Official Luthiers Forum!

It goes without a saying...

When you use a hand plane to flatten a glue joint, make sure the plane body is actually flat.

I was gluing up some tops and backs and was wondering why my Chinese made hand plane was not flat... turns out the entire plane body is concave. No wonder nothing is flat and true.

I used my milling machine with a grinding attachment to flatten mine, and it needed serious flattening, like more than 1 mm (like about 0.04") of iron had to be ground off in order for the plane sole to be flat.

Goes without a saying but Chinese planes are a kit, not a complete working tool.

Work done on the plane so far:

Hardened/tempered the blade (it was not hard at all, could be cut by a file).

Made a new Y yoke out of 4140 steel (original was sheet metal that could not apply the necessary force to move the blade)

Re-machined the cap because original hole would not allow the cap to be released at all (too small).

Flattened the plane sole with mill.

You can flatten the sole without a mill. Use a thick sheet of glass, coarse sandpaper, and lots of elbow grease.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Even more expensive planes still need a tune up. My Marples Jointer plane was not top of the line but still a decent plane and it was definitely not flat. I tune them up with wet/dry sand paper on thick glass.

I always thought the better ones was ready to go. I'm guessing cast iron moves with age?

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I think the cheaper companies don’t spend the time or money on properly stress relieving the castings.

Yep, a flat plane makes all the difference. When I first started out I struggled for hours on every joint and never could get them perfect. Tried to flatten my plane with sandpaper, but gave up after a few days. 180 grit wet/dry is nowhere near coarse enough. Also I have yet to come across a truly flat piece of glass. Maybe if you find a store with high inventory turnover rate you could get a piece that's fresh from manufacturing and hasn't sagged on a shelf yet. I eventually made a plane out of wood, which can be flattened using my trusty XXC dia-sharp stone, and now plate joints are fun and easy. The light weight is also really nice compared to cast iron.

Heavy float glass, 1/2" or thicker, is usually pretty flat. Sometimes you can get a broken piece from a glass shop for free, or almost.

It's common when lapping for the corners to 'dive in', producing a convex surface. Move the plane in a figure-8 motion; that way you're taking two cuts off the center for every one you take off a corner. I got that from a machinist who was making himself a set of Johannson blocks during lunch breaks.

Cast iron always has some built-in stresses when it's new. These work themselves out over time to some degree. I'm told it used to be customary to age new castings for a year or so before milling them to size, but that costs money. Virtually every plane you get, except for the real premium ones, are basically kits of parts that can, with some work, be turned into a usable plane. I think most of us struggled for some time to produce acceptable work before we found that out.

What I need to know is, when they are milling planes flat with a milling machine, how do they clamp it? I tried with face mills with the plane in a vise but the ends chatter because of un-rigid clamping setup. Do they have custom fixtures for holding it?

Using a grinding attachment results in not needing as rigid of a setup but I rather not use it...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Last week, I took the plastic tiles of the basement steps. Came off easy. The glue? Like rock. Belt sander did next to nothing. Used a wood bodied plane with a toothed blade, and it got dull often, but another thing that I noticed is that the blue grey dust from the paint and glue built up on the corners of the plane. A little on other spots after it really built up, but mostly on the corners.

Does that always happen to some degree, or is it just this combination of nasty? I'm glad I'm almost done!

I've seen people flatten planes with blue and a scraper. We used to scrape lathe ways, and punch press bushings and guide posts. We had electric scrapers!

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Why be normal?

I have seen and have owned bench planes that were used by professional tradesmen, and they did not bother to flatten them. Remember that a bench plane does not work like your power jointer with 2 beds that are parallel but at different heights - the bench plane bed is all the same "plane". When you start, the sole is parallel to the existing surface and the cut is the depth that the blade sticks down below the sole, but as you continue into the cut the the sole cannot make full contact with the piece as there are now 2 different levels on the workpiece. It would be easy if the sole of the plane were on the piece for the full length of the cut, but the pesky start and finish get in the way. It all boils down to your technique - where you push down at the start of the cut, where you push down when the sole is completely on the piece, and where you push down as the sole leaves the piece.

I haven't spent much time actually using lower end planes - just the standard Millers Falls, Stanley, Sargent, Union higher quality tools

Ed M

The high end ones like Lie Nielsen and Veritas use stress relieved ductile iron for plane bodies. The majority if not all cheaper ones use grey cast iron that has not been heat treated.

When I was a car guy, we wouldn't use new engine blocks to build high-performance engines, only used ones. New engine blocks could distort over time after precision machining--used "seasoned" ones wouldn't move nearly as much. Cause was from uneven cooling following casting that would cause internal stresses.

Seems to be the same problem with planes. Cast iron table saw tops too.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

The problem with machining plane soles that have not been properly stress relieved is that they go out of flat again. I've flattened some of my planes 3 times over and they still go out of flat over a couple of years. So if you want a flat plane, it's best to pay the money and start with one of the stress relieved ductile iron ones. It will save you a lot of aggravation.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

This seems like another reason to avoid the flood of new, apparently unseasoned grey cast iron planes out of China, India, and Taiwan...not bad planes, and they can apparently be fettled and tweaked for decent performance, but they do seem to need more than their fair share of attention. My lovely Stanley #3 and #5-1/4 planes (sourced from Mr. Minch - Ruby50 here) have been stable, beautifully functional tools that are close to their date of manufacture centenials, so have settled in nicely to early middle age. The same could be said (and has been!) with regard to stability of the US and Canadian-made Lie-Nielsen and Veritas planes, with the added benefit that ductile iron stands up to trips from bench to concrete without much risk of anything more than cosmetic damage.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Until USPS/Canada Post/Fedex/UPS/etc. offers any sort of economy shipping method (which they don't, they want you to pay for every gram shipped), even inexpensive vintage Stanley planes are priced out of my reach. When I have to pay over 100 dollars to ship a 20 dollar jack plane from ebay, that is the real definition of insanity.

LN and Veritas makes wonderful hand planes but the price they charge for these tools makes no sense, when I can buy power tools for the same price. In fact I can buy a 12 inch jointer for 500 dollars. But I have seen luthiers here who have the money to buy those things.

Cast iron isn't high tech and if Taiwan can make 5nm silicon wafer, I'm pretty sure ductile cast iron is easy as pie for them.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Woodcraft's Wood River planes - specifically the latest versions which copy current Lie-Nielsen and classic Stanley designs - are an example of use of what is billed as stress-relieved ductile iron in new planes manufactured by Qiangsheng Tool Co. in Zhejiang Province. I would never purchase one of those tools given Woodcraft's current manufacturing arrangements, but they may obviously also be made elsewhere, given the established tech base in the region.

Sounds like a Taiwan-based business opportunity.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I've brought it up before but this seems like a good time to bring it up again. Why not make some handplanes with some basic hardwood? Even if you make one with mahogany it'll be easier to keep flat/true up even if the weather shifts all the time.

Coffin planes are fairly simple designs and don't take up too much wood. Plus wood planes leave a nicely burnished surface behind. You can make them from pretty much any wood you want. I made one from a pine 4x4 once just to do it. It worked very well.

I'm about to purchase a used car that has a brand new engine installed and this got me to thinking... Is that why there is a proper method to breaking in a new engine?

Aren't most engine blocks aluminum these days? I mean cast iron is great and all but it's heavy and is not a good conductor of heat. Maybe cars made in the 60s used cast iron...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Cast iron blocks still dominate the industry for many reasons.

I concur, my wooden planes work great. Maple body, lignum vitae sole and a hock blade. Not very hard to make.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Course, now the challenge would be where to find lignum vitae wood... Planes I buy in Taiwan are often made of what looks like hickory.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Why not just use the woods you have available? No need for any exotic woods or anything. Just something reasonably hard that you can work with your tools. Like I said you can even make them from pine/softwoods and get a working tool.

Seeing I have a milling machine, I could just as well make them out of aluminum. At least I don't think 6061 T6 aluminum moves at all.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Everything moves, only questions are: how much and does it matter for the application at hand.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

There's nothing wrong with a wood bodied plane once you learn how to use it. I've seen lots of them around in various local hardwoods. They're not as hard as cast iron, and the soles wear, but they're easy enough to true up with another plane. Eventually the throat opening gets too big, and you have to patch it, but that's not too bad either. It's a little tricky to adjust the cut.