Handplane courage

[Mark Rainey]

I tuned into a live webcast by Chris Scwarz a few months ago, dunno how many he has done. One of the "questions from a viewer" was how do I get a table top smooth enough for a clear film finish, both Chris and Megan Fitz said "sandpaper" more or less in unison.

I have never been happy with the look of a freshly dried clear film without having used sandpaper on the wood. I am sure there are folks that can do it, besides Brian possibly Edwin Santos and maybe Derek Cohen that I know of. I wonder if Rob Lee uses sandpaper. He has more or less unlimited access to NASA grade sharp plane irons.

Good input Scott, thanks!

[Mel Fulks]

Horsetail is easy to grow, but should be in containers since it spreads by rhizomes that stake out lots of territory before starting to fill in.

[Scott Winners]

A sharp plane blade is the best finish you can obtain on wood. If you are adding 7 coats of varnish then sanding will be filled by the varnish and look fine. If you are using an oil finish sanding will look worse.
Curving the edge of a plane blade will reduce track marks.
If you sand, wipe the wood with a moist cloth to raise the grain of the wood that may swell, let it dry then sand lightly.
Vacuum the surface, wipe with a cloth moistened with spirits to remove more dust then varnish.

The more that growth rings differ in hardness the more sanding will enhance that difference, creating ridges. A plane will treat the rings the same.

I agree with everything William has contributed.

When possible, I apply finish straight off the tool. I only go up to 4000 grit (diamond) and hardly ever strop, but off the plane if I sand at 220 grit (homestore) the sand paper roughens the surface. Except in hardwood endgrain or rising grain.

My smoother is honed straight accross, with just a bit of curve at each corner with radius maybe 2-3 x the thickness of the shavings I will take.

After sanding I use a fairly wet wipe of isopropyl alcohol to float dust out of pores and raise grain. I like steel wool- gently- to cut off the raised grain bits once the alcohol dries, but leaving wee bits of steel on the surface can complicate finishing.

Doug Fir is a wood I use a lot of where the spring growth (dark rings) is much harder than the summer growth, light rings. William is exactly right, sanding Doug Fir make furrows in the light wood and has jack doodle effect on the dark rings. I will occasionally use a scraper on reversing grain in Doug Fir, but it is pointless to sand DF. So my Doug Fir pieces have a little tearout here and there, but the surface cross section doesn't look like the Golden Gate bridge.

At the end of the day you couldn't push a plane iron wider than your table top even if you could find it to buy.

I did see a floor standing sander at a door building shop. It could only handle stock up to maybe 40" wide, one meter, and I have heard of wider ones, but that would be a five figure purchase.

I sure hope Rob Lee chimes in on this one. I suspect that if I owned Lee Valley and had a team of talented engineers at my beck and call, designed and manufactured my own sharpening guides, had a flock of interns to use those guides to sharpen my irons all summer, I think I would still have to use sandpaper here and there on table tops.

[Charles Guest]

Well of course all you have to do is just do it -- plane it up, slap a few coats of Watco on it and declare to the world that all the flaws are "evidence of hand tool craftsmanship," "how the old guys did it," etc., etc. You've heard it all by now, and it's an easy trap to fall into. "I haven't scraped or used abrasives since 1974" and all that rot. Then, somebody actually knowledgeable can come in behind all of that strutting and fretting with a pad of Post It notes and stick one on every flaw that would show up like a huge pimple in the middle of kid's forehead on prom night under a real finish, on a real article of woodworking, not some monument to rectilinearity, American Country, Shaker, or the usual beginner-to-bare-intermediate planing project. There are a few reasons you won't see a Georgian carved kidney-shaped desk, or a Louis XV commode, in the pages of "Fine" Woodworking. You can count on a pretty steady diet of Shaker and Arts & Crafts stuff though. There's a difference between frying hamburgers for the summer at the pool snack bar and the cuisine of Alain Ducasse.

Every single culture that has ever produced an article of woodworking of merit has used some kind of abrasive on wood. To suggest otherwise is just willful ignorance, picking and choosing of sources, manipulating a narrative, and reading between lines to fit one's delusions.

Is there evidence of hand tools on woodwork made with hand tools? Of course there is. But it's not because the idea of using an abrasive was the equivalent of pooping in the punch bowl as it's often presented today - usually in the context of "needing" another hand plane, honing system, etc. all in the name of a purity that never existed in the first place.

Anybody on this board could do a quick search and post pictures of furniture from all over the world with components for which it would be virtually impossible to hand plane to a finished surface -undulating small drawers on a Georgian secretary come immediately to mind. God knows there are thousands of other examples. The only way to remain a purist is simply to never build anything that your No. 4 won't fit on or into. Adjusting your taste to your worldview about hand planing isn't craftsmanship. It's eschewing woodworking that you could never in a million years pull off yourself, and the sign of a total ignoramus. Maybe you'll never build something that complicated, or your legitimate personal tastes don't run that way, but thumbing your nose at it all just confirms insularity.

Rainey please don't stop doing the beautiful work that you do, using appropriate finishes for the style, because you somehow feel compelled to not use sandpaper. Brick dust, cattail rush, ground glass, river sand, beach sand, desert sand, and probably many other substances lost to history have been employed on furniture through the ages.

[Jerome Andrieux]

I don’t use sand paper because I don’t like glossy finishes.
That said, I built a desk and a coffee table out of pear that I blackened using iron acetate. Works great but definitely reveals all the defects. I resorted to wax over varnish to ‘dull’ the reflection differences.

Metal planes leave all kinds of traces of wood: tear out, tracks, not-quite-sharp-enough dull tracks, shiny wax residues, metal burnishing if you push too hard and eventually some black marks if iron meets sweat. I spend some time “burnishing” the surface with a good handful of heavy shavings to even out what can be.

Perfect finish requires tool and operator perfection but doesn’t mean the piece actually looks great.

[Mark Rainey]

Well of course all you have to do is just do it -- plane it up, slap a few coats of Watco on it and declare to the world that all the flaws are "evidence of hand tool craftsmanship," "how the old guys did it," etc., etc. You've heard it all by now, and it's an easy trap to fall into. "I haven't scraped or used abrasives since 1974" and all that rot. Then, somebody actually knowledgeable can come in behind all of that strutting and fretting with a pad of Post It notes and stick one on every flaw that would show up like a huge pimple in the middle of kid's forehead on prom night under a real finish, on a real article of woodworking, not some monument to rectilinearity, American Country, Shaker, or the usual beginner-to-bare-intermediate planing project. There are a few reasons you won't see a Georgian carved kidney-shaped desk, or a Louis XV commode, in the pages of "Fine" Woodworking. You can count on a pretty steady diet of Shaker and Arts & Crafts stuff though. There's a difference between frying hamburgers for the summer at the pool snack bar and the cuisine of Alain Ducasse.

Every single culture that has ever produced an article of woodworking of merit has used some kind of abrasive on wood. To suggest otherwise is just willful ignorance, picking and choosing of sources, manipulating a narrative, and reading between lines to fit one's delusions.

Is there evidence of hand tools on woodwork made with hand tools? Of course there is. But it's not because the idea of using an abrasive was the equivalent of pooping in the punch bowl as it's often presented today - usually in the context of "needing" another hand plane, honing system, etc. all in the name of a purity that never existed in the first place.

Anybody on this board could do a quick search and post pictures of furniture from all over the world with components for which it would be virtually impossible to hand plane to a finished surface -undulating small drawers on a Georgian secretary come immediately to mind. God knows there are thousands of other examples. The only way to remain a purist is simply to never build anything that your No. 4 won't fit on or into. Adjusting your taste to your worldview about hand planing isn't craftsmanship. It's eschewing woodworking that you could never in a million years pull off yourself, and the sign of a total ignoramus. Maybe you'll never build something that complicated, or your legitimate personal tastes don't run that way, but thumbing your nose at it all just confirms insularity.

Rainey please don't stop doing the beautiful work that you do, using appropriate finishes for the style, because you somehow feel compelled to not use sandpaper. Brick dust, cattail rush, ground glass, river sand, beach sand, desert sand, and probably many other substances lost to history have been employed on furniture through the ages.

Charles, thank you for your expert opinion and enjoyable and humorous essay on this topic. I am so glad you contribute to this forum.

[Edward Weber]

I think I'm on the same page as Charles, it's mostly all nonsense.
Throughout history, anything that was rough to the touch, poked or pricked your finger has been used to smooth wood. Rocks, seashells, sand, bark, fish and animal skin, the list is endless.
Anyone can do a quick search and find that the Chinese were using some form of sandpaper in the 13th century and probably long before that.
A "purist" is the person that always tells you how you should do something but never seems to share their own work, makes you wonder.
Being a woodworker, when I see a piece, I look at the end result and then work backwards trying to figure out how it was built. Many times it's impossible to tell what joints were used or how a piece was milled. It's no different with the finish, if there's an area that requires some type of abrasive in lieu of a blade, it's not a problem. In the end, you may be the only one who knows anyway.
I think it says something about you and your work ethics that this topic concerned you enough to ask the forum, keep up the good work.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Sandpaper certainly has its uses and I make no pretense of avoiding it when it is necessary. On the Queen Anne handkerchief table I recently posted made with highly figured maple there was no way I could prep the cabriole legs for finishing without abrasives. The constantly reversing grain direction made my scraper chatter and gouge out the softer face grain even when applied diagonally. My spokeshaves caused tearout on the grain which reversed every 1/2". Sandpaper and my Auriou 14 grain rasp were my saviors. The top of the table was hand planed and then sanded so that dye and finish would absorb as evenly as possible.

[Mark Rainey]

Ed, thanks for your input. Interesting that the Chinese used sandpaper in the 13th century. Some of their work just boggles the mind.

[Mark Rainey]

Sandpaper certainly has its uses and I make no pretense of avoiding it when it is necessary. On the Queen Anne handkerchief table I recently posted made with highly figured maple there was no way I could prep the cabriole legs for finishing without abrasives. The constantly reversing grain direction made my scraper chatter and gouge out the softer face grain even when applied diagonally. My spokeshaves caused tearout on the grain which reversed every 1/2". Sandpaper and my Auriou 14 grain rasp were my saviors. The top of the table was hand planed and then sanded so that dye and finish would absorb as evenly as possible.

Once again Dave, that table is a masterpiece.

[Derek Cohen]

I use three finishing methods. Hand planing, scraping with a card/cabinet scraper, and sanding with a ROS or hand sander. It really is horses for courses - some woods are better served with one or the other.

The key to planing without tracks is, as you all know, to use a cambered blade. Plane with overlapping runs.

Note, one cannot mix-and-match methods. Each will leave a different surface, and this will be seen. So, if you start to sand, finish all by sanding. If you scrape, finish all with a scraper.




Double iron planing helps ignore grain direction.




Mitred ends best managed with sanding faces, but planing top edges (current project) ...


Regards from Perth

Derek

[Prashun Patel]

Figure out why you are trying to do this. It is certainly possible to get a trackless surface, but you will improve your chances by working with favorable woods and reading grain. Brian and Derek and many others can certainly do it with more challenges, but there are couple myths you'd be well to be disabused of:

A sanded surface is inferior to a planed surface.
Sanding above 150 or 220 grit is a waste of time.
Handplaning is faster than sanding.
Most people either sand OR hand plane.

I will submit that the easiest way to a flawless finish is to use a handplane for the FLATTENING (at which is certainly excels vs sandpaper). A flat surface is the first, most important thing to any kind of flawless finish - oil or film.
How FAR you take the planing is another matter. For me, it is more work to properly sharpen several planes and go back 20 times with raking light to insure I've removed every track mark. Rather, after flattening and some initial smoothing, I can usually START at 220 with the sanding and remove the track marks on any dining table about as fast as with a hand plane - and with way less stress about creating more or tearing out.
Sanding up to 600 grit will produce just enough dust to provide a clear visual on any remaining track marks, which can be addressed on a spot basis. For an oil finish, I'll sand up to 1000 grit.

For the life of me, I cannot tell a difference between this kind of prepped surface and a strictly planed surface.

A lot of advanced furniture makers do it this hybrid way. While many of us aspire to the level of proficiency of Brian or Derek and Mike Allen and countless others here, it doesn't inherently lead to an more "unicornly" finished product.

I guess all I'm saying is that I may wish to run a marathon, but may achieve the same practical level of fitness with significantly less effort by running a half marathon and biking the rest.

[Mark Rainey]

Figure out why you are trying to do this. It is certainly possible to get a trackless surface, but you will improve your chances by working with favorable woods and reading grain. Brian and Derek and many others can certainly do it with more challenges, but there are couple myths you'd be well to be disabused of:

A sanded surface is inferior to a planed surface.
Sanding above 150 or 220 grit is a waste of time.
Handplaning is faster than sanding.
Most people either sand OR hand plane.

I will submit that the easiest way to a flawless finish is to use a handplane for the FLATTENING (at which is certainly excels vs sandpaper). A flat surface is the first, most important thing to any kind of flawless finish - oil or film.
How FAR you take the planing is another matter. For me, it is more work to properly sharpen several planes and go back 20 times with raking light to insure I've removed every track mark. Rather, after flattening and some initial smoothing, I can usually START at 220 with the sanding and remove the track marks on any dining table about as fast as with a hand plane - and with way less stress about creating more or tearing out.
Sanding up to 600 grit will produce just enough dust to provide a clear visual on any remaining track marks, which can be addressed on a spot basis. For an oil finish, I'll sand up to 1000 grit.

For the life of me, I cannot tell a difference between this kind of prepped surface and a strictly planed surface.

A lot of advanced furniture makers do it this hybrid way. While many of us aspire to the level of proficiency of Brian or Derek and Mike Allen and countless others here, it doesn't inherently lead to an more "unicornly" finished product.

I guess all I'm saying is that I may wish to run a marathon, but may achieve the same practical level of fitness with significantly less effort by running a half marathon and biking the rest.

Thanks for your explanation Prashun. I like your hybrid approach, which seems to be the best option for most of us ( not all ). Your furniture is beautiful and reflects your hard work and talent.

[Joe Bailey]

Mitred ends best managed with sanding faces, but planing top edges (current project) ...


Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek,

Audiophiles everywhere need to know: What brand/model of turntable is going into that base?

[Richard Hart]

Attachment 462739

I really like this... sorry if I hit you with two messages by mistake.

Rich