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Hi Guys, I'm an amateur builder with very little experience. I use a #4 Lie Nielsen plane to thin the tops, backs and sides. I try to alternate between going with the grain and diagonally, rotating the piece while I work. What I have noticed is that the work piece thickness typically has a range of 0.02 to 0.03 inches (e.g., thicknesses ranging from 0.10" to 0.13"). I get a bit frustrated trying to get the thickness to be more consistent and ultimately have to give up to keep the board from getting too thin. How can I get a more consistent thickness? Am I being too hard on myself?

You might consider trying a toothed blade for roughing in your plates, then finish with a regular blade to clean up the marks left by the toothed blade.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Are you trying to stick to patterns, like mowing grass?

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Pat

1. Check it over with a dial caliper
2. Plane the high spots
3. Plane everywhere except the low spots
4. Repeat

Make sure your work surface is good and flat. Mine is not, but I use a block plane, which is short enough to deal with it.

You might consider casting a broader net re: advice...

- Sawmill Creek's Neanderthal Haven hand tool board is filled with curmudgeons just waiting to provide both basic and advanced hand tool instruction

https://sawmillcreek.org/forumdisplay.p ... thal-Haven

- WoodCentral's Hand Tools board is likewise prepared to assist

http://www.woodcentral.com/woodworking/ ... ndtools.pl

Preface your request with a description of what you wish to accomplish (e.g., dimensioning very thin, figured stock).

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

The shorter number 4 will only get the high spots, then you need to switch to a number 5 or 6 plane to smooth out the boards . For rough planing . I also use a LN scrub plane. number 5 and 6 planes can be picked up used on evil bay, and a good hand plane tutorial by cabinetmaker anthony guidici. can be borrowed from your library. He covers a few basic planing subjects , and is an advocate of spending top $$ to get an excellent plane. I am currently flattening many of my planes on a large granite surface plate.

The shorter smoothing plane will better follow the undulations of the surface, while the longer plane will hit just the high spots until level and true. That is the rationale for using a jack or fore plane to work to level - perhaps with use of a toothing blade on figured stock - and the shorter smooth plane to final-smooth the surface.

That said, our work pieces are perhaps 17” wide by 22” long, so longer planes should not be nearly as much of a factor in gaining a consistent plate thickness as good technique.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

mark the high spots and use a scraper

Thanks everyone for your responses. I have a #5 and and #7 plane as well, so I think I need to try more with those. The #7 is unfortunately harder to use since I have two clamps holding down the work piece and the long body is constantly hitting the clamps. My goal is to get the thickness to a relatively uniform level with the planes so that I don't have to spend much time with the scraper and sanding.

Much to the chagrin of many, I use a well tuned jointer instead of a shooting board and a plane to dress the plate edges before gluing up. In order to use the jointer I find it essential to set the cut depth to zero on the final passes to get the edges dead straight.

I’m wondering if you could apply the same logic to making your plates flat. Try setting the iron to zero in the throats and see if now you are only removing the highs...

Best, M

Ben--

Here is a work holding idea for this particular task. It is one of the more useful things you can do with CA glue (aka superglue).

First, make sure you have a very flat sacrificial board that is a few inches bigger than the top/back all around. MDF, or particle board, might work better than plywood, although plywood is fine if it is flat.

Next, think of a way of attaching this sacrificial board to your workbench that does not involve clamps, and that allows you to rotate the sacrificial board around every so often. A good way, if you have a bench with bench dog holes, is to have stubby dowels the size of the bench dog holes going through the sacrificial board in a few spots that line up with the dog holes.

Next, put your top (or back) on the sacrificial board and draw its outline on the board.

Next, get some wood scraps from when you cut the top/back to its shape and make a number of 1/2" X 1" square blocks, the same thickness as the top/back. Superglue the scraps down to the sacrificial board just barely outside the outline. Not a continuous set of scraps along the outline; just every few inches. This creates a "pocket" for the top/back where it can't move in any direction any more than a millimeter or so.

When planing, go ahead and run the plane over the scraps along with the top/back. They are the same thickness as the top/back, and they are wood, so you won't hurt anything. When you need to run the plane in a different direction, pick the whole sacrificial board up off the bench and put it down so the stubby dowels fit into the bench dog holes.

When planing this way, it is really important to be aware of the danger of "pushing" the wood. If you start a stroke near your torso and push out toward the other side of the top/back, the thin top/back wood can buckle on the far side and snap. So, be careful. One fix for this is to clamp the wood near your torso and then stroke away from yourself. No pushing of the wood happens that way (only pulling against the clamp), but the clamp is in the way of the plane. That's probably what you are doing now.

I agree with the idea of a toothing iron, but I would recommend using two different planes, one with a toothing iron, the other with your regular iron. It gets real old switching plane irons on a single plane; I would rather switch planes.

All in all, I am glad I have a thickness sander. This type of planing gets old. For me, anyway.

Don, thanks for taking the time to write all this out. Just to clarify, are you saying only plane with the grain and not diagonally? I have thought about trying something similar to this before, but have not done it for two reasons:

1) to avoid what I think you're referring to as pulling -- basically I am afraid the blade is going to bite too much and compress the wood, causing it to buckle and snap. I think this is avoided for the most part by planing with the grain when working with non-figured quartersawn woods, but I wonder how it would work with the highly figured cocobolo set I have that I have been afraid to touch for years. I figure that project will have to involve a toothed plane blade at the least.

2) I'm concerned that the blade is going to bite and lift the wood slightly and cause it to go over the top of the superglued stops with all my weight and forward pressure, possibly putting a dent into the face of softer woods

You're right, currently I use two clamps, usually on the front of the work piece, but some times on opposite corners. I've tried one clamp but the work piece rotates around the clamp. I would love to get a thickness sander, but my "shop" is a bedroom in my NYC apartment and is smaller than closets I have had outside of NYC. So I unfortunately don't have the space or the dust collection system to handle a thickness sander. I would also just really like to get good with hand planes because I love their simplicity and the way they feel and sound. So I'm going to have to think about a way to implement your suggestion. Thanks again for the help.

Ben--

First, keep in mind that I don't like to hand plane tropical hardwood backs or sides, because it is hard for me and I am at risk of messing up the wood. I use a thickness sander. But, if I absolutely had to use hand planes, the above procedure, along with the use of two planes (one with a toothed iron, the other with a regular iron), is how I would do it. I would have the irons insanely sharp, and the plane bodies dead flat. And I would still be a bit puckered about the job. It is just hard (for me, anyway) to hand plane very thin tropical hardwoods, and I don't enjoy it.

My suggested procedure didn't depend on grain orientation. It is easier to have the wood buckle across the grain than with it, but it is thin wood, and I think buckling is a danger in general.

If you are worried about the wood jumping out of the pocket, you could sink some staples into the edges of the blocks and snip them off short before you glue the blocks down. That would give you something to grip the workpiece a bit more aggressively, but still relatively safe for your planes.

Don't see it mentioned, may have missed it.
Lubricate the sole of the plane. I use Camelia oil.
Reduces the friction a lot, helping to prevent buckling.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

If you haven't adjusted the mouth of your smoother you might want to. Closing up the mouth limits the thickness of the shaving (cut). Infill smoothers usually have a tight mouth and aren't adjustable and take a fine shaving. Bailey type (Stanley) have adjustable throats and can be adjusted to suit the task. As you gain skill some people feel it is less necessary to make frog adjustments, but for a smoother it is helpful to have a tight mouth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGbDQ6dc45k
Paul Sellers shows how to sharpen and how to set the plane to get an even thickness shaving, which can leave a smoother surface.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE4yVgdVW7s

Thanks again everyone. I’m going to work on tuning my planes a bit more and focus on my technique.


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Learning to set a close set cap iron is such a boon for one wanting to hand plane thin stock.
You need the mouth open on your plane (frog all the way back) for it to work.
Not many folks on youtube using the cap iron, maybe about five folks non mainstream like David Weaver (David W) or Brian Holcombe
A few other folks have made some videos on the subject. but it looks to me their caps are not close enough to work 100 percent.
Not for my interlocked African timbers anyway.

I can't imagine going back to flipping timbers to plane with the grain again.
The double iron can take heavier shavings than a bevel up plane without tearing, while making you take wider thinner shavings when you want it, and ensures this is the case all the time, making it easier to have a wider cut than using any other method, while lessening the nose diving of the plane.

David Charlesworth's videos are worth a mention for technique, and the best possible videos on the subject IMO
He is reluctant to use the close set cap iron for no good reason though, and I'd skip the waterstones in favour of a Washita.
Rob Cosman, Phil Lowe are worth a mention but more waterstones and no cap iron.

In short I recommend and use the knowledge from Charlesworth, for the explanation and demonstration, but using the cap iron like Weaver has shown, along with the preferably lily white washita oilstone, although I like to finish on the Stu-Mac Dia-sharp extra fine diamond hone.

Here is what setting I use for most of the time planing, sometimes I set it closer if required.

Tomas

A few notes gleaned from long tenure in a teaching shop:

Sharpening:

- Most plane and chisel use issues are due to dull edges; there are very, very few shops with truly sharp tools, and fewer still where sharpening is fast and sure. Aim for the later.

- Treat sharpening as a skill rather than as a religion; buy a good honing jig (a simple $10 Taiwanese side clamping jig is as good as a $100 gadget for plane blades and wider (3/8") chisels), and either a stone or abrasive system.

- Scary-Sharp is just fine to start out with in your own shop, and it is affordable (yes...it can cost in the long run, but the up-front cost is negligible, and it works).

- Stick with a system until mastered - most shops with a collection of dull tools have 4-5 old, neglected sharpening systems stuffed in a drawer or corner and are ready to give up on their 6th system after a few trials. Shops with sharp tools usually have one system in constant use which they understand and have mastered, and make it quick and easy to access. Our shop system (8" CBN grinding wheel on low-speed grinder, coarse and extra-coarse DuoSharp, and Norton
Shapton 8000) is on a separate, dedicated bench right in the main bench area and can be used even when all of the other benches are in use. A sharpening system that must be extracted from a dark corner of the shop, used only after shifting the work off the bench, then stored away before the work can continue will a) likely never be mastered, and b) encourage the dangerous, inefficient practice of working with dull tools.

- As a rule of thumb, the more expensive and persnickety the sharpening regimen, the less likely it is to be used. Simpler is usually better for a working shop or hobby builder.

Edge Geometry:

- As has been the advice for well over a century in the woodworking literature, set the cap iron close for fine work and for more challenging timbers...nothing new here.

- The lighter the cut, the less critical the cap iron set, as chip stiffness is what drives tear-out ahead of the edge...this is why users with bevel-up planes do just fine in more challenging timbers, provided the tool is sharp and the chip is thin. Thicker chips in challenging timbers benefit from close-set cap irons...a 0.0007" chip in plain-figured mahogany does not.

- Your Lie-Nielsen #4 (and nearly all new or neglected double-iron planes) will benefit from some minor tweaks to the cap iron geometry. Although the masterminds on the boutique hand tool forums may rail against Mr. Lie-Nielsen's cap iron shape, this is a bit like complaining that his blades are not delivered honed and set for work...a few minutes on a diamond stone or similar with clean up the factory square edge to something closer to what is seen on well-maintained vintage double iron planes.

- One bevel is plenty...an as-ground bevel and a honed bevel at 5 degrees higher on a well set-up plane will do just fine in most woods encountered. The three, four, or five bevel 'systems' advocated by some and the expensive honing systems to support them can come after mastering the basic single-honed-bevel approach (or not).

Practice:

- Don't rush through the preliminaries (e.g., sharpening and plane set-up/geometry) - take it slow and get it right...speed comes with mastery, and never the other way around.

- Avoid making your first trials on something you can ill-afford to spoil...a couple of non-guitar projects (e.g., a hardwood garden tote for the plant-lover in your life) can exercise your plane use chops and a couple coats of paint can address any serious lapses in joinery. We do a few warm-up exercises in the shop before launching a student in the direction of tonewood, with a bench hook sized for guitar work being one of those useful fixtures requiring some plane work and basic joinery.

- As the boss's favorite T-short featuring The Tactical Sloth proclaims, SLOW IS SMOOTH; SMOOTH IS FAST...invest the time and effort necessary for mastery, as plane and chisel skills are fundamentals in instrument-making.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I have adopted trevs method of sharpening . and honing. By using a 25 deg primary bevel and 35 deg secondary bevel for edge retention. For certain softwoods I just use a 25 deg bevel on my japanese blades.

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Why be normal?

The koan of lutherie; the slower you work the faster you get done.

We smooth tops and backs with hand planes in my shop. The rule is to always be planing away from the clamp with thin stock.

There's n substitute for sharp, and you can always get better at sharpening.

There are those woods, though.... I still can't get a good surface on Osage orange with a hand plane alone: I need to finish up with a scraper.

I'm so pleased to hear this coming from someone like you. Osage has given me fits when trying to plane smooth. I like to plane my fretboard radius. I recently did an Osage fretboard and let's just say, I eventually went to the sanding beam and there may or may not be a mahogany lamination to make up for some loss of thickness (good thing it was getting binding).

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

The wood that most recently made me regret trying to use a hand plane on it was Honduran Rosewood. It just has these weird little spots that react badly.

Woody has it all right there. All I might add is resharpen before you need to. It only takes (literally) a minute to re-hone.

I saw one video of a japanese worker who would re-hone after 2 strokes - not me!

Ef

Reminds me of the (spoiler alert) old joke: How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice!

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Peter Havriluk