Hand planes

[Reed Gray]

Well, the responses have given me a lot of food for thought. Never thought about keeping the blade in so the 'tension' stays the same as it would be if I was using it. Also, should have thought of keeping light pressure while flattening the sole since, being on the Brute Squad for all the Princess Bride fans, I could cause the plane to flex more. Seems like it will take a lot of repeated sessions to get the soles pretty much dead flat. Just can't focus for that long....

I did get my Lie Nielson planes new, gifts from my dad. That was maybe 5 years ago. All things considered, I think it best to fix them on my own. I may be being too fussy. Oh, Bridge City plane is supposed to be flat to .0002. I did try a .015 feeler gage and it wouldn't fit under the straight edge, though there was more light showing under the straight edge than I think is appropriate. Bridge City is concerned that I may mess up the smooth finish on the sole of the plane. No clue as to how fine it is, but I would guess that after enough abrasive sessions I could use my diamond lapping plates, which go to 8000 grit.

The old ugly Stanley cuts excellently now, a far cry from how it used to cut. I still need to spend more sessions on the sole of the plane to get it dead flat. No problem understanding the concept that if your sole isn't flat, then you will have a really hard time getting a straight edge on any board... I have lots of work to do...

robo hippy

[Brian Deakin]

Hi Reed
The best source of information I can reccomend for planning and handtools is

https://www.youtube.com/c/DavidCharlesworth/videos

David also has a range of videos and books which are excellent

https://www.davidcharlesworth.co.uk/

Davids videos may be available through Lie Nielsen in the USA

Please see tuning a handplane (Please note most of these steps would be not required for a Lie Neilsen plane)

https://www.finewoodworking.com/memb.../011172036.pdf

[Charles Guest]

Well, the responses have given me a lot of food for thought. Never thought about keeping the blade in so the 'tension' stays the same as it would be if I was using it. Also, should have thought of keeping light pressure while flattening the sole since, being on the Brute Squad for all the Princess Bride fans, I could cause the plane to flex more. Seems like it will take a lot of repeated sessions to get the soles pretty much dead flat. Just can't focus for that long....

I did get my Lie Nielson planes new, gifts from my dad. That was maybe 5 years ago. All things considered, I think it best to fix them on my own. I may be being too fussy. Oh, Bridge City plane is supposed to be flat to .0002. I did try a .015 feeler gage and it wouldn't fit under the straight edge, though there was more light showing under the straight edge than I think is appropriate. Bridge City is concerned that I may mess up the smooth finish on the sole of the plane. No clue as to how fine it is, but I would guess that after enough abrasive sessions I could use my diamond lapping plates, which go to 8000 grit.

The old ugly Stanley cuts excellently now, a far cry from how it used to cut. I still need to spend more sessions on the sole of the plane to get it dead flat. No problem understanding the concept that if your sole isn't flat, then you will have a really hard time getting a straight edge on any board... I have lots of work to do...

robo hippy

Well, we've lost, or are about to lose, another soul to the tool-tuning devil.

Stop what you're doing and build something. Quit fettling premium planes. Quit buying planes. Buy some wood. Buy your wife dinner, but just quit buying planes.

[Tom Trees]

Cannot edit my post above.
I didn't realise this screenshot might not be viewable to the OP
https://postimg.cc/dhgKGJHChow

Once a plane is this flat, it shouldn't take but a few rubs and be good to go, no mad sessions necessary
If it were badly convex or had a trench, real bad rust, uneven thickness in width or whatever one found displeasing for whatever reason, it would take a lot of work to get it somewhere around the above stage,
so it can then be lapped with but a few licks on the full surface thereafter to gently make it convex, not by much.
A few licks will show up the abrasion favouring the toe and heel near instantly, good enough I think.
Checked by the above method would make that obvious, and is the only time the scratch pattern will correlate with what is actually happening
regarding convexity or concavity.

If the plane has a movable mouth this may not be a good idea to want anything but flat, so I wouldn't touch a premium tool sole with that function.

Get used to the "stopped shaving" exercise and see how well you can do with some cigarette paper. ala Charlesworth
Note that one needs to do this to some extent, which can be reduced, but not by lapping planes, but using the cap iron ala Weaver
Get used to Charlesworth tips first for accuricy's sake

Tom

[Jim Koepke]

Well, we've lost, or are about to lose, another soul to the tool-tuning devil.

Stop what you're doing and build something. Quit fettling premium planes. Quit buying planes. Buy some wood. Buy your wife dinner, but just quit buying planes.

My planes were fettled (tuned by the devil, me) years ago. Since then a lot of wood has been bought and used to make things and some have been sold for a profit. My wife, family and friends have also been taken to breakfast, lunch and dinner on the money saved from buying a good jointer for fifty bucks or less instead of paying $500 or more (current price at Lie Nielsen) for a jointer. A smoother will set a person back over $300. I have purchased a couple good Stanley smoothers recently for less than $150 for the two of them. Neither of them needed much more than a sharpening of their blades to get them working to my liking. One did have an old style frog replace an ogee style frog.

Cannot edit my post above.
I didn't realise this screenshot might not be viewable to the OP
https://postimg.cc/dhgKGJHChow
…
Tom

Tom, this got me to:

postimg.png

With some advertising below. I think you wanted the URL to read > https://postimg.cc/dhgKGJHC

jtk

[Scott Clausen]

I have been thinking about this and I don't think I have ever checked any plane for flatness with two exceptions, 1) the one I was rehabbing and had already planned to lap and 2) my LV LA shooting plane to check for square. I check my planning progress with gage marks, strait edge and square. I can always achieve flat and square with any vintage plane, which I have never checked for flat, I pick from the litter. Maybe one day I will have trouble with it and start looking for an imperfection. Three things come to mind, don't sweat the little stuff if all is good, if not good suspect technique first and lastly start checking plane adjustments and flatness.

[Jim Koepke]

I have been thinking about this and I don't think I have ever checked any plane for flatness with two exceptions…

Three things come to mind, don't sweat the little stuff if all is good, if not good suspect technique first and lastly start checking plane adjustments and flatness.

Good advice along the lines of not trying to fix problems that are not there.

An important concept in life is learning to work with what you have whether it be finances, mechanical equipment, food in the pantry or another person.

Another important thing to learn in life is how to trouble shoot problems whether they be finances, mechanical equipment, food in the pantry or another person.

jtk

[Kevin Jenness]

Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgM-V2KpsRA(starting about 2:30) is a good illustration of scraping a surface flat in a controlled way.