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Thread: Heavy vs Light planes

  1. #16
    I find it interesting that serious cabinetmakers, in the UK, chose to equip themselves with heavy infill planes, for about a century. Norris, Spiers, Addis, Mathieson & sons, Melhuish, and many more.

    It is also told that craftsmen in the 19th century would build their own infill planes, in their lunch times.

    Is Warren suggesting that they did not know how to plane?

    David
    Last edited by david charlesworth; 06-28-2020 at 11:35 AM. Reason: expanded

  2. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    The response on the forum was interesting. I was called "delusional", idiotic, stupid, silly, fool, poser, yutz, bozo etc. Somebody from the Marcou camp alerted an old pensioner named David Trusty, who then joined the forum just for the purpose of berating me. Trusty thought his colorful language would make up for his inexperience with planes. Raney Nelson wrote me a private note of sympathy, but he did not take on the pack in public. I think the moderators thought I deserved the treatment I got for daring to criticize something so shiny and expensive.
    A quick aside.....
    This sort of ill treatment is why I favor a well-moderated forum like SMC.

    Sorry to distract from your point Derek.
    Fred
    Last edited by Frederick Skelly; 06-28-2020 at 11:57 AM.
    "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

    “If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

  3. #18
    Prior to WWII, serious cabinetmakers all over the globe also bought #4 Baileys-style planes by the boxcar load. Something apparently worked for them with that combination of size and mass.

  4. #19
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    Steve, very nice web site, very cool woodie planes... I was not previously aware of your planes. Nice to see more custom plane builders.

    I dont want to speak for Derek, but I think he was referring to "premium" as the very high cost planes which was referenced in a previous thread regarding an article recently written by Popular woodworking magazine. That thread is running concurrently. I fully agree with your assertion, that the task at hand matters when discussing plane performance. A simple task, with a friendly soft wood with no complicated grain, making thin cuts, well, nearly any plane can perform well. But going to the grocery store does not require a Bentley, yet, people still buy them. These are tools, most of us are hobbyist, we all have different preferences and likes / dislikes.

    As for the mass and inertia issue... from my experience, I disagree with your position. You must generate the inertia with human power, true with all planes. But the difference is not proportional to the plane weight. It does not take 4x the force to push a 8lb plane vs. a 2lb plane, specially if the sole is waxed. I can push a 4k lb car on a flat surface, so generating forward force on a 8lb plane is not extreme. Hauling the plane around is more cumbersome. From my experience, the inertia benefits are apparent when you hit rough grain, or on a long stroke... the added inertia from the mass powers straight through the difficult parts of the grain or the end of a long stroke.

    As for chatter comments above... I will have to wait for my S20 to chatter before I comment. Remarkably, it has never chattered yet, which is not the case with my lighter weight planes. All my planes share the same blades, so its not the blades. My Marcou M12 also never chattered as well. Its highly unlikely this is coincidence.

    My daily drivers will remain the more lightweight planes due to convenience. But, I love the feel of my premium planes... nothing but a luxury for sure. As we all know, custom plane are not required to build fine furniture.

  5. #20
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    There's a lot to be said for using the plane that one has

    For surface work I have two, a 7 1/2 lb. WR Jack and a #4 George H.W. Era $60 (new) Stanley.

    I've just come downstairs from planing chamfers on the walnut outside edges of some cabinet legs with the Stanley. There's some tearout from grain reversal. Not to worry, I have a $10 scraper. Otherwise, the surfaces came out shiny and ready for 220 Garnet from the plane alone.

    Only thing I notice when going from surfacing/leveling with the Jack to smoothing with the #4 is the first few passes feel like I need to hold on tight so it doesn't float away.

  6. #21
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    Steve, just to re-post from WoodCentral to connect with your re-post above - now that's one hellava sentence ...

    Steve, you have my sincere apology for not referring to wooden planes under the premium category.

    I do have an excuse!

    The topic was heavy vs light, and I was more focussed on the heavy than the light. Premium, per se, was not really the issue, and so I hardly spent ant time mentioning this in regard to wooden planes.

    Still, as I mentioned, this was not really about Premium but about mass.


    And Will, you can speak for me any time. So much more eloquent!


    Regards from Perth


    Derek
    Last edited by Derek Cohen; 06-28-2020 at 1:19 PM.

  7. #22
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    hmm......there are some days, when even a little block plane can be a bit....much...
    Block planes, shavings.JPG
    Then, on other days...
    June Project, No. 7c.JPG
    When only a hundred year old Stanley No. 7c, Type 9 will do a job....like flattening a top made of Ash.....then clean up around a knot with a No. 3, Type 11.....because I am worn out.

    There is an Auburn #81 sitting on top of the plane til.....22" long, nice wide double iron...distracting when the long, thin shavings will shoot straight up, then wrap around my left wrist....
    June Project, Stanley No. 6.JPG
    If one had a choice between pushing this No. 6 around all day....or a No. 8.........my arms will choose the No. 6 everytime.....

  8. #23
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    thx Derek! But no one says this stuff better than you... a lot of my plane knowledge came from reading your insightful writings through the many years you have tirelessly posted on these forums and your website. Of course, I could blame you for my hearty plane collection too...but I won't One of the things i love about the ww community is the members generosity of sharing knowledge.

    While this thread was about heavy vs. light, I felt the concurrent thread running about the Popular woodworking article is what started this thread... just to be clear for those who did not read that thread.

    On Bills comment... soo true, we all work with what we have...and some of us obsessive type, tend to read stuff, get curious and buy more. There are ww who spend 99% of their time building pieces. On the other end of the spectrum, there there are ww fascinated with tools and their use, and spend 99% of their time experimenting with tools, and occasionally produce some finished work. And everywhere in between. I oscillate between the two from year to year. It seems some ww have not come to grips with this spectrum, and must always point out, "where is your body of work" ?

    Like others, I have always been fascinated by hand planes, not sure why...I guess its the clean thin shavings, the noise, hard to quantify the obsession that many have with hand planes. Even newbs that walk up to my bench and start shaving end grain, they cant stop, they un roll the shavings, go fast, go slow, etc.

    Don't want to hijack Derek's thread, but as a side note...
    Interestingly enough, recently I have shifted my fascination to sanding planes... I put roll sand paper on the bottom of my planes (no blade of course and plane away. (or a long 36" flat jointed board with roll sand paper) I marvel how effective this is, it overcomes a lot of planning issues such as tracks, tear out, sharpening, etc. Its not for everything, such as hogging out areas for flattening a twisted board, but for simple and common tasks like edge flattening, its very effective to get an edge glue ready FLAT! Even more effective than planing IMO, as planning digs more into the starting end of the board vs. the middle, etc. Sandpaper does not care about grain direction, and with a level flat sanding board, the entire board is in contact with the edge the entire stroke, which often is not possible with a hand plane.

    I started to experiment with making round over sanding planes, something I have pursued for a long time with blade planes... with the proper cove profile for the sand paper to reside in, IMO, its the ultimate neander round-over tool. Sometimes even better than a router when grain changes direction. After this recent experimenting, I started to wonder, was sand paper very good 100 years ago? Was it cheap as it is today? If not, I wonder if it was, would sanding planes would been a better option for many tasks?

  9. #24
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    For some reason I only have seen the heavy infills in smoother sizes. Did they use something else for jointing and jack work, or do the other sizes exist as well? How much does an infill jointer weigh?

  10. #25
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    While planing a long thick board, it was probably 1.5" thick, 10' long and 8' to 10' wide. I purposely used my heaviest plane to power through it and it did a great job.

    My general assumption is that a lot of it depends on personal preference and what you are used to.

  11. #26
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    As long as I have a sharp one, I'm good.

  12. #27
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    Derek you obviously know I was poking at you a bit. There is always a kind of feeling of wood working the way you want it to with the least effort. There is a place for all of the plane types. Sometimes an ax is needed and sometimes a mora knife. Sometimes we cast things away for something “better” and later find some of the excellent attributes were lost. That’s the way we learn to improve things. I’m waiting for the super lightweight plastic with auto chip breaker to hit the market.

  13. #28
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    Perhaps I prefer the extra weight of a heavy plane because it helps make up for sloppy technique. It is an annoyance to experience the light plane's sole lift inadvertently and "slap" back down during a stroke, knowing that I just created a hump.
    "Anything seems possible when you don't know what you're doing."

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by James Pallas View Post
    ... I’m waiting for the super lightweight plastic with auto chip breaker to hit the market.
    Yuck! Well given my skill level, that's clearly what I should be hoping for, but... yuck!

  15. #30
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    The downside of using those heavy planes....is lifting them for the return stroke....you don't want to drag them back flat on the wood...right....

    Do the "Lift &Carry" with a 10 pound No. 8 a few times....won't need to go to the gym....

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