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just wondering if anyone is using wooden planes for instrument making ?
or do most people use metal body planes?.
I was just reading info and reasoning behind the design of these wooden planes on HNT Gordon website http://www.hntgordon.com.au/

I was mainly interested in the fact these planes have nice big chunky blades and 60 degree angle supposedly works well for tearout as opposed to 45 degrees on most metal smoothers and jack planes...
and they seem quite good value compared to lie nielsen and veritas gear....
I think a low angle jack LN or LV would be a great asset but was just curious if anyone has tried wooden planes on the sort of hard timber used in guitar making?

Sure you can use wooden planes! I have made some smaller ones for carving arched plates, and I have some older bench planes of various dimensions. They are are easy to modify for specific tasks, but can be more tricky to adjust until you get used to it (tap-tap).

I don't have any experience with the Gordon planes, but they seem to be made in the style of the Chinese planes I have seen in woodworking catalogues. I'll let others comment on these. The standard Scandinavian bench planes that I am used to have a thick, tapered iron that is wedged against the sloped bed within the plane body. This configuration eliminates some of the cutter vibrations and chatter that you can get with the Stanley type planes, especially on dense woods such as the ones we often use in guitar making. To change the effective cutting angle of these it is possible to grind a secondary bevel on the iron, which will help on difficult, figured woods. On softwoods the standard 45 degree angle will be more effective (since I got my drum sander, I only hand plane tops, sides and backs are sanded).

Wooden plane soles wear faster than iron, so they need truing up from time to time, and perhaps a new new piece of wood inlayed in the sole in front of the iron to tighten up the mouth opening. There is also the possibility for trapping shavings between the wedge and iron, so everything needs to be smooth and tight where the shavings exit.

When they are set up right, they are a joy to use!

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Wood planes are lighter and not that hard to use. I have used a couple of homemade Krenov-style planes for 25 years. I recently bought some Veritas planes and my wood planes are seeing less and less use. The conventional block plane works brilliantly on spruce, mahogany, etc. I added a front knob and it handles very well. I briefly tried a veritas #4 smoothing plane and it was way to bulky and heavy for instrument work, IMO. I have an old Stanley block plane that is nowhere the tool the Veritas is, but when re-ground so the blade has a 45 degree angle, which added to the 20 degree bed angle, gives you a 65 degree cutting angle. This is perfect for planing ebony fingerboards. I favor the standard block plane rather than the low-angle plane because there is less back pressure, i.e. the wood pushing the iron out of the cut. This is a concept I learned from Robert Meadow and it is not mentioned in any other literature I have read.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

I have been using a Stanley #5 for most of my plate thinning. I also have a #4, but I did a better job of setting up the #5, so that's the one that gets the most use.

I have decided to get a wood plane from Knight Toolworks. I have read a few comments from others that they are nice planes to work with.

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53% of all statistics are made up on the spot
http://driftwoodguitars.blogspot.com/

Get some Hock blades and make your own: you can have any size you need and vary the bed angle for different uses. The soles on mine are mostly bloodwood or lignum vite and I don't think they will wear out in my life time. And, they're free, except for the blade.

                    Paul Harrell

I seem to remember that someone -
{Im sorry I forget exactly who[Arnt was that you?]}
was mentioning that they were thinking of posting a thread or series of threads on making homebuilt wooden planes. This was early summer or late spring I believe - now I happened to be away from the OLF for a while this summer, so I may have missed it.
I for one was really looking forward to that as Im in the middle of a couple {admittedly stalled currently} wooden plane projects myself.
Who was that - anyone - and are we going to get that happening? {If it did, please refer me to the archives}
Cheers
Charliewood

Nope Charliewood, not me, but I would certainly love to see such a thread myself!

[QUOTE=ToddStock]
If I can disagree with Arnt:

Chatter is not an issue associated just with metal planes - it's really a thin blade/chipbreaker versus thick blade/chipbreaker issue and how well the bed supports the cutting edge. Current LN, LV and some of the Cliftons are immune to this sort of thing, while vintage Stanleys and Record can be chatter-proofed with a thicker aftermarket blade and some tuning work on the fit of the bed and chip breaker.

While tapered blades make wooden plane blade adjustments a bit easier, there is no advantage in terms of resistance to chatter - a thicker, better-bedded blade is a thicker, better bedded blade. [/QUOTE]

Todd, I don't think we disagree about this. I know that chatter can be reduced or eliminated with a thicker cutter and proper tuning of metal planes, but a with a standard Stanley type, thin iron plane (which I referred to) it can be an issue. I have Hock cutters in two of my Bedrocks, and they rock!   My point was that the wooden planes with a solid, straight bed and a thick, tapered iron wedged against it have the cards stacked in their favor by the nature of the design in this regard (it also helps if they are well made and sharp of course ). Depending on the type of wood they are made from, they may lack mass compared to metal planes, certainly compared to infill planes, and mass will make any bench plane perform better. Still I rarely have chatter issues with my old wooden planes. They have E. A. Berg and Kongsberg irons, BTW.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I am the culprut who said they would post some pictures on making wooden planes. Unfortunatly, shoulder surgery
sidelined me for six months and since I have been back at work I have been busy trying to catch up on furniture orders and guitars. If people would still like to see these I could do something after Christmas. And trust me, anyone who can build a guitar can make a plane that will work as well or better than anything you can buy.

                      Peace, Paulpaul harrell39029.76625

Paul, those are really beautiful. Are they the Krenov design? I picked up a book on building a Krenov-style plane a while back, and I haven't gotten around to building one yet.

I think I joined in that offer to show work in progress. I got stalled too. I have three in the works at various stages- two with genuine Zoot. Perhaps Paul and I could work together on visuals and text. I'm no master, but as some of you know, I love working with wood and steel in forms other than guitars.MT

Kelby, yes they are Krenov style. In fact I made most of them in the early 80's when I studied with Krenov at his school in California.
Mike, when I have time to do this I'll give a yell and maybe we could combine our photos and tecniques.

                       Peace, Paul
                     

That would be great guys! - and at your leisure of course, is fine - I just didnt know if I had missed it or not.
I only have sparse info here and there about building wooden planes such as the Sloane book 3 page instructions and such, I plan to buy some books on the subject if I ever get caught up on what I need to buy with respect to luthiery first .
Looking forward to those threads. Much Thanks!
Cheers
Charliewood

thanks for all the insight guys....
I never even considered making them but come to think of it they don't look to complicated to have a go at...
might just do it ...i have seen a book at my local library that is about making wooden planes so i will borrow it and check it out...thanks again

I use wood planes extensively and while I also have lots of kinds of metal planes including Veritas and L-N, more often than not will grab a wood plane.

If you want to see a really interesting approach to a shooting plane check out Cumpiano's website as he make what is essentially a long bed jointer only with a thick plane blade instead of a motor and rotating cutterhead!

I have a 12" long set of blades that were taken from a veneer slicer years ago that someday I will use to build a "Cumpiano" style jointer.

For now the longest jointer plane in my collection makes a Stanley #8 looks really small...it is an 18th century coopers jointing plane that was used as a long bed jointer of sorts in which the wood staves were passed over the inverted plane. The plane is notched on one end so it could be pegged and held in place on a saw horse for use. The blade is 4.5" wide and over 5/16" thick...Because they are rare and dont come up at tool auctions often, especially in good condition, It is mostly a wall ornament but is basically what Cumpiano has built.

A part of the european tradition of being an apprentice woodworker was to make your own tools and because a plane was one of the first tools needed was one of the first made. It was only some woodworkers focused on being planemakers that shops started buying their wood planes instead of making them.

I dont know if make wood planes was a part of a luthiers apprenticeship but at least for luthiers making violin family instruments, planes were just one of the tools that the violinmaker would make himself.

Alan Dunwell has an entertaining web page on making wooden finger planes: http://dunwellguitar.com/FingerPlanes/MyDesign.htm

Paul...I would be most interested in your hosting a wood plane-making thread. I've completed one so far and have 2 others in the works.

Thanks for the offer...put me on the list.

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