I spent a good portion of the day hand cutting mortises in the face frames for my daughter’s cabinets. I only had a chisel that I purchased at the HD and it was a disaster. Noting came out right.
So to make myself happy and to get something accomplished today I reassembled my hand planes and tried them out by flattening a 5/4 piece of poplar. It was my first time doing this, and despite the fact that I did not sharpen the planes, the results were pretty good.
Here are the Planes
5 were cleaned up this weekend. Take a look at my previous posts to see how they looked before I cleaned them. The #7 came out really nice (in the middle). It is around 85 years old and was in pretty rough shape.
Here is the Board I Flattened
Again, for my first time I don’t think that I did that bad. After reading Christopher Schwarz’s workbench book I now understand the value of a good workbench. The workmate is just way too low and way to light to easily use.
Not Bad?
For my first time using hand planes I am getting some nice shavings, or at least I think that I am.
5 comments so far
rkoorman
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356 posts in 995 days
#1 posted 767 days ago
Maybe you can put some bags filled with sand on the bottom of your workmate, this will make it heavier and better to use for planing.
A “real”workbench is even nicer but money and time does not grow on trees.
Have fun!!
-- http://thewoodworkersattic.blogspot.com/
ratchet
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1191 posts in 1958 days
#2 posted 766 days ago
Good save. It warms my heart to see good “senior” planes go back in service. Nice curls.
I did the same not so long ago: http://lumberjocks.com/ratchet/blog/21662
Dwain
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291 posts in 2030 days
#3 posted 766 days ago
That curl is nice, if it is consistent thickness, you are really doing well. Those planes came out nicely as well. Now take that #3, and adjust it to get a really fine shaving. Then you will see the handplanes used more and more, and the ROS less and less. That is my goal. I am hoping to get good enough on small project to ignore the sander entirely. Do you have a low angle block plane? IF not, you should consider it. You can find one for 30 to 60 dollars. They are the backbone of a lot of shops. Heck, I have three of four…
-- When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there is no end to what you CAN'T do
RGtools
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2839 posts in 825 days
#4 posted 766 days ago
Not bad for a first go. To get a better idea of what they can do flatten a board using either the big boy or a power jointer. Then try sneaking up to a cut using any one of the planes, done right it will tell you what the finest shaving you can get with each plane (and that will tell you a ton about the condition of the sole).
When you get a really fine tool, they can take a shaving so thin it loses it’s “woodieness”. of course it’s nice to have planes that can do both grunt work and finish work.
I have a special hatred for hardware store chisels. Before I start ranting and raving about their many faults, what with wrong with your mortises?
-- Make furniture that lasts as long as the tree - Ryan
Dave
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9195 posts in 1011 days
#5 posted 764 days ago
Remember coarse, medium and fine. Nice big chunks, 5 or 6 mil then a mil or better to finish. let the coarse and medium do the work then tune it up with the fine. Look at a set of winding sticks the longer the better.
-- Superdav "No matter where you go - there you are." http://chiselandforge.com
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