Handplane frog angles - any detriment to high angles?

[Kevin Perez]

I have found that with my LN 62 and a 50 degree bevel blade (62 degree cutting angle) I seem to get great results as far as no tear out. Besides the increase in force needed to push the plane, are there other detriments to using high angles in normal woods?

[Vincent Tai]

A little less of that hand planed surface shine/clarity (especially on soft woods), a little less versatility when you take into account end grain as a potential surface to be planed. It'll still work fine planing end grain but 50 degrees cutting angle is about as high as I'll use on end grain. My LA veritas jack has it's blade honed at 38 degrees for a 50 degree cutting angle. That works pretty well, I can dimensions/smooth very curly maple with just 50 degrees cutting angle in my BU planes. Sharpness is key as always. Often a Stanley no 5 is used when I want a little bigger bite in something with problematic grain, the 45 degree bed and cap iron combo is very nice for your arms and the wood.

[Warren Mickley]

I have found that with my LN 62 and a 50 degree bevel blade (62 degree cutting angle) I seem to get great results as far as no tear out. Besides the increase in force needed to push the plane, are there other detriments to using high angles in normal woods?

Other things being equal, a lower angle will give a smoother surface that is clearer and has more depth. If the iron is dull it can cloud the surface just like a high angle plane.

[Kevin Perez]

Thanks for the input guys. I appreciate it.

[Laurent Marshall]

Other things being equal, a lower angle will give a smoother surface that is clearer and has more depth. If the iron is dull it can cloud the surface just like a high angle plane.

Interesting - I haven't tried any higher angle planes (just your typical Bailey style planes), but have read that higher pitches (the "York" pitch) were common on earlier European planes before cap irons/chip breakers become widely popular (infill smoothing planes also typically have higher pitch angles). I've also read that higher blade angles are common on Chinese and South East Asian planes, where the higher angle is advantageous on tough tropical hardwoods.

So, how well does a higher pitch help to avoid tear out? And, assuming you do get less tear out, is the resulting surface actually inferior to what you'd get with a 45 degree pitch and a well set cap iron? Or does it depend on the wood?

[Derek Cohen]

I have found that with my LN 62 and a 50 degree bevel blade (62 degree cutting angle) I seem to get great results as far as no tear out. Besides the increase in force needed to push the plane, are there other detriments to using high angles in normal woods?

Kevin, I have used high cutting angles for a few decades on Australian hardwoods, which tend to be interlocked and more vulnerable to tearout than USA timbers. These days I prefer a double iron at a lower cutting angle (echoing Warren's comments about clarity of finish), but more so because a closed up chipbreaker is more resistant to tearout than a high cutting angle when dealing with reversing grain. My go-to smoothers are a Veritas Custom #4 (with 42 degree frog) and a LN #3 (with a 45 degree frog). Both planes use a Veritas PM-V11 blade, which has fine grain and is capable of an edge similar to O1.

In practical terms, planes with high cutting angles can leave an excellent surface, and the degradation (compared with a lower, common cutting angle) is not evident to most eyes, and is likely to be difficult to see - even with an experienced eye - once a finish is added. The important factor with equalising the finish off a high cutting angle is sharpness. This is easier to achieve with a BD plane, such as a HNT Gordon (60 degree bed), where the bevel is likely to be 30 degrees. The results off a similarly prepared BU plane will be the same, however the edge may not last as long as the bevel here could be 50 degrees.

The forces required to push a plane with a high cutting angle are more complex. This is something that has interested me for many years, and there are a few articles on my website (under "Centre of Effort"). Briefly, the higher the centre of effort, the greater the force required to push. Low C of E planes, such as BU planes, reduce this, while a Bailey type, such as a LN with a high angle frog, will increase the forces needed. The #62 will feel quite different to the #4 and, a high cutting angle on the #62 may not feel that different from a #4 - partly because the high cutting angle forces one to take light shavings.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Stewie Simpson]

I have found that with my LN 62 and a 50 degree bevel blade (62 degree cutting angle) I seem to get great results as far as no tear out. Besides the increase in force needed to push the plane, are there other detriments to using high angles in normal woods?

Kevin; re discussion on the low clearance angle of bu bench planes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v9X9Cgtl7c

[steven c newman]

IMAG0098.jpg
I tried a York Pitch plane for a while....a No. 3 sized one...sold as a Dunlap....also sold as an ESTES....
Didn't really like it, compared to the Millers Falls No. 8 I also had...
It was a 50 degree plane, instead of the "normal" 45 degree set up.

[Stewie Simpson]

Using a york pitch (50 degree) smoothing plane with a lightly cambered iron.

[Normand Leblanc]

Kees made a nice study a few years back about the force required to push a plane.

His conclusions, if I read him properly, is that it takes more force to push a high angle plane compared to a closely set capiron and, the blade wear is more important on high angle planes.

http://planetuning.infillplane.com/h...pbreakers.html

[Simon MacGowen]

Kees made a nice study a few years back about the force required to push a plane.

His conclusions, if I read him properly, is that it takes more force to push a high angle plane compared to a closely set capiron and, the blade wear is more important on high angle planes.

With due respect, one needed to do a study to find that out?

Simon

[Kees Heiden]

This is kind of interesting. I thought that we, as a community had this topic figured out completely in uther detail a few years ago. And then new people join the group and it all starts over again. 😄

[Kees Heiden]

Simon, I invite you to read the entire study. Maybe there are one or two details new for you too. Or maybe not.

[Vincent Tai]

This is kind of interesting. I thought that we, as a community had this topic figured out completely in uther detail a few years ago. And then new people join the group and it all starts over again. 

Perhaps we should start recommending the practice of searching for and reading old threads more to newer people. I see this done almost in an enforced way on another forum. It took me a while when I first got some inkling of the cap-iron usefulness to find everything but the info is obviously there. There's a giant mine of info on this forum and the web and personally for me trawling through opinion by opinion, reading different tests, etc is what will help get the bigger picture. Perhaps people are still used to verbal questions being the method of learning and transfer this to the internet, but I think transferring the curiosity to the internet and the search bar will work most of the time and give one plenty of info that has been hashed out already.

Into a bit of a tangent; I think when I got into hand tools it was just before you and David did your experiments; I had very little clue about this woodworking community and the other one that Derek would reference in his articles on his site. So when I started with hand planes I was also a kid who regarded Schwarz, Holtey as the sources of prime info. Wood working royalty. I still really like and respect what they do but obviously they were wrong in their musings that a cap iron was useless. If only my internet trawling habit was a little more obsessive back then I would've found out about the cap iron before it hit the mainstream. It still bothers me that the mainstream didn't reference the work y'all did, the Kato study is the only sort of reference big writers may begrudgingly add reference to. It was a pretty cool experience when I made a smoother and set the cap iron properly and finish planed some a box made with some really crazy figured walnut and maple. With a 42 degree bed angle.

Big thanks to you, Warren, David, Bill Tindall, and the rest of the people that really got this stuff down and out there.

Vince

[Warren Mickley]

With due respect, one needed to do a study to find that out?

Simon

Sometimes people do a study not so much to convince themselves as to convince others. Those who knew how to use a double iron plane did not need a study.

In 2009 I was called a bobo on another forum for suggesting that a double iron plane would outperform a heavy high angle plane. The guy who called me a bobo (and a clown and other things I can't remember) was active on this forum just this week. He certainly never apologized. A well known plane maker told people that what I really meant when I said that a double iron controlled tearout was that I did not care about tearout at all and that my work showed it.

So yes, one needed to do a study to counter the naysayers.