Tips, thoughts, advice on planing ash?

[Prashun Patel]

Reading your experience, Tim, it appears to me you know your way around planes and sharpening.

A higher frog or blade angle may help you - especially since you appear to have jointed sufficiently and are only looking to smooth.

Many use a scraper.

If it were me - who has no shame - I would plane across grain and then switch to fine grain sandpaper.

[Derek Cohen]

Some nuance is needed here, rather than glibly posting some photos of ash in a sort of state though I'm not sure what.

Not all ash is a bear to plane. Some, really most, is easily or fairly easy under plane. But what I believe the OP has in his shop, and some I've had to deal with, is a different beast altogether. I don't know what happens to it while it's growing -- maybe in standing water, on the side of hill, in severe drought. Don't know. But whatever it is, it's not good. It's usually really attractive and that's the allure of trying, wanting, to deal with it.

Well said, Charles … (although this type of comment is likely to fall on deaf ears).

On the tearout: the cap iron is not doing its job. It is either too far from the edge or too low an angle where it meets the iron. Try putting it even closer than you have. I hope it isn't one of the new low angle cap irons. The original issue would be better.

Warren, I agree with you in part .. that the chipbreaker here is key. The bit about “new” chipbreakers needs to be ignored by newbies to this topic, because all chipbreakers need to be modified and tuned up. That said, with what we know about the angle of the leading edge, I do wish that all makers would increase the angle here (with a secondary of around 50 degrees - a good starting point).

A few weeks back I had a forum member, Tony, from the Australian forum come around with particularly complex pieces of Tuart. The thread is here: https://www.woodworkforums.com/f127/...y-tuart-247862

The grain reversed constantly and the wood, itself, was extremely hard. The planes used by Tony was a Stanley #4 1/2 and Stanley LAJ (the new version). This is an example of the result he was getting …



I used a few planes: Stanley #3 with O1 Clifton blade, LN #3 with PM-V11 blade, Veritas Custom #4 (42 degree bed), and a LN #4 1/2 with A2 blade. All had modern chipbreakers with leading edges at 50 degrees, all closed up to around 0.4mm, and all freshly honed to 13k.

Where Tony’s shavings came off choppy and holed, shavings from these planes came off as full width streamers. This is an example of the surface from my efforts (photo taken later by Tony, where he aimed to do a before-and-after). I do not know which plane, but some work was required to removed the preceding tearout ….



Of the planes, the Veritas produced the smoothest surface (owing to the slightly lower cutting angle), while the bronze LN #4 1/2, which was the heaviest of all the planes, was the easiest to use, and had an almost equal result.

I did try planes with high cutting angles, a HNT Gordon smoother (60 degrees) and a Veritas LA Jack (62 degrees), but these removed only part of the tearout. The planes with closed up chipbreakers were far more successful.

Tony’s #4 1/2 needed lots of work to the Stanley chipbreaker (such as smoothing the leading edge). Even so, it was not working well. He went away and spent more time ensuring the fit between blade and leading edge was improved, and later posted his results. His original effort was this ..



The result (his planing) after a tuned and set chipbreaker was this …



Clearly a vaste improvement on his early efforts, and almost entirely due to a well-tuned and appropriately set chipbreaker.

Another user of the cap iron is Derek Cohen which has some good articles on the subject, although I can't understand why the toothed surface of the bench.

Tom, the reason for the toothed surface on my bench is purely to add grip. It has nothing to do with an aid in planing the wood.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Tim Best]

Hi all,

Thanks for all of the thoughts and advice.

Steven: Thanks.

Michael: Yes. I can plane end grain on SYP without any difficulty. I did not have a chance to try make any saw kerfs in an offcut today, but I will get back down there tomorrow. I am curious now and face palming as I had not thought about internal stresses before my original post.

Rafael: Yes. The plane soles are flat and the chip breaker is really close. I have not measured the distance, but the chip breaker is as close as I can get it without going over the cutting edge of iron. I watched David Weaver's video(s) on the chip breaker, how to use, and how to set it a couple(?) of years and go and it changed my expectations of what a plane can do. I thought about "unicorning" one the irons to see if changed anything, but I did not get to the workshop today. I had not considered a sliding dovetail batten. I have only made a couple of sliding dovetails for practice/experiment purposes. That may be the way I go in the end.

Warren: Thanks for the feedback. The cap not doing its job was my thought as well. I had not considered altering the angle of the cap iron where it meets the iron. Honestly, I did not know what the angle was until I walked down and checked a few minutes ago. All three are ~55 degrees. I am curious, what angle do you use? I am happy to alter the angle and give that try. Interestingly enough, I do have a Hock iron and chip breaker that I rarely use. I pulled it out the other day just to try, it did not perform any better than my Stanley stock irons and chip breaker. Regarding the twist, what you prescribe is how I deal with twist in "normal" situations. I can remove the twist, verified by winding sticks, and then it returns. Some pieces are worse than others.

Charles: This ash is a bear. It was the figure and grain pattern that attracted us to this particular batch. I knew there were going to be issues, but I thought I knew enough (or could figure out how) to overcome them. As of last night, I was less sure!

Tom: Thanks. I am a big fan of David and Charles (may he rest in peace.) I have nothing against Cosman either. I have learned a great deal from watching all three. I enjoy Derek's write up's and explanations a great deal. I have probably learned more from Derek's write ups and photo essay's than any other.

Jim: Thanks for weighing in. I have archived your hand tool knowledge posts and revisit them frequently, especially when something is not working as I anticipated. I had not considered silica content. It could be part of the issue for sure. I agree with you that the thinner the shaving results in much less tear out, that was my plan going into this. I guess Mike Tyson was correct: everyone has plan until he gets punched in the face. This ash is my Mike Tyson! My #5 five has camber and the smoother much less. The #7 does not have any camber though. I did throw my hands up the other night and go across the grain. That is how managed to get a couple pieces jointed. It works and that may be how I proceed, but it is not my preferred method.

Prashun: Ha! I am not a purist by any stretch. I do not like sanding but it may very well come to that.

Tim

[Tom Trees]

My guess why this isn't working for someone who's watched those guys is the mouth is set tight,
and thus giving the impression the cap is as close as it will go.
Try less camber and setting the cap iron closer, the shavings should be straight with a setting like this.

That camber will need to be perfect, and possibly imperceivable until paired with the cap iron.
David has a suggestion of "directed pressure" although he gets away without, and that is to have fingers placed basically on the edge
getting them dirty, instead of fingers just close and leaning or tipping.
That will enable anyone to get that camber perfectly even, as the plane wont work well otherwise.
One would hope this way, the bevel can be kept small and not so much as to, not give enough clearance for the plane to work well,
should one be using a single rounded bevel.

Going back to that particular clip of Cosman I mentioned, should one have a flat bench and a good lamp, then looking at where the
contact is with the bench, Rob described this better in an old video.
One could call it matching to the surface of the bench, using the long reach lamp one can do a visual feeler, if you will, could you slide one under an edge?
and if something is throwing you off, then there's rocking tapping on the corners, pivoting/hinging, burnishing,
which isn't possible if the work is held.

Using the bench like so will highlight how heavy of a shaving suits, and not have someone focus on spot removing areas which may not be high spots, (bad habits) which could be another reason for not getting on with it,
and also highlight material deflection which could also be an issue.

All the best
Tom

[steven c newman]

ROTFLMAO....

Last I looked, the question concerned Ash lumber...something I do happen to have a lot of first hand experience with....

I guess some out there look for any excuse to plug for their "sponsor's" tools....

Tools I have been using are both Stanleys and Millers Falls....

[Tom Trees]

Can't be beaten!

I actually bought a new StanleyTM tool as I kept using up the organic variety, it's good enough to do the job for me.
Hopefully it or my old Stanley's won't ever take a fall after a few millers
https://postimg.cc/k64BFYy9
SAM_5287.jpg

[Luke Dupont]

Some Kiln Dried Ash is just really darned hard.

I don't seem to have the problems you describe with regards to the iron getting immediately dull-- I would guess that you may have too shallow a primary angle on the iron, and that this, combined with a hollow grind which provides even less support behind the edge, could be causing you trouble.

My plane stock irons are generally convex, and free handed. Hollow grinding, or even maintaining a perfectly flat bevel, is more trouble than it's worth for such thin irons I feel, and gives a longer lasting edge, I speculate.

In any case though, I have some Japanese Ash that kicked my butt, and seems to require much more elbow grease to work with. Some pieces are much milder than others. I remember getting worn out and totally frustrated by one piece, and moving on to a different piece and thinking what a remarkable difference it was in how easy the second one was to work, comparatively. I think it depends on the piece itself, how quickly it grew, the grain, and the kiln drying process--as well as maybe how wet or dry it was when it went into the kiln. This is mostly speculation though.

[Keegan Shields]

Tim,

After figuring out how to get a really sharp edge, Derek's advice about prepping and setting the chip breaker really helped me get good consistent results with my planes regardless of grain. Although there are still occasional areas where I get tear out no matter what I try. Then its over to the drum sander!

Perhaps another consideration is that some pieces of wood just aren't usable for fine furniture. Woodworkers 200 years ago had the benefit of cheap, plentiful old growth lumber. I suspect (without evidence) that they might have been disappointed with the lumber quality that we use today. When high quality wood is cheap and plentiful and you only had hand tools, why waste time dealing with difficult grain? If that's how you made a living 200 years ago, it was likely more cost effective to throw the difficult piece in the firebox and move on.

That runs counter to the belief that our elders had some magic ability to plane any piece of wood, regardless of the grain. I bet they walked up hill both ways to school also.

[Tim Best]

Keegan,

A drum sander would have been nice! I am generally averse to sanding for all of the reasons, but I wouldn’t have turned one away if it appeared in my small work space. That said, the wood settled down and I was able to get the twist (the majority any way) out.

My plan was to thickness by hand but after fighting to get a decent reference face and edge, I broke out the thickness planer. The planer lived in a dusty corner on the floor and has long needed a stand/cart and I needed to practice chopping some mortises and cutting tenons. Short version 8 mortises and 10 tenons (don’t ask) later, I had decent cart and began planing with new blades in the machine. I was pleasantly surprised to see the machine struggle a little and cause tear out. At least, in my mind, it wasn’t just me!

As of tonight, the boards are in the clamps and it might actually turn into a table top! I started with fat 6/4 rough cut and I think I will end up with a 1 1/8 top once all is said and done. More waste than I want, but it is what it is. Milling the stretchers and breadboard ends starts this weekend.

The wood is workable but I don’t ever want another batch like it on my bench. Just not worth it to me.

Also, walking uphill both ways…ha! I grew up on a farm. My grandfather, a fourth generation old school farmer, often complained that we (the grandkids and youngsters in general) were soft and didn’t know what farming actually was. His reasoning: when he was young, the only air conditioning tractors had was the occasional breeze. His father would remind him that he didn’t know what farming was because he never had to walk behind a plow!