Jointer Plane Recommendations: 7, 7.5, or 8?

Left hand hold -

Andrew F in Australia

>Me too. A few weeks ago I planed the workbench top flat and ended up with a nice blister on the side of my left hand. And it was not a whole lot of planing really. I reckon the old time plane users developed a callous in that spot after a few weeks.

I spent about two weeks planing stock at one time, average 4-5 hours per day.

I found that the best handhold to keep the plane flat on the board was to put the palm of your hand on the top of the knob and push down, wrapping fingers wherever they're comfortable.

Common sense when you think about it, but this was never something I was trained at tech.

Side benefit is no callous or blister.

Have to run - hope this makes sense.

Andrew

Re: Hey Rob Cosman! DVD's

Rob Cosman

>All my videos will be available on DVD in the next month including my latest "Rough to Smooth by Hand", (pardon the plug).

Rob

woo-hoo; tx!

John Truxell-Svenson (jvs)

>

Makes sense, but...

Russell Seaton

>My natural tendency when holding the plane and flattening large pieces is to let the left hand slide to the side so the side of the hand is resting on the cast iron. And a blister develops. But I will pay more attention to how the left hand holds the plane when flattening in the future and try to keep it on top of the knob.

Re: Rhetorical questions

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Why did Stanley abandon the low knob, which encouraged proper hand placement, for the high knob, which encourages blisters?

Maybe because you needed 8/4 stock to make low knobs, but only 7/4 for high knobs? Maybe Stanley bought stock in J&J?

You can relieve the edge between the cast and machined surfaces, with a file and sandpaper, to ameliorate the problem somewhat. You can even go after some of the roughness left by the sand molds in the cast surfaces.

Observation: If you are a user, you don't really want to pay the premium for an old plane with more than 95% Japanning, because it means it's never been fully tuned, and you cannot tell what other undiscovered, uncorrected problems may be lurking within.

Response to Rhetorical questions

Russell Seaton

>Why did Stanley abandon the low knob, which encouraged proper hand placement, for the high knob, which encourages blisters?

After reading your post I thought about this too. On my Clifton planes the 6 and 7 have the low knob. The 3,4,5 have the tall knob. For aesthetics, I like the high knob. But for your method of keeping the palm directly over the top of the knob, the low, squat, flatter knob would be preferable.

You can relieve the edge between the cast and machined surfaces, with a file and sandpaper, to ameliorate the problem somewhat. You can even go after some of the roughness left by the sand molds in the cast surfaces.

I think on my planes the junction between the top of the sides and the sides, the corner, is what causes the blister. My left hand rubbing on this corner. The top of the sides on the Clifton planes is very smooth. I'm not sure rounding over the corner would help too much or not.