LN Handplane - bench vs. block

Did ya see this thread.... *LINK*

Brent Langdon, Sterling VA

>Here is a thread that generated quite a number of comments on this topic.

- Brent


Let's ditch Bailey and all get low angle planes

Lyn, typo?

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>You say, "The study includes a lot of other planes including a cast iron bevel up plane (of different effective cutting angles established via back bevels)..."

How do you get different cutting angles on a bevel up plane with a back bevel? Doesn't that just change your clearance angle? Did you mean bevel DOWN?

I'm curious Greg

Todd O. Cronkhite Native of Maine

>(And hey, all you snobbish, elitist, pinko bench bigots can flame my backside! *grin*)

What was the driving force behind you making the above sentence? Have I missed something and just don't see the bad attempt at a bit of humor?

Other than that sentence I think your first post was excellent.

Todd O.

Re: what's a pinko?

Jeff Bishop

>Charlie Daniels--He's a friend of them long haired hippie-type pinko fags, I betcha he's even got a Commie flag tacked up on the wall of his garage---From Uneasy Rider

Hope this clears things up.

Just one of the useful facts to be derived from listening to Southern Rock during your formative years.

Jeff Bishop-Leeds,AL

Re: Lyn, typo? Yes, thanks for catching it

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>

Writing and future investigations

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Well, here is the truth of the matter. Once I got my professional schedule open enough to start writing, I had two major projects on the agenda. One is the plane study, the other is a comprehensive review of hollowing tools for woodturning. Actually the latter is a major expansion of an article I wrote almost three years ago, and I wanted to have it to More Woodturning in time for the third year anniversary of me writing for it.

I had intended to finish the plane write up first, but got caught up in the other article and am just about finished with it (it is now 26 pages out of what will likely be an eventual 30).

I have done almost all the analysis and have written some on the plane study already, and plan to devote major time to it within the next two weeks. Frankly, once I get seriously going on one of these things, it usually doesn't take that long. The interesting thing is that I feel like a lot of what I found out over the last two years has separately surfaced in the comments and findings of others (the use of a bevel up plane as a very high angle smoother is a good example). So I don't know that this new study will seem as interesting as it might have been had I been able to get some of my findings into print last year. Still, the methodology has been rigorous and I hope people will feel they can put some faith in the objectivity and validity of the findings.

It will go on Roger's Traditional Tools site. I will forever owe Roger a debt of gratitude for his determination to make sure a place would exist where my plane studies and review could be found. Thus his site will always be the primary home for my formal writings on planes, just as More Woodturning is the home for my writings on turning tools. As most know, though, WC is my primary home for open discussion.

As for things in the works,the current study is not going deeply into blade steels, as it has focused on variation in effective cutting angles over a variety of plane designs. I have a lot of blades on hand, including some exotic ones of A-11 high vanadium steel from Jerry Glaser. So one of the next things, but a ways off, will be on plane blades. I also want to further explore any possible differences in performance between achieving the same effective cutting angle with a back bevel or a dedicated frog that will provide the same angle. Maybe I can get L-N or LV to make up some higher angle frogs for me! :-)

I know back bevels work, but I haven't yet had the time to clearly establish if there are any subtle differences (or not) between back beveled and dedicated bedding angle frogs. [So, should you just get an extra L-N blade and back bevel it, or is it better to spend an additional 40 dollars over the cost of a second blade and get their high angle frog?]

Finally, I want to seriously look at sharpness and cutting performance in a smoothing plane working with difficult to plane woods. Russell Seaton got me started on this when he asked for my opinion on whether using .3 micron papers offered any advantage over .5 micron papers. Similarly, Don has asked whether the 10000 Ice Bear? waterstones are apt to be as good as the 15000 Shapton. And then there are the very fine diamond particle abrasives. I have long been familiar with Brent's work in this area, but I'd like to approach things from a different direction using much the same methodology that has gone into the planing study, that is, a practical empirical approach based on the ability to discern actual differences in the surface of difficult to plane woods.

So, those are some of the current thoughts, ones I intend to devote more time to as soon as the plane writeup is complete.

Re: Why you use lateral

Barry Va Beach

>Greg, if you use a standard bench plane, some block planes and LV planes, there is a lateral adjustment lever that allows you to adjust the blade so that one side projects forward from the other. The main benefit is that if you grind your iron at a slight angle (say 95 degrees to one side) you can then use the lateral adjuster to compensate so that the blade projects evenly. While I don't think you would intentionally grind it at such an angle, I have done it from time to time and the lateral adjustment lever lets you plane normally. Without it, and the LN 62 I have has virtually no lateral adjustment compared to most other planes, you would need to regrind the iron to get it square or otherwise your shavings would be thicker on one side then the other. To answer your first question, while a block plane is great for many tasks, if I have a choice between two planes I often use the one with greater mass.

Re: I'm curious Greg

Todd Hughes

>hey Todd....I thought the remark..." all you snobish, elitist....bigots" coming from a fellow that went on about all the new expensive LN planes he owns and wants was kind of funny my self.......You can call a low angle 62 plane a "Block" plane but that doesn't make it one.I think if these low angle bench planes were so good they would have been more popular with the old wood workers and today instead of a rare Stanley 164 going for $2,000 - $4,000 you could pick them up at the flea market for $10 and a regular no. 4 would set you back a couple thousand, eh?.....Todd H.

A language issue

Justin W in Ann Arbor, MI

>Hi Jeff -

Many pejorative terms have lost their sting. Back in the McCarthy era, being branded a communist could lead to career-ending ostracism. Now, nobody much cares if you're a communist. Being called a "pinko" or "commie" is no longer particularly offensive, either. That seems to happen a lot with political epithets. Some derrogatory terms of national origin, like "Mick" for an Irish person or "Kraut" for a German, have lost a lot of their potency too. Others have not.

Some disrespectful epithets still pack a punch. These tend to be the ones that relate to race, religion, gender, sexuality, and class.

One of the things that I like so much about Wood Central is how respectful people usually are of others' differences.

I know you were just quoting a song to make a point. Nonetheless, the word "fag" used to describe a man is, for example, as offensive and disrespectful as using the word for a female dog to describe a woman - regardless of one's sexual orientation or gender.

Respectfully,

Justin W.

Re: Adoption of a device doesn't

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>necessarily indicate the technical superiority of a device.

More Windows machines are sold than MacIntosh, but it's superiority in function and ease of use is at a minimum highly debateable.

More Hondas are sold than Porches, but again, numbers in use isn't much of an indicator of their relative performance.

More #4s were put to use than #164s or even Norris Infills, but that again is not much of a measure of their capabilities.

I prefer objective comparisons of performance and ease of use on real world tasks (such as quality of surface left after smoothing). In such comparisons, I have found a bevel up plane with a high angle blade to perform much beyond my expectations, and to be quite easy to adjust and use. There are other worthy alternatives, but a bevel up plane can aquit itself very well. Numbers to follow.

Re: I'm curious Greg

Greg Sloop

>Oh, I expected to get a bunch of flack from those who had set their minds that bevel down bench planes was the way to go, and was just giving them a bit of stick. *grin* (You know, the "it was good enough for my gramps and my daddy, it's good enough for me" stuff)

I may very well be wrong, but I just wanted to ask a bit about it.

Sorry if I set you (and anyone else) off - just my natural harassment mode. (I thought the over-the-top nature of the "insult" would make it clear I was jesting...)

Cheers,

Greg

Re: A language issue

Jeff Bishop

>Justin,

No offense meant to anyone at all, I didn't even think about the word "fag" that you noticed, I was just focusing on the "pinko" and "Commie", and just tossing a little levity into the question on pinko.

Jeff Bishop-Leeds, AL

Why?

Todd Hughes

>Gee....I thought at first you were agreeing with me and was talking about the widespread adoption of these low angle 164 clone planes today as not being an indication of thier superiority!...I think most people can see why more Hondas are sold then the much more expensive and less dependable Porches but why do you think so many more 4s were sold then the 164 which cost practicaly the same when new.Why did wood workers when this highly specialised original plane was made rejected it to the extent that today it is one of the rarest of all Stanley planes?...Todd

One possible explanation

Bob Hackett

>Could be they were just stubborn and hard headed.This led to an inability to accept that a different approach may have some merit.

Thank God we`re all beyond that now,huh?

Mainely,Bob

Re: LN Handplane - bench vs. block

Patrick M. Gibbons, Houston, TX

>We all know that a higher angle is better on some hard-to-plane woods (those with figure, etc.). It seems to be intuitive, to me at least, that the smaller the angle on an edge, the easier it is to push through and cut. The result of too small an angle is edge failure. These are the perameters that dictate use of bevel up or bevel down. I have never used a low-angle plane with a large angle on the blade for planing. I wonder if it is too fatiguing for all-day use and that is the major reason for bevel-down plane use in the past. I also seem to remember that old Stanley low-angle jacks, as well as block planes, were prone to stress cracks at the mouth. Obviously our forebears were open to innovations, otherwise iron and transitional planes would have flopped. And Todd's point that bevel-down was what the consumer wanted given the choice of both (bevel up and down) at roughly the same price is a good one. We always have and always will vote with our pocket books. This is a very interesting question that has come up.

I have long called that way of thinking...

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>... the Macdonalds assertion, i.e., Macdonalds is the best restaurant in the world because of its popularity.

Not.

Re: Writing and future investigations

Ernie Miller Topeka

>THe answer for me will allways be more planes not more blades with back bevels or extra frogs. More planes That's it.

Re: One possible explanation

joel

>Highly unlikely. both planes were marketed by the same company and for all the talk about 19th century cabinetmakers being a stubborn and a conservatvie lot from the time Stanley began marketing their growth was amazing. And in the UK when stanley began to be imported in quantity in the last years of the 19th century again - they decimated the local markets.

Re: I have long called that way of thinking...

Luke Herzberg

>Ahhhhh, but we can counter that with the Volkswagen assertion. Both the best selling and best made car ever (the Beetle).

Luke, glad for once that his firewall is behind him as he escapes

Pinko: Further Clarification

Hank Knight

>In the McCarthy Era and for many years after, a card-carrying member of the American Communist Party was a "Red." A communist sympathizer, but not a full fledged, card-carrying member of the party, was "pink" - hence "pinko" became the pejorative term to describe a communist sympathizer.

I wasn`t talking about...

Bob Hackett

>PAST tool users or collectors.My post was aimed alittle closer to home.;^)

MB

If this line of thinking is true....

Bob Hackett

>why are Bedrocks so scarce?

MB

Re: If this line of thinking is true....

joel

>Bedrocks cost more than the average stanely and while they do perform better, regular stanleys perform great too. for most people the marginal performance improvement wasn't worth the extra cost. Also chances are someone who could appriciate the difference in performance could also get superb performance out of a regular stanley so there was no point in paying the extra.

Re: LN Handplane - bench vs. block

Greg Sloop

>If I understand you right...

...Wouldn't the bevel up or bevel down be just as hard to push if they use the same angle? If the frog puts the angle at 50deg a bevel up is ground to give a total angle of 50deg I would expect the two to be equally hard to push.

But with a bevel up plane, I can change the blade in say 10-15 seconds. Swapping a frog is lots more work - at least in a relative sense.

So, I can use the lowest angle required by using a "spare" iron to do the rough work, (or toothed) and swap to the high angle quickly and easily for finish surface planing/smoothing.

The one argument I've heard is lateral adjust. I can't see this being a problem if you simply make sure you grind your bevel at exactly 90deg to the side - thus you don't have to use much lateral adjust to fix an out of square iron.

I just wonder if many have gotten used to a frog/bevel down and we've continued to use it not because there's some serious advantage, but simply because it's what we're used to. I don't care - I'm not trying to dog the bevel down crowd. It's just that at least with the LN planes, the bevel up sets are significantly cheaper. They are also more simple to use for things like changing the mouth opening, and lateral adjust on a standard bench can be intimidating.

So, being a newbie, it just seemed like a really good solution with no significant limitations - but I'm not an expert so I wanted to know if I'd missed anything. But I repeat myself.

I'll shut-up now.

Thanks for the reply

Greg

Re: Did ya see this thread....

Greg Sloop

>Thanks...

Reading furiously....

Greg