Once more with feeling! (long)

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Bob Rozaieski in Eastern PA

>Sounds like you need a jack plane to me. Check eBay/antique stores/flea markets for a Stanley(made in USA type)/Record/Millers Falls/Sargent/etc. #5 size (about 14") that you should be able to get for $20-$25 in user condition (of course you could spend much more but for a first jack plane I don't think it's necessary; its not that hard to clean & fettle) . Take it home, clean it up, sharpen the iron with a slight camber and have at it. You can adjust it for a rougher cut for surfacing/flattening and a finer cut for smoothing. If it doesn't work well right away after minor adjustments, check the sole for flattness & flatten it if necessaary, check the iron bedding and remember to keep the iron shaving sharp. Then hang on tight because the slope is slippery.

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Paul In NJ

>Bob gave you good advice, you can do a lot with a #5. Don't forget the key to hand planes or hand tools is being able to put a sharp edge on the blades, the best or most expensive plane won't work without a sharp edge. If you are new to sharpening and on a budget I would suggest buying an Eclipse type of jig (~$10) and using scary-sharp. If you haven't checked it out there is good info in the articles section of WC on sharpening and tuning this type of plane. If you can, try to find someone who uses hand planes, they will be happy to give you some tips.

Paul Dzioba

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Ernie Miller Topeka

>I don't think you wil get it all done with one plane #6's have been going real cheap on da-bay more mass and longer = flatter board and then get your self a #3 or 4 also pretty cheap and set it for a tight mouth light cut white oak can be a bear sometimes. pluss pick up an old saw to make a couple scrapers out of for them realy nasty spots. If you shop and take your time you should be able to get that list for $50-$80 easly then if you have spare change pick up a woodie scrub check the archives as I think new ones are pretty cheap or make you own out of the cheapest #5 you can find and put a heavy radius to that blade you will only be using the middle 1/3 of the blade if you convert one.

Get an Osborne (parable)

WoodburnBob

>In about 1982 I had the same question. The topic was different. What computer to get? Which brand, which model, where from, etc? Osborne, Kaypro, some other CPM, Apple? This was in the days before IBM-PCs.

A guy told me it didn't matter. Whatever I got would be obsolete in a year and I'd want something else by then anyway. The issue was just a matter of when you decided to step inside the tent in the first place. Once in, then you'd eventually figure out whether it was worth it to stay...and what you needed and when. The purchase of the first machine was just the initial price of admission. Boy, wasn't that the truth!

I first bought an Osborne for $1899 (gives me chest pain just thinking about it). 64K with 64K dual floppies. Four inch screen as I remember. The company almost immediately went into Chapter 11. Still have it in the basement...not far from many other dead elephants, including a (then) state of the art Northgate I dropped $5K on. Oh, God, somebody call 911 for me.

Seems to me this guy's advice was about the right "truth" for tools in general, wives, houses, cars, doctors and about anything I can think of. Buy (obtain) something...anything, then you're on your way to figuring out what you really need.

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Alan Hamilton

>Raymond,

Boy, do you know how to open a can of worms! From what most thought was its eternal repose, this question haunts us from its grave all the time. You will get lots of advice--so much that there's hardly any way to know good advice from bad.

Fear not. I will save you! Others opinions on this subject are wrong--unless they agree with me.* To business.

You should have a jack plane for dimensioning your rough cut stock. Others can dimension boards too, but a jack is the best combination of attributes for this job.

Once you have your stock properly dimensioned, you will need to flatten it. A #7 jointer plane, with its long sole, easily does this job. A #7 is also great for jointing edges for gluing up wide panels.

You next will need to smooth your wood--to eliminate the various tell-tale tool marks left by your jack and jointer. Don't confuse flattening with smoothing; they are very different, so a different tool makes it much easier. Both #3s and #4s are used for smoothing (among some other hybrids with funny fractions in their names). Some wood workers have both; but if I was limited to one smoother, I would get a #4.

That's all--for now. With a jack, a jointer and a smoother you can get your rough-cut lumber the right size, flat and smooth, and even ready for glue-up to make a panel. The rest will come later--unless you get a block plane now, which will reduce by one the number that will come later.

BTW, you're going to need a larger tool chest.

Alan

*To try to stop the hate mail: I'M JUST KIDDING!

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

William R. Duffield on the Cohansey

>From the scale of the first products Raymond says he wants to build, he can probably delay purchase of the jointer, and just use his jack, with some modification to his blade geometry, to fulfill his immediate jointing needs. For Now! No sense unnecessarily increasing his acceleration rate down the slippery slope at this point, or taking up unnecessary room in his small shop.

In particular, a jack, especially one for dimensioning rough stock, needs a cambered blade, and needs to start work with an open mouth. A jointer, OTOH, needs a blade ground straight across, and the mouth closed up a bit. Other than that I think he should be able to get by with the same body for both.

Another issue related to scale: smaller projects, with smaller surfaces to smooth, can benefit from the application of a smaller smoother. So Raymond might want to look first at a #3 sized plane for his smoothing needs. The problem is that old threes are more expensive than old fours. Go figure. (Economics of scale in manufacturing is the answer, of course.)

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Raymond Overman

>So, let's get this straight:

/start sarcasm

1) I need a #5 Jack Plane that will set me back about $25 on eBay

2) I need an old clunker computer (I remember the Osbornes and how lucky were you to have 64K of ram? A virtual cornicopia of apps from the back of Byte magazine could run in 64k)

3) I need a #6, a #3, and a #4 because they've been going cheap. I also need something called a woodie scrub and some old saw blades for some reason.

4) I need a general "jack" plane and a #7 to go with the above collection also.

5) I need something called a cambered blade and I have to hold my mouth open to make all of these things work. Anywhere in particular I should put my hands during this operation?

I see how this works now. It's kind of like micromesh. You can't just stop at 6000 where everything looks shiny. You have to go on through 8000 and 12000 to be a real woodworker.

Thanks for the help guys. I appreciate the clarity that is being educated on hand planes now. I can be one with the wood. NA na na na na na na

/end sarcasm

Thanks guys for your advice. I think I will probably try to find a good #5 jack plane to start with and see how it goes from there. I'm quite certain if it goes like everything else in my wood shop, I won't be able to stop at just one and I'll be making a trip to the orange box to buy more hooks for my peg board.

Thanks again,

Raymond Overman

http://www.overmanshop.com

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Mike Lietzow

>Well Raymond, the above list is a good start; but that's only going to get your lumber surfaced. What kind of joinery do you indend to use in them clocks? No matter, you're gonna want to get a nice shoulder plane, rabbet plane, a set of dado planes, might as well get a pair of side rabbets while your at it. Oh yeah, a few tongue and groove planes for various stock widths, and of course you're gonna need a block plane. Ah heck, you'll want a low angle block plane too; as well as a skew angle block plane. Mission style clocks huh? Well, you may change your mind so you better get a dozen or so molding planes with interesting profiles and at least a half set of hollows and rounds; just in case. You're probably gonna want to work with Curly Martian Greenheart eventually, in which case you'll need an infill smoother with an A2 iron. Yeah, that outta get you started a far as planes go. How ya set for chisels, saws, and boring apparati? We're here to help. And please, this Thanksgiving just use a proper garbage can (inside joke for those left scratching their heads).

Cheers,

Mike

#40 & #7 or #8 & #4 or #4-1/2 *LINK*

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Plus, view the Rob Cosman video, Rough to Ready.


Rob Cosman

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Raymond Overman

>Ok fellas, I'm sitting here about to split my sides laughing so hard. As usual my eyes are bigger than my stomach and my stomach is bigger than my wallet. Maybe I should just turn mom a pen for Christmas and be done with it.

I'm going to have to lease a storage unit just to store my planes after getting through with your lists. Slippery slopes indeed.

Thank you all.

Raymond Overman

http://www.overmanshop.com

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Mike G.

>You wouldn't believe how slippery the slope is Ray. I remember my first plane purchase. I swore that I wouldn't slide down the slope like some others. I could "stop" after only a couple of "needful" planes. Then some SOB threw marbles under my feet.

Now, I sniff for rust everywhere I go. The wife says I'm an embarrassment, he he. 'Course, sometimes she will find me something rusty, too.

Mike G.

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Or, you could get one of those new-fangled, swiss-army-knife planes, like a Veritas Low-angle Jack, and make do.

A #7 or #8 sure would make jointing and flattening easier in many cases.

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

paul womack

>You've had some great advice about planes, but you may be missing somthing important.

A plane is just a bookshelf ornament if you don't have a flat and immobile surface to put your work on.

BugBear

Re: Once more with feeling! (long)

Raymond Overman

>My wife has a lot of books. It looks like she'll not have to worry about them falling over with the number of planes I'm going to need.

I do have a workbench with a vise I put together a while back. It's not the hardwood topped wonders of cabinetry that I see posted in some of the pictures here but it's done the job so far.

Thanks again everyone.

Raymond Overman

http://www.overmanshop.com

Ray's Website

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>I checked out your website. Very nice turnings!

Re: Ray's Website

Raymond Overman

>Thank you!