't recall him doing much with hand planes for example, he mainly demonstrates his beautifully restored Wadkins and such.

    I have lapped enough metal enough times to know what happens when you don't leave the edges proud.
    Wouldn't have learned if I wasn't into restoring machines, making tools and other components.
    I still call myself a woodworker though, although I have spent as much or more time on metalwork.
    the other could be called bodger but that words allready taken by the woodworking folks, bad mechanics or builders

    I'm not really that concerned whether someone has crediantals or not, the less talk about anything unrelated the better,
    Not interested in their life story or what papers say about their expertise.
    You gotta find who's the best at what they do, doesn't matter if they haven't done much else
    I just wish to learn the skill that someone is demonstrating.
    Plenty of folks making videos on their own, so those skills would nearly have to be encompassed
    as being savvy with computers also would be applicable, if you were to try and find someone willing to show you real world work,
    i.e, Not cut scenes and the likes,
    unless the presenter has a very broad spectrum of viewers to be able to afford a cameraman.
    That route always revolves around money in the end of the day, and less about demonstrating the best work that they can do.
    He who dares to teach and learn in real time video, is who I'd rather watch.

    Tom
    Tom,

    I own a powder metal manufacturing plant, and in it, I have a complete machine shop. A few years back, I had a metal lathe and a mill in my basement, (besides my woodworking shop). Despite using metal working equipment, I would not mess with my woodworking tools, except for the simplest of things.

    With power equipment, there is just so much that can go wrong, in the blink of an eye. I have been around skilled machinists for the past thirty years, and fully half, I would not entrust to flattening the sole of a plane. In the greater scheme of things, these forums have many reading, with little skill, and their enthusiasm may lead some to correct problems that really aren't problems! Learn to use the tools first before deciding something needs flattened. Checking a plane sole? Hope you gave a granite plate long enough, along with feeler gages.

    There is an order of steps that all must take to progress in skills. I've lived a varied life: college, though I quit partially through completion of my masters, a four year carpenter's apprenticeship, then work as a journeymen, than as a field superintendent and finally, in 1989, starting my manufacturing plant. There is a specific order that must be followed in acquiring skills and the shortcuts are few.
    If the thunder don't get you, the lightning will.

  13. #43
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    Perhaps Mr. Trees has never sat through one of Roy Underhills shows? He does each show in a single take....in "real time", too. Or..just visit Roy's school he runs....

    About the only "cut scenes" Roy has...is when he cuts a finger...

  14. #44
    I manage to get by using the internet Tony, learning from being poor and buying machines needing work or other components.
    Done some quite accurate work like reboring pulleys and such with no lathe.
    The basic stuff that you could expect to find on industrial woodworking machinery for cheap.
    Have to flatten a tablesaw come winter that has a huge bow in the table, It would have been the last thing I would have checked, but making up a missing a rail
    and working on the sliding fence made these errors more apparent, and it would be dangerous if left as is.
    I must post some pictures of my machine resto in the appropriate forum when its finished, I have little time for gluing up left in the workshop.

    Watched probably all of Roy Underhills shows Steven,
    Hes puts on a good show, buts thats what it is.
    What would you regard as his finest work done on that show?
    I like the folding ladder design

    You won't get much done in half an hour if your after refinement, unless you have a whole workshop of top notch machinery.
    Refined cabinetry by hand takes time.


    Tom

  15. #45
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    In bringing back this hi-jacked thread....going back to what I have learned..in rehabbing several hundred hand planes.

    Soles precision ground to 0.00001? marketing hype, is about all.....unless the way the maker is casting the plane's body means they HAVE to grind the sole that "flat"..

    save the feeler gauges for when you set the points on a vintage car's engine....

    Bad part about "marketing hype" is the only thing that "Feels the Quality" will be your wallet.....

    Sheesh...maybe tomorrow, I'll rehab another block plane, or two....should have the done in maybe an hour, per plane? YMMV

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