Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Andrew F in Australia

>Mark, I'll just jump in here and say that your blockage problem is probably due to sharpening. My HNT Gordon plane blocks as soon as the blade blunts.

If you're interested and can live without the blade for a couple of days, you can post it to me, I'll sharpen the thing for you & send it back

Send me an email if you're interested, remove the NOSPAM part of the address

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I may need to get out more, but I sometimes have to spend long hours babysitting remotely running software processes; so I'm online, not much to do ...

I'll be happy to measure the HNT smoother's mouth; but I can confirm your blocking experience without measuring, drives me nuts, if only the dang thing didn't work so well otherwise. Because of this, I've been using it as a scraper plane ever since I got a couple of good Japanese smoothers. However, there may be something that can be done for it, maybe an email question for Terry is in order. Do you want to do it? If not, I will. I've found him very responsive.

Pam

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>But your salient points were covered in the thread, we all said pretty much the same thing.

Pam

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>Well gee Pam, I guess I'm completely useless and cannot contribute anything at all.

Thanks for making this clear to me now Pam.

Pam, Chris,

Andrew F in Australia

>Whilst I'm enjoying(?) watching this interchange live here, please calm down - I'm sure you'll look at things differently when it's not 4am.

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>Mark

To answer some of your questions, I might share a little of my experience working with Aussie timbers. There is no doubt that these present a stern test of the best planes and technique (of which I lack in both departments). Why else do the HNT Gordon planes all have blades bedded at 60 degrees? A year ago to the day I spent a memorable few weeks building a Karri sideboard with my father (89 years old). This is timber to test the patience of a saint! No matter what I used I had constant tearout. I tried HNT Gordon, to no great success, and eventually used this plane as a scraper plane along with my #112 and numerous card scrapers (and toasted thumbs).

At other times I have been able to obtain a glassy surface on Jarrah with a Stabley #604 (and LN blade/Chipbreaker) 90% into the surface and then tearout in a small section and need to resort to the HNT Gordon, which did a fabulous job. Aussie hardwoods are very unpredictable.

I love the finish from a plane - silky and smooth. Next comes a scraper - but it has a matt finish and begins to obscure the surface. Bringing up the rear is a sanded surface, although it is possible to minimise the scratched result if you use a high enough grit (I have gone as high as 1200, depending on the timber/grain). But the resultant dust and noise mean that I will only turn to my power sanders as a last resort (and I have a beauty in a Festo ROS).

Please note that I am just a weekend warrior like yourself, so these are simply my observations. I hope that I am not sounding like a preacher. One of the questions I would like others to comment on is whether some finishes are better/less suited to the degree of surface smoothness. My own exposure is largely to oils and wax (together and separately), and more recently to shellac. So far the clearer the surface treatment (i.e. planed surface first) the clearer the final product (i.e. visible grain).

On another note, you asked Pam for a feeler gauge measure of her HNT Gordon smoother. I can give you mine, as well as a few other for comparison (I got curious when you requested this info):

1. HNT Gordon smoother: 0.30mm

2. Mujingfang smoother: 0.30mm

3. Stanley Bedrock #604: 0.25mm

4. Stanley Infill/LN blade (homemade): 0.10mm

On Aussie hardwoods, the HNT Gordon (60 degree) is excellent. My Stanley infill (55 degree) is set up as a finish planer and produces a finer result. The Mujingfang (40 degrees) and Stanley #604, both superb on softwoods or predictable, straight grained timber, will tearout and leave a matt finish on hardwoods.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

paul womack

>* scraping leaves an inferior surface to planing, but is far less prone to the dreaded tear out opn some timbers. This is often a "less of 2 evils deal"

* both scraping and planing can tremendously reduce (sometimes to zero) the need for sandpapering. This is actually faster than a power sander ;-)

BugBear

golly, it seems everyone who promises themselves..

John Truxell-Svenson (jvs)

>...not to post in this thread ends up doing it anyway.

Mark, my experience with Gordon planes matches Andrew's, and I haven't had any problems with clogging since buying extra irons to have on hand so I am not tempted to keep working once the edge is starting to go and putting a *very* slight crown (three or four edge-pressure passes at the second-to-highest grit). This crowns them by a tiny amount--shavings are still full-width and even just shy of the edge. If the adjustment isn't completely even, you can still easily run into problems at one side or the other, but this is also easy to diagnose and correct with a few taps.

Nice offer--bummers that postage to Australia would be prohibitive from here; I'm up to five irons now between two planes and steel types... :)




/jvs

Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Andrew F in Australia

>Pete,

As you can see, tools in the hands of the user make a big difference to achieved finish.

I think you've probably gotten enough information on scraping vs planing here.

To answer your sandpaper question, stop about 240 grit on softwood and 400 grit on hardwoods.

Experience will give you the best results here - stop sanding when the surface appears polished.

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>Andrew,

Thanks for the offer but I know that the blade is plenty sharp. However, I can mail you a sample of the wood. It is plenty hard :-)

I have resigned myself to sanding to high grit levels and I am happy to leave it there. It's just that I know that Pam also has a HNT Gordon smoother and I was looking for a reference point. I will measure mine tomorrow and report back. If nothing else, we can all compare notes.

Regards,

Mark

Good question

Christopher Schwarz

>I actually had a long discussion about this with Don McConnell, our contributing editor who is a long-time student of the trades. He says that sandpaper (glasspaper, sharkskin) does appear in the literature and catalogs during the late 18th century. How widespread its usage was is not known.

It has become a point for investigating.

And by the way, Don (a fine craftsman himself) sees sandpaper as a small part of the surface prep process.

Chris

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>Pam,

Baby sitting long running jobs: Been there, done that and I have the T-shirt to prove it :-) I empathise and I hope for your sake that you are already asleep as I write.

Anyway, I will get back to you tomorrow on my measurements as well. Like you, I find it all too easy to clog the throat on my smoother. When I have some comparison measurements I can compare mine and I can mail Terry if I think I need to. However, I think I am consoled that I am not the only one, in this case anyways :-)

Regards,

Mark

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Christopher Schwarz

>Christopher,

I'm glad you did what you did. I encourage others to give it a try for themselves � using the finish that they are most comfortable with and most likely to use.

One of my favorite woodworking quotes is from Welsh stick chairmaker John Brown and it applies here: �By all means read what the experts have to say. Just don�t let it get in the way of your woodworking.�

You are correct that wood (and people's tastes) are heterogenous. But I can tell you that for the variety of woods I use (maple, cherry, walnut, SYP, birch, ash, poplar, mahogany, white oak and QS sycamore), and the finishes I use (water-based dyes, pigment stains, toners, glazes, NGR stains, water-base lacquer, oil-based-lacquer, shellac) I prefer my troika: plane, scrape and sand if you have to.

This process gives me the best look I can achieve, and so really nothing else anyone can say is going to change my mind. But I guess that's why I vowed not to post in this thread.

Chris

Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Roy Hennagir/Vista,CA

>Gosh Kids,

I have a completely strange thought, I could be wrong but I attempt to do what works. I trust my eye. I takes scraps from the actual wood and the boards from that project and finish them in various ways. I feel it's important to get the look you desire. Who cares how you get there? I do what works for that board from that tree. It may be cherry but where did it come from? A grove in Iowa or next to a swamp in Florida. One gets frozen each year and one does not. It may be cherry but there is a difference in how each tree handles. Trees are as unique as people, they may be of the same race but they are all unique and have to be handled in there own unique way. Just a thought......

Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Scott Post

>Well Christopher, I guess I was just fighting dogma with a bit of contrary dogma of my own. I just get so tired of the almost religious grip some people (not you) have on the notion that sandpaper is evil and that it's a sign of poor plane/scraper skills. Sometimes that's the case, but not always. I don't use sandpaper as a fallback for poor sharpening or tuning ability. If I'm getting tearout in what should be tearout free wood I don't reach for the ROS - I take it as a personal attack by the wood on my skills and I go back to the stones for rearmament. I usually, but not always, win. I'm not a big fan of the ROS anyway since it leaves dips that show up under the finish (great for leveling cross-grain joints after getting close with a block plane though). Heck, I've got a drum sander that I often use to quickly level wide glued up planks but I still hit them with the planes afterwards to get them perfectly flat (something my drum sander won't do).

So if I've riled a few people up and got a few others to think that, just maybe, planes aren't the be-all end-all, but are just one more tool in the box to be used appropriately then I'm content to play the punching bag and have my skills questioned. My personal preference is to not sand small or narrow surfaces like door stiles/rails or small boxes because I won't see the uneven sheen after finishing so why waste the time? Larger surfaces get sanded. Everybody, of course, is free to do what makes them happy - whether it's for aesthetic reasons or part of their religious beliefs.

Oh it's fine Andrew...

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>... just having some fun by adding some meaningless melodrama to an otherwise standard thread on everyone's favorite pastime, woodworking.

:)

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>Christopher,

nice quote...

;)

It makes a similar point to what I was trying to say earlier. What works for some people may not work all the time for others.

I will most likely end up trying the test again in the future. I still wonder why I got what I got. I fully expected to see a difference between the pieces but not with the results I received for each method. I was very biased towards the planing method right from the start, but I was disappointed with how things turned out.

I suspect that the wood might have played a part in my particular test especially given how the walnut came out. The finish could have certainly been the reason as well. It probably is a combination of the two. But I have far far too little data collected in a non-scientific manner to make any sort of a statement besides, "This is what happened for me in this particular instance."

However, there is a hidden item to contemplate in all of this: the methods we use are very personalized and somewhat subjective in their description. When someone says, "I lightly planed the surface until it looked nice," that is hard to quantify and repeat. Even when the experts state some important woodworking technique in more meaningful ways, it's still not easy to translate that into something that is meaningful to an individual. I have tried some methods with great success and have tried others with little, or any positive results. Anyone can get close to repeating a method or set of steps, but ultimately, we all end up doing what works best for us.

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>Oh the misery of working late late late on a task. Something I wish on no one. Some years ago, I once had to perform an after-midnight custom software upgrade on a number of remote sites in and around Houston, TX (12 to be exact). All the stories about Texas being a big place are very true and Houston is no exception.

I got up to the second-to-last site, the farthest away (about 45 miles off), and Murphy's law kicked in, and the server and some of the clients all froze up. So, I hopped in the rental car, and then charged off. I fixed the problem and had the "good fortune" to get a ticket on the way back to the main office.

Ah, those were the days! Fortunately, my consulting days are over and now all I have to do is sit in the office and work...

;)

Re: Good question

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>Somewhere, I can't recall exactly, I remember reading some info about the history of sandpaper.

Searching around a bit I found a reference to a US patent for sandpaper in 1834.

Here's the link:

Today In Science History

Scroll down to sandpaper.

Somewhat unrelated, here's one about masking tape:

Invention of Masking Tape

Good Point Roy

Todd O. Cronkhite Native of Maine

>

Re: Plane, scraper,etc. a trifle longish

ron in Kokomo

>2 Observations:

the First:

Krenov and Maloof used sand paper or whatever the job required. After I surpass them, I'll look dowm my nose at that behavior.

The second

Just because I didn't do a good job of planing something, doesn't mean that you couldn't.

this says several things, but the most useful thing it says to me is that I need to use whatever technique I have the most skill at when many options present themselves, unless I am willing to take the time to upgrade my skill level on some other technique.

I will tell you this from experience... Brian Boggs will produce a slicker, more "shimmery" chair leg with a spoke shave than you or I will, and it will be better looking under finish than one that you or I sand. I've been there and seen him do it many times.

So what is the "best" technique for me today... may not be in 5 years.

Scott is right in that the internet masks the level of experience and accomplishment of the "expert", so all of this stuff needs to be run thru your own testing system

Happy New Year to my old buddies

Ron

What`s best is merely a time sensitive opinion

Bob Hackett

>What counts is what works best for whoever is doing the work at the time.

Different people have different standards and methods of work.Sometimes we must meet a standard that the client sets which may not meet our own.If we keep demanding one set "best" way of doing something we only set ourselves up for failure.Failure to be open to new techniques, tools,processes,and finishes.Failure to open our eyes to the possibilities of applying different texture to our work and expand the voice of our work.Failure to discover all we can about the amazing medium in which we have chosen to work.Failure to acknowledge that each board,even from the same tree,is a new and exciting challenge.Failure to use our tools and minds to thier best advantage,realizing all they`re capable of.Lastly,failure to resist giving in to that most bitter of all demons,ego,one of the biggest stumbling blocks on the road to growth and progress.

I also said to myself I wouldn`t launch off into this thread,so much for keepin my ego in check.

Mainely,Bob

Re: Consulting OT

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Yes, consulting. This maintenance contract is something I've had to do to make a few bucks during the last year and actually marks the end of a very long software development career. A friend/associate/doctor is trying to keep my now little company alive so I can work on a development job in the near future, but I doubt this will happen.

Pam

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>It wasn't what you said about the topic, it was the title of the thread and the contention that everyone else had missed it. I suggest we just forget it.

Pam

Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Frank Mutchler, in Colorado Springs, CO

>Your right on the money Scott. When taken to its logical conclusion, the rigid NeanderLogic will require the felling of trees with a naturally occuring sharp rock fixed to a stick with vines...absolutely not a leather thong :>)!!

It's great that everyone is free to choose their weapon 'du jour' based upon their own requirements/priorities.

Everyone has a toolbox of tricks to fix the inevitable mistakes. 'lectron burners are still hand tools and in many cases require a high degree of skill to get them to perform. My hat's off to anyone that produces a product that satisfies the end user.

Make me wonder about the degree of criticism leveled at the users of the Woods planing machine (c. 1830) pg. 22 "The Handplane Book" G. Hack ???