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I played around with one of Jay's Cedar top sets last night to experiment with jointing and thicknessing using the Anant planes I purchased and later honed to dead flat. So after all that work, I wanted to see if I could actually get perfect joints and work the top to the proper thickness.

Using an Anant #7 Jointer Plane (22" long) with a Hock blade, I clamped each Cedar top half to a flat 1/2" Baltic birch board and the flat surface of my router table. Just a few swipes with the plane riding on its side made a flat, smooth surface. Same with the other half. I had to do some slight touching up on a shooting board before they candled perfectly over a light table. Time to do both halves was 20 minutes.

So I joined the halves with LMI glue (Using John Mayes'method) and let it sit overnight.

This morning I tackled the job of reducing the thickness from .250" to .125". For this I used a #4 smoothing plane...again with a Hock blade. I clamped one edge of the plate to the router table surface and began the process of just kissing the surface and then adjusting the blade height until I was taking the thinnest of ribbons along the grain. The plane worked incredibly smoothly...my first real experience doing plates and it was quite satisfying. So after alternating the sides and front and back it finally came down to size after about an hour. And the surface texture looks better than anything I've seen come out of my Amish buddy's sander. I know...I could have saved myself 50 minutes by having a drum sander, but purchasing one of those won't happen for the forseeable future.

A few questions for the in-house plane experts:

...How much more difficult will it be when I go to the more figured back and side woods?
...Any tips on avoiding the last 1/2" on the ends being thinner than the rest of the stock?
...Should I be varying the direction in which I plane, i.e diagonal, or accross the grain as well as with the grain?
...Any other suggestions will be appreciated

Thanks for listening.

   

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

HI JJ

When you get onto figerred stuff it is important to plane the grain in the correct direction and with the grain you can make a small test and it will be obvious.

A tip to avoid thinning the edges as you near the edge shift your weight slightly towards the back of the plane.

I have read things about planning diagonally but I found for me personally it caused problems with tearout.

The rest is all in the setup and sharpening which you sound like you have sorted.

Russels got it...

It just takes practice to get a feel for the ends, you have to shift your weight so that as the plane slides off the end your not pushing down on the unsupported part of it.

The trick for figured woods is two things (for me anyways)

1. I use my power jointer to get them close if possible.

2. I take VERY VERY VERY light shavings with a freshly sharpened blade.

and like russ said direction can matter (and sometimes not actually)..

I don't think planing diagonally will get you anything but pain, a jointer plane is designed to do one thing along the edge, if done correctly you simply can't get a better joint.

Sometimes the old ways are the best, once I mastered using my jointer hand plane I have not had any problems with joiing my pieces.

Cheers

-Paul-

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

if you have access to cumpiano's book follow his directions. they were correct then and still are.

I do use a diagonal stroke on figured wood. Just got through planing a 15 inch wide plank of figured maple. (I am making my son a coffee table) By taking thin cuts with a very sharp blade and moving the plane diagonally there is a slicing activity that helps prevent digging and tearout.

John

John...Thanks for the info. While I haven't yet done the B/S wood yet, diagonal slicing intuitively makes sense.

Crazyman...I looked at Cumpiano's method last evening. Aside from planing in every direction he also uses a toothing blade.

Does anyone use a toothing blade who can share their experiences?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

a toothed blade helps reduce tearout and makes it easy to see where you've been, and when you take your second cut with the plain blade(no pun intended) it is again easy to see where you have been. they are easy to make with a triangular file.

C&N did indeed get it right: planing the surfaces on diagonals is the only way I know to get it really flat and uniform with a hand plane.

A 2-5 degree microbevel on the 'flat' side of the iron will really help in cutting figured wood. It makes the plane act more like a scraper. I routinely use my hand plane on curly maple with very little problem if it's sharp and set up correctly. The most difficult wood so far is Osage Orange, which is cross-grained with a vengance. It makes birdseye seem like a pleasure.

You don't want to know how many acre-feet of wood I've removed with my #4 Record over the past thirty years. I do all of my joining with it, too. A well set up plane is a rearkable tool.

Thanks, Alan...I was hoping you'd chime in on this one since I know you're the resident record holder for planing plates. I'll be sure to put the micro-bevel on the iron before I start on the back and side wood. I thought I'd first try IRW before moving on to the more highly figured stuff.

My planes are by far the most enjoyable tools for me to use. I take every opportunity to practice and hone my skills whenever I can.

Crazyman...Thanks for confirming the toothed blade advantages. I'm just going to get one from Hock.

Stay tuned...I'm sure I'll have more questions in a week or so.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Be careful, working with well setup and sharp planes becomes addictive. I've almost quit using my power tools at all. It becomes even worse when you start playing with high quality cabinet and plane scrapers, as well.

Pretty soon you have to start building pretty cabinets to put them all in, but they sure display nice as well too.

Well back to making shavings.............

Even when I am taking straight stokes along the grain with a plane I will turn the plane slightly to the right or left so instead of the plan iron striking the surface at a 90 degree angle the edge is skewed at about 10-15 degrees to the direction of the grain (plane is still moving straight) so that the blade cuts with a shearing action.

The reason for planing on a diagonal corner to corner acros the wood is as Alan stated, it reallu is the only way to get it flat and uniform. If all of the plane strokes were with the direction of the grain you could end up with differences in thickness or a washboard effect, even if very slight.

As far as how to help keep the last 1/2 inch from being thinner, the key is where you are applying pressure...as you reached the end of the board apply more downward pressure to the back of the place than the front...any downward pressure on the plane at the front edge of the plane will cause it to take a thicker cut as the resistance of the wood is suddenly less as the plane edge approaches the edge. The converse is true at the starting edge of the cut...the cutting edge gets its reference from the front edge so do not apply downward pressure as the blade is entering the wood or downward pressure will take a heavier cut at the beginning.