Logan Cabinet Shoppe

It's not often that I can honestly say I find a gloatable tool. In my mind, in order to be gloatable, the tool needs to meet 2 criteria. It needs to be a special find at a special price. It can be a new tool or old tool but if it doesn't meet both of these criteria, I don't consider it gloatable (i.e. buying a new LN plane at full retail price is not a gloatable purchase in my mind; now if you get one for $50, that's another story).

For awhile now, the only smooth plane in my tool kit has been this one that I made by laminating together two pieces of purpleheart. The two piece design came from John Wheelan's book "Making Traditional Wooden Planes", which I highly recommend if you are into wooden planes. The wedge abutments can be sawn in this arrangement and the design is easier for a first time plane builder to make than a traditional one piece design. Plus, you don't need to find 12/4 stock for the two piece design. You can make do with 6/4. The wedge in this plane is made from a piece of African mahogany. The iron is a double iron made for wooden planes that I purchased from Garrett Wade many years ago (they no longer offer them) and is about 1/8" thick. It's not a bad iron but when I build a new, more traditional plane to replace this one, it will be a single iron version with a laid steel iron from Galoot Tools.

Don't get me wrong, the plane performs fantastically and with it's iron bedded at 50 degrees (York pitch) there are few domestic hardwoods this plane can't handle. It's just not as traditional as I would really like. Prior to building this plane, I used a Stanley type 11 #3 and a Stanley type 9 #4 as my smoothers. However, when I made the switch to all wooden planes and sold off all of my metal planes, my home made smoother became my only smoother. This really didn't bother me because the smoother really isn't used that often in my shop. My fore and try planes are used much more often than the smoother so I was willing to wait for just the right smoother before pulling the trigger on one. I considered the Clark & Williams smoother but my budget just won't allow it. So not needing a new plane, I waited until the perfect deal arrived..

Well, the day finally arrived. While perusing Ebay as I do every now and again, I came upon a smoother that caught my eye. The picture (there was only one) was not terribly good, but there were a few things that jumped out at me that led me to believe that this plane had seen very little use in it's lifetime. The first thing was the crispness of the chamfers. There was very little dubbing of the crisp lines, the wedge looked unmarred and the plane overall looked very clean. The second thing that caught my eye was the height  of the plane. Most old wooden planes are pretty worn and have been reflattened a few times so the plane becomes shorter. This one looked unusually tall in the picture, which to me again meant very little use and possibly a good mouth. Unfortunately from the one picture, I couldn't see the mouth but I decided to take a chance.

Well, I'm glad I did because I was right on all accounts. So, for the princely sum of $11 plus shipping, I got my hands on a basically unused, common pitch smoother. When I got the plane I was very happy at what I found. The bed was basically untouched and still had some soot marks left on it (at least that's what they appear to be to me) where the iron was fitted to the bed (and fit very well I might add). The wedge was pristine with nary a mark. The iron had just a slight hint of mushrooming which was easily removed with a little filing and the iron and cap iron had zero pitting and only extremely minor surface rust. Once cleaned up the iron and cap iron looked brand new. You can actually still see the black left on the iron from the hardening and tempering process.

The plane was shipped with the iron and wedge removed from the plane (which I greatly appreciated) so the last thing I needed to do was put the iron and wedge in and check the mouth. As tight as it was the day it was manufactured. No mouth patch necessary on this baby. I cleaned up the mild dirt and dust (there really wasn't much) with some turpentine and gave her a coat of linseed oil as some parts looked a little dry. It's pretty obvious that this plane has sat indoors on a shelf for a long time. This does bother me some because this sometimes means that the iron was heat treated improperly and won't hold an edge. We'll see about that in a little bit after the oil dries. I'll sharpen it up using my normal hollow grind to about 25 degrees and hone on oil stones method and see what she can do. Even if the iron is heat treated improperly, I think I would send it out to be redone because this plane is so nice that I think it will easily become my go to smoother for normal use. Not a bad find at all.

I was reading through my copies of Moxon and Nicholson over the weekend and I got to thinking (always dangerous) about planes. I'm not sure why as I'm not really infatuated with planes like a lot of folks get when it comes to hand tools. I don't have dozens of them and I have no problem passing up a $5 user if I don't have a need for it. I also don't have any multiples. Call me crazy but I pretty much limit my tool kit to tools I actually use. Currently in my arsenal of bench planes I have an 8" smoother, a 17" fore plane, a 22" try plane a 30" jointer and a Stanley #5 jack plane that I use mostly for carpentry tasks.

 What I really got to thinking about though was plane setup. The more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that thin shavings are over rated. Now this is not a new concept for me as I have never been a big advocate of thin shavings and I always chuckle quietly to myself when I read or hear mention of measuring plane shaving thickness with a dial caliper. I mean, does it really matter if your jack plane can take a 0.001" thick shaving? Is it actually 0.001" anyway? Wood is a fibrous cellular material and in a shaving that thin likely compresses under the pressure of caliper jaws so are you actually taking an acurate measurement anyway?

But the rediculous practice of measuring plane shaving thickness to thousandths of an inch isn't really what this post is all about. What I really want to discuss is the application of shaving thickness. As I thought about my planes this weekend, I realized that most people spend way too much time futzing with planes trying to get every one they own to take a whisper thin shaving. I don't know why it wasn't so obvious to me before but for some reason, it made sense to me this weekend why planes historically were not made with the super tight mouths that seem to be expected today. Asside from the fact that highly figured fast growing timber wasn't as commonly used as it is today, cabinetmakers of yore simply didn't want planes with tight mouths because they were of limited use.

As a hand tool user, my most used bench planes are my fore plane and try plane, followed by the jointer. My fore and try planes are used on every single surface of every single board of every single thing I build. My jointer is used anywhere I need a long straight edge or a matched and glued joint (as in wide panels). By contrast, my smoother is used only as a final treatment on only the most important money surfaces, and even then, only for a couple of passes to make a show surface shine before applying a translucent finish. On a painted piece, I may not use the smoother at all.

The fore plane and try plane are used for probably 80% of the planing that is done in my shop. These planes are set up to bring rough stock to flat in fairly quick order so I want them to be able to hog off material or at least take a relatively thick shaving. I don't want to spend all day planing these surfaces. For this reason, a thight mouth and a fine shaving is not necessary and actually isn't even desired.

By contrast, in a mixed shop, one which employs power and hand skills, the most used planes are likely the try or jointer and smoother. In this case one may want a thinner shaving as they are only putting the final finish on the surfaces of stock that was prepared using a powered jointer and planer.

So for those of you who have stuck with my rant for this long, I guess my advice is this. Before purchasing and tuning your first (or next) plane, ask yourself a couple of questions. First, what is your intended use of the plane? When you have answered this question, then ask yourself if this task requires a tissue paper thin shaving. Really think about it too, don't just nonchalantly say yes and move on. When you really think about it you may be surprised at the answer. Then move on and get some work done and forget about those cottony thin shavings. They may be impressive to some, but what is more impressive is the actual work you can get done with a tool properly set for the task at hand.

Thin shavings really are over rated ;)!

Based on period invntories available for 18th and 19th century cabinet shops, one can get a good idea of the common tools that may have been found in a cabinet shop of the time. Further reading of period texts like Joseph Moxon's Mechanik Exercises or Peter Nicholson's Mechanic's Companion gives us some clues as to how period cabinetmakers worked with their tools. One thing that is apparent from both the period inventories and texts is that these shops typically had a good number of tools for specialized tasks.

This brings me to the subject line of this post. In the modern day, it seems we are constantly looking for bigger and better. We want one stop shopping, universal remotes and hybrid SUVs (I still don't understand this one). In our shops, many of us are looking for more versatile tools, hoping to avoid the purchase of multiple specialized tools that can perform fewer tasks. I too once subscribed to this camp of thinking. However, as my skills continue to develop, I'm finding that more versatile usually does not mean better. Even worse, it usually means more effort and time to complete a task.

Versatility can be a good thing is some cases, but there are also drawbacks. When something becomes more versatile and less specialized, it usually means that you give something up that made the specialized version...well special, and usually better. I do like being able to go to the local big box home improvement store to get all of my plumbing, lumber, electrical and landscape supplies for the weekend's projects in one trip. However, have you ever needed help in one of these stores? If you need to talk to someone who actually knows something about plumbing, electrical or roofing, you're SOL. When I need to talk to someone knowledgable, I still go to the specialty store.

The same can be said for our tools. One of the most common questions that comes up for new woodworkers is what plane to buy first. Without hesitation a slew of recommendations will be made for a tool with the most versatility. There is a problem with this approach, however. In my experience (yes I have used them), while these planes can be made to perform a lot of different tasks, they typically don't do any one thing particularly well. They are too short to be a good jointer or try plane, and they are unnecessarily long and heavy for smoothing work (though they do smooth just as well as a good smoother if set up properly).

Can one of these tools perform all of these tasks, sure, but it requires a lot of additional effort and time, as well as constant changes to the tool's setup. If you do most of your work with machines and want a plane just for general smoothing and trimming, a smooth plane will serve you better. If you want to hand flatten panels or joint edges, a jointer or try plane will server you much better. Our ancestors knew this and therefore had tools set up for specific tasks that they could just pick up and use. This was an absolute necessity for them to be able to get a piece done quickly and done well.

I liken it to a modern shop with job specific machines. You could joint your boards with your planer with some ingenuity and a few jigs, but would you want to? Is the additional time required worth it? Probably not. You could size a board to width with your jointer or planer, but would you want to? A table or band saw makes this super fast and effecient. The way I see it, your hand tools should follow suit. Anyone who has tried to face a board with only a jack plane should be able to attest. Sometimes, there's just no substitute to having the right tool for the job.

I needed a 20" wide board for the built-in project I'm working on, but like most people, I don't have access to 20" wide boards. At least not in my price range. So the solution to this problem is to edge glue two or more narrower boards together to make a single wide panel. I prefer to do this with as few boards as possible so I choose the widest boards I can that will result in the panel width I need.

Before gluing two boards together, it is vital to know which direction the face grain is running. If you get the two boards glued together with the face grain running in opposite directions, planing the final surfaces true after the glue has dried will be difficult due to opposing grain at the glue joint.

Notice here that I've marked the grain direction of the two show faces as well as the two joining edges. The direction of the edge grain is also important to know as it is helpful to have the grain on both edges running in the same direction when match planing the edges. However, this is not always possible with every pair of boards and becomes more difficult when edge gluing more than two boards. It is not as import as having the face grain running in the same direction and also flowing together well. The edges will be hidden in the joint so a little tearout will not be seen. If you cannot orient the boards with the face grain and edge grain running in the same direction, choose to run the face grain in the same direction if the appearance of the final panel will allow it. The appearance of the final panel should be the main priority. You want the grain from the two boards to flow together on the show faces so that the edge joint almost disappears after glue-up. If your final panel will be painted like mine, this is less importand and you can orient the boards with the face grain running in the same direction regardless of final panel appearance. On my boards, I was lucky to be able to get the face grain and the edge grain of the two boards running in the same direction.

The first step in creating a seamless edge joint is to plane the show face of each board flat and true. This will be the reference face so it must be fairly flat. Slight cupping is ok as long as it can be clamped out when the two boards are placed face to face, however, for this process, flatter is better. It is only necessary to plane one face at this point, the show face. The bottom faces of these two boards are still in the rough.

After the faces are planed flat and true, orient the two boards how they will be in the final panel. Next, fold the two boards together like a book with the show faces touching each other. In this picture, the edge facing away is the edge that will be joined together. Notice the rough area on the near edge of the upper board. This will be cut away after the panel is assembled so I'm not concerned with it now. This is a good place to use damaged boards like this.

With the two boards face to face, align the edges to be joined as best as possible to minimize the amount of planing. Use a pair of handscrews to hold the boards in position and place the pair in your vise or clamp to the front of the bench. Notice here how the edge grain of both boards is running in the same direction. I got lucky here but if I couldn't get them running in the same direction I would take a lighter cut with my try plane to minimize tearout in the edge that was being planed against the grain.

I start with the try plane to clean up the rough sawn edges and plane both edges at the same time. This plane will also begin to straighten the edges. The iron is cambered slightly as this plane is also used to true board faces. I don't like to glue panels up right from the try plane due to the cambered iron. I could just use my staight ironed jointer, however, it is set for a very light cut and therefore would take a lot longer to clean up the rough sawn edges. Starting with the try plane, I can take a thicker shaving to clean up the edges and then refine the edges for gluing with the jointer.

After cleaning up the rough sawn edges with the try plane, I refine and straighten the edges with the jointer. This iron has a straight edge for a tight glue joint. Again, plane both edges at the same time. A good practice when match planing edges like this is to begin planing only the center few inches of the boards. When the plane no longer takes a shaving, lengthen the stroke slightly. When the plane again stops cutting, lengthen the stroke again. This creates a slightly concave edge. Finally take full length strokes. At first, the plane will only cut at the start and end of the stroke (the high spots along the edge). Gradually, the shavings will begin to lengthen until you are taking one long full length shaving from end to end. When you get to this point, stop. You are done. The edges of the two boards will be straight.

A common misconception when creating an edge joint is that the edges of both boards need to be square. When jointing by machine this is true as the reference is the machine's fence. However, when edge jointing with hand planes using the match planing technique, the edges do not need to be square. The reason for this is that any angle created by the plane will be cancelled out when the two boards are opened back up.

The picture demonstrates this with a very exagerated angle. The angles of the two board edges are clearly not 90 degrees, however, the resulting angle between the two boards when the "book" is opened up into a panel is 180 degrees, or a flat panel. This is because the angles created during match planing are complimentary. This method works every time as long as the thickness of the two boards together is not wider than your jointer plane's iron.

Here's the final result. These boards are not glued up yet. The top board is just sitting on top of the bottom board. The joint is tight, there is no light showing between the two boards. The resulting panel is flat and the show face will require very little cleanup. All that will be left will be to plane the rough sawn back side of the panel after the glue dries and cut the panel to final dimensions.

Recently, one of the first planes I ever bought, a very nice Stanley #65 low angle block plane, had to be retired. The adjustment screw threads in the casting stripped, leaving the adjustment mechanism unable to function. For awhile, I adjusted it like I do wooden bench planes, however, this was a good opportunity for a proper replacement.

When I saw this plane online, I took a chance on it without actually seeing it in person. From the pictures I saw online, it appeared to have a lower bed angle than a typical bench plane. In addition, there is no tote, and no mortise where a tote would go. I was guessing, but I thought it was a strike block. Well, when the plane arrived earlier this week, I was thrilled that my guess was correct. What I had bought was the precursor to the modern block plane.

In the 18th century, this type of plane was referred to as a strike block. Later in the early 19th century it was referred to as a straight block, presumably, because the plane had no tote like other bench planes of the period. Later in the 19th century, these planes became known as miter planes, as their primary function was to trim the end grain of miter joints. Today, metal versions of these planes are much more common than this early 19th century wooden version. Stanley later made a version they numbered #9 and called a coachmaker's block plane.

My strike block is pictured here with my stripped out #65 and a #5 jack plane to give you an idea of it's relative size. My version is about 10" long, though 18th century versions were usually closer to 12". Unlike a modern block plane, this plane is bedded with the iron bevel down like a typical bench plane. This identifies it as likely being an American made plane (which it is). English versions were typically bedded with the iron bevel up but at a lower bed angle like today's low angle block planes.

The effective cutting angle on both types of planes is the same, however. A typical low angle, bevel up block plane is bedded at around 12 degrees. With the addition of a 25 degree bevel on the plane iron, the effective cutting angle is around 37 degrees. My plane, typical of American made planes, is bedded bevel down at an angle of 35 degrees.

Today I cleaned it up, honed the iron and tried it out on some pine end grain. The finish left behind was super smooth and polished. The plane cut just as well as a bevel up low angle block plane. I am extremely happy with this replacement. Anyone want a low angle #65 with a stripped casting?

Few planes cause as much confusion for today's woodworkers as the try plane. Depending upon who you talk to, what part of the world they are from or what text you are reading, this plane may be called the try plane, truing plane, long plane or jointer plane. In addition, some folks will recommend these planes be honed with a slight camber while others will insist on a straight edge. So why all the confusion? In my opinion, the confusion began from the naming conventions used by the manufacturers of the metal bench planes when they first appeared on the market.

I'm going to pick on Stanley for a minute only because they are the most common. Stanley identified their line of bench planes by number, #1 through #8. They also named these planes so that users at the time would be familiar with their intended use. The problem is, that Stanley based their naming of the planes only on a particular plane's length. Over time, the true meaning of what made a fore plane a fore plane and what made a try plane a try plane got lost. This is a common example of what can happen when people in a marketing position with little real  knowledge of a subject are allowed to make decisions related to that subject.

I discussed Stanley's #5 and #6, and their shortcomings, in my blog on the fore plane. This time I'm going to pick on the #7 and #8. Stanley called their #7 (22") a try plane and their #8 (24") a jointer plane. They based these names on the relative length of the plane. In all fairness, the #7 does make a very good try plane and the #8 does make a good jointer, when they are set up correctly. This is where the confusion begins.

Peter Nicholson, in his 1845 text The Mechanic's Companion states that the purpose of the try plane is to "reduce the ridges made by the jack plane, and to straighten the stuff: for this purpose it is both longer and broader, the edge of the iron is less convex, and set with less projection...." On the other hand, the jointer "is principally for planing straight edges, and the edges of boards, so as to make them join together; this operation is called shooting, and the edge itself is said to be shot."

This makes things a little more clear in the distinction between the try plane and jointer. Nicholson does give lengths for these planes as well, but as with most measurements of the period, these are generalizations and not rule. A try plane and jointer plane could potentially be the same length. The true difference in these planes is in their purpose and therefore their setup.

As the try plane is for trying (or truing) surfaces after the jack (or fore) plane, it's iron is cambered, though less than the fore plane, so that it does not leave plane tracks on the surface, which is wider than the plane. The jointer on the other hand, while resembling the try plane in appearance and length, is actually a joinery plane, not a surfacing plane. It's purpose it to straighten board edges and especially to "make them join together" in an edge joint, hence the phrase "jointing the edge." With this in mind it makes more sense for a jointer to have a straight iron like other joinery or fitting planes (e.g. rabbet planes), not a cambered iron like the surfacing planes (fore/jack, try and smooth), because the iron of the jointer is wider than the surface being planed.

Now don't confuse jointing the edge with trying the edge. If an edge needs to be squared to a true 90 degrees (for example, the front of a case which will have a face frame applied), a trying plane actually makes this process easier. The plane can be shifted side to side to take a tapered shaving, with the thicker part of the shaving being taken from the higher edge. However, when making a joint between two boards, one wants a flat edge for gluing. This is the purpose of the jointer plane.

Jointed edges need not be a perfect 90 degrees if the two boards are match planed. When match planing, the money (show) faces of the two boards to be joined are placed together and the mating edges are planed at the same time. When planed together, the boards can be opened like a book and the angles of the edges will be complimentary to each other, resulting in a flat panel, no perfect 90 degree edges necessary. If you don't believe me, draw it out for yourself and see how it works (I may make match planing a future blog). A cambered iron cannot make this joint as well as a straight iron.

Hopefully, this clears up some of the confusion surrounding the try plane. You can see now that a #7 and #8 both can actually make very nice try planes or jointers. It all comes down to how you set up the iron.