Roughing blade for LN No. 4 - anyone use one??

[Charles Guest]

I agree. A chip breaker is only useful if you want it to break chips. On the #5 is set up as a “Roughing Jack” I cambered the iron and backed the chip breaker way off. It peels up big thick curls. When the board is trued up, I hit it with a #62 LA Jack to flatten and then with a smoother. The #5 does all the hard work.

A chipbreaker can still exert an effect when hogging.

If you don't think so, get a single-iron jack and see for yourself.

Frankly, hogging is where you can't necessarily throw caution to the wind -- pulling up a big pockmark that goes below planned thickness, and right in the middle of a beautifully figured essentially irreplaceable board, will ruin your day if not your week. Your wallet won't like it either.

Pulling final passes at half a thou or so is not even close to being as risky, but smoothing your way to final thickness is a good way to become a weekend board planer rather than a woodworker. The workmanship of risk is unavoidable if you're making things rather than endlessly testing and tuning the equipment.

Results obtained on easy-to-plane species don't necessarily extrapolate to everything else. It's a start. That's about it. Cherry and walnut can make you feel as if you're a genius -- God's gift to planing wood. It's easy to get lulled. Don't.

[Jim Koepke]

The workmanship of risk is unavoidable if you're making things rather than endlessly testing and tuning the equipment.

There seems to be a myth among many about others who tune their equipment to do superior work. It isn't an endless chore. My planes are mostly cleaned and fettled to work to the fullest of their ability. After this one time set up, about the only thing done to them is to brush the accumulated wood dust off, wipe them down or sharpen their blades when needed.

The idea of tool maintenance being an endless process taking precedent over any woodworking is a foolish hoax.

jtk

[steven c newman]

and..a myth that sells a LOT of gimmicks to "Better tune a tool" with....Makes one wonder how Thomas Sheraton managed to get anything built...

[steven c newman]

Perhaps one should remember why the Chipbreaker was designed for....what was L. Bailey trying to do.....besides being able to use a thinner, easier to sharpen iron, as when you add in the chipbreaker...it makes a nice thicker assembly...

[Tom M King]

Once I get a plane tuned for a particular task, I never change it. Only the iron gets sharpened. If I don't have one for some new task, I just get another plane, and set it up for that. I haven't needed another plane for about a decade and a half now.

[Brandon Speaks]

Mine was just a beater no 4 that I reshaped the blade and opened the mouth. Wouldnt bother with anything high dollar for that use case.

[Rob Luter]

Mine was just a beater no 4 that I reshaped the blade and opened the mouth. Wouldn't bother with anything high dollar for that use case.

My thoughts exactly. I found a bargain #5 to dedicate to this sort of work. Ain't pretty but works great.

[steven c newman]

Hmmm..
A Box Project, scrub down.JPG
A Box Project, smoothed.JPG
Iron has no camber...
A Box Project, side planed.JPG
OEM iron, chipbreaker set 1mm back from the edge...Wood is Maple...

[Warren Mickley]

Perhaps one should remember why the Chipbreaker was designed for....what was L. Bailey trying to do.....besides being able to use a thinner, easier to sharpen iron, as when you add in the chipbreaker...it makes a nice thicker assembly...

I think Thomas Chippendale used a double iron plane. It was in common use when Chippendale was an apprentice and nearly universal by the time he opened his own business in 1790.

Leonard Bailey wasn't even born until 1825.

[steven c newman]

So...who decided a thinner iron would be a good idea? Chippendale's irons were still thick slabs...compared to the new-fangled Bailey irons...

[Charles Guest]

Chippendale:

https://www.christies.com/features/A...or-8823-1.aspx

Not sure he had a lot of time to navel-gaze about the double iron. I'm sure he thought it was peachy, especially when he saw somebody else pushing the plane. He could do it all, but he couldn't meet with his clients dripping with sweat and stink from four-squaring lumber all day.

Read the article.

[Rob Luter]

Hmmm..
A Box Project, scrub down.JPG
A Box Project, smoothed.JPG
Iron has no camber...
A Box Project, side planed.JPG
OEM iron, chipbreaker set 1mm back from the edge...Wood is Maple...

Yup. Still works just fine. The camber helps with deep cuts. I can peel wood off faster with a cambered roughing blade.

[Jim Koepke]

Once I get a plane tuned for a particular task, I never change it. Only the iron gets sharpened. If I don't have one for some new task, I just get another plane, and set it up for that. I haven't needed another plane for about a decade and a half now.

Not needing another plane has never stopped me from buying one if the deal was good enough.

How often do people adjust the frog? (this sounds like a good question for a poll)

For me at one time it seemed planes were had cheap enough to just have two or more set up as desired. After learning about chip breakers the frog adjustment became superfluous. (it amazes me to have gotten that spelled right on the first try)

As far as the purpose of the cap iron or chip breaker, Leonard Bailey rendered his reasoning on the design of his cap iron in the patent:

Bailey's Patent Cap Iron.png

Beside the cap iron breaking chips it was made in such a manner as to apply pressure to the area of a thin blade where it was likely to buckle to prevent same.

The full patent is here > https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNu...&docid=0072443

jtk

[Warren Mickley]

Chippendale:

https://www.christies.com/features/A...or-8823-1.aspx

Not sure he had a lot of time to navel-gaze about the double iron. I'm sure he thought it was peachy, especially when he saw somebody else pushing the plane. He could do it all, but he couldn't meet with his clients dripping with sweat and stink from four-squaring lumber.

Read the article.

My apologies, Charles.

A previous poster had mentioned Thomas Sheraton and I meant to say his name when I made my post. Sheraton was 39 when he began his own business after working as an apprentice and a journeyman.

Sheraton was a bit later than Chippendale and worked at a time when figured timber was important, so the double iron was important economically.

[Charles Guest]

Chippendale was born in 1718 and died in 1779 at age 61. If he finished his apprenticeship by the time he was in his early 20s that would have been in the late 1730s. I think the earliest printed reference to the double-iron was 1767. I doubt that Chippendale was running hand planes twelve years before his death or really in the decades before then. Carving, yes, getting out stock for projects with a staff of 50+ at his disposal, highly doubtful. If he did, I suppose he sent some 15 year old apprentice to meet with his clients, suppliers, bankers, creditors, printers, ironmongers, etc.

London cabinetmakers were well staffed firms with broad capabilities, some of which had more than 150 employees (see George Seddon, et al.) They were not some lone, tortured craftsman working in a colonial backwater running through the muddy streets shrieking "Eureka" when the double-iron showed up on the scene, as if every problem of running a sophisticated cabinetmaking firm had been finally solved.