Handplane Essentials, Revised & Expanded by Christopher Schwarz

Author:Christopher Schwarz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc.

HERE IS A SECTION OF torn grain left by a 45° angle plane in some curly maple.

HERE IS THAT SAME SECTION of curly maple after planing it with a tool pitched at 62°.

Removing Plane Tracks

Here’s how to diagnose the problem and the steps to fix it.

Chris Sundstrom writes: I recently finished smoothing a tabletop with my smoothing plane and if the light hits the top right, I can see lots of lines. I tried to camber the blade before smoothing the top, but I still have the plane marks. Any suggestions on getting the top mark-free?

Answer: This is hard to teach remotely. But it’s very easy to show in person. Here are the questions you have to ask yourself and the things you must check to get good results.

• Is your blade indeed cambered? By how much? And is the camber in the dead center of the cutting edge? Check the camber by holding the cutter up to a strong backlight and balancing something perfectly straight on the edge (I use the edge of a piece of wood that has been freshly planed). To determine if your camber is in the center of your plane’s mouth, rub a small shim of wood over the mouth. Where the block grabs is where the camber is.

• How thick a shaving are you taking? If you are taking a heavy shaving, that can cause plane tracks. If, for example, your camber is about .002" at the corners and you are taking a .004"-thick shaving, then the corners of the iron will dig in.

• Are the mouth and sole of the tool free of metallic burrs that could be marring your wood? This is a woefully overlooked problem. Small burrs on the tool (usually on the edges of the sole or on the tool’s mouth) create scars in the work that look like plane tracks. And it doesn’t take a big burr to make a big problem. If all the other things above check out, feel the edge of sole and behind the mouth. If you can feel any burr you can remove it one of several ways. I like to use a fine file, followed by sandpaper. Others like to use a sheet of #400-grit wet/dry sandpaper stuck to a dead-flat surface.

When your tool is working right and producing a perfect surface, here are the setup characteristics.

• The iron should have a camber that is about .002" to .004" at each corner (maybe more, depending on the pitch of your plane – bevel-up planes require more camber than bevel-down tools).

• You should have the iron adjusted laterally in the mouth of the tool so the camber is in the middle. Use a small scrap of wood to confirm where the iron is cutting. Run the scrap of wood over the mouth. It should not cut at the corners and cut only in the middle of the mouth – where the camber is.

• You should be making a shaving that is .001" to .0015" thick at the center and tapering to nothing at the edges.

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