Jointer plane length?

Girly?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Adam! I can't believe you said that. Has Arnold's perverse influence invaded NJ?

Pam

Re: My 2 cents

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Vince, it's a reasonable approach to use a plane for multiple tasks, especially when you're starting out and can't find the "perfect" tool. You'll refine your selection as you proceed.

Pam

Re: Jointer plane length?

Tony Z.

>Rob,

How does toe placement affect the Veritas #4-1/2 smoother? Maybe the question is what is the net effect of having the blade that close to the front edge?

I believe the blade on the #4-1/2 is 2-3/8" from the front edge and your #4 has the blade 3" from the front edge.

Thanks,

Tony Z.

Re: Interesting!

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I tend to think of these things with a speedboat analogy. If the front end is sitting high, it's easier to steer the boat because the front end is experiencing no friction, other than from the air. Of course, that's an extreme cutting edge position at the rear end of the plane.

Pam

The dastardly #6 fits my bill ...

John Snyder, Pocono's PA

>... for 95% of the jointing I do - I rarely pull out the #7 or 8. I find the #6 much easier to manage and control, and for boards under a couple feet long, it does all I could ask for.

J

Oh come on now!

Bob Hackett

>Chris,you seemed liked such a nice guy.Not at all the type to tease us all by only posting one pic of that beauty when you know tool porn like that can only truly be done justice by a full layout.

I`m talking front,back,top,both sides and a pic of the centered mouth,if you see fit to post details of that front handhold then so much the better.

Save yourself some work and just point us all to a link where we can drool in private.

I need DETAILS man!I think I`m in love.

Mainely,Bob

Re: Girly?

Bob Hackett

>Come on now Pam,you gotta have at least one highly polished brass wear strip on you don`t ya?;^)

Mainely,Bob-Wondering if he has enough brass to get away with this.

Now I get it! Thanks.

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>

Re: Girly?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Actually, I don't. I figured that the wear strip would wear differently from the wood, so I've got wood faces or brass plate faces.

Pam, who's thinking I successfully avoided this piece of bait :)

Nice dodge!

Bob Hackett

>I figured since it`s the season you might be open for alittle fun.

Glad to see you took it in the spirit it was meant.

Mainely,Bob-Who can stop sweating now.

More soon *LINK*

Christopher Schwarz

>Bob,

I'l post some more photos and details soon. Promise.

Meanwhile, one thing I forgot about planes that have the mouth set back: They are *so* much easier to start smoothly. There's more mass and surface area on the wood as the iron hits the wood so you are much less likely to make any of those ugly little marks at the beginning of a cut.

The plane was built by Wayne Anderson. If you can believe it, it works even better than it looks. And it's comfortable to use, too.


Anderson Planes

Re: More soon

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>This isn't the one that was...err "liberated" was it?

That story still urks me to death! I'm hoping you have replaced it if it's still awol.Jr

Re: Japanese planes

Dan Donaldson

>Could the fact (at least as I understand it ;-)) that they are normally pulled rather than pushed have any part of why the mouth is where it is?

Re: Japanese planes

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Could be, there's a lot of stuff going on with Japanese planes. However, since you can easily push them as long as the front is held down, I suspect that's not the main reason.

It struck me that I've seldom if ever seen a Japanese plane longer than 15" or so, was wondering if that's because they plane longer due to the blade placement. The front of the mouth on a smoother starts almost 2/3 of the plane length from the toe.

Pam

Re: Japanese planes

Fred Peake

>I don't believe Japanese planes need to be as long as their western counterparts, because the toe to mouth distance is more important than the total length. I have two Japanese jointers, the smaller one is 7 1/2" toe to mouth with 13" length, and the other is 10 3/4" toe to mouth with 18" length. The shorter is as effective as a #7, which has 7 1/4" toe to mouth with 22" length. The longer is equivalent to a western jointer of about 30".

Re: The dastardly #6 fits my bill ...

Patrick Gibbons, Houston, TX

>I find that a lot of the advice given here is beyond my skill and knowledge often times. I'll be doing some procedure and then I'll remember something Pam or Adam or Joel or someone else said that was pertinent to what I was doing and then I experience one of those "ah ha!" moments. Pam's advice rings truer to me for just starting on something. Get one plane, use it and pay attention to what happens. You'll then know what to do and many things in this thread will make crystal clear sense.

Re: Japanese planes

joel

>Traditional Japanese planes were mostly made for dressing lumber used in house construction. No need for the accuracy required for a western style glue up. THe important thing is that the plane follows the basic straight lines of the wood - hence hollow soles etc.

These days with most people using machines to get the basic accuracy of the timber, Japanese planes have a lot of application for dressing wood but I don't believe the "effective" length argulment for a second.

THe math surrounding the "effective" length of a plane based on mouth position doesn't work when you start moving the plane over the wood. also the wood is of finite length and things happens when the plane starts and edge and finishes and edge. Not to mention random peaks and valleys. the effect of mouth paostion cancels out.

As Adam pointed out when jointing for edge joints real accuracy is needed and you can't beat a really long plane. Faces require less accuracy.

Metal planes are hobbled by their weight, so really long ones are really awkward to use all day, but fortunately metal planes didn't come into popular use (c 1870's) until after most (in the US anyway) big shops also started using power machinery.

Incidently when metal planes were first invented (c. 1830) the first commercial size were 14-16" panel planes which are fabulous for dressing faces which is the bulk of the work in dressing lumber.

Re: Japanese planes

Rob Lee

>Joel -

The math surrounding the "effective" length of a plane based on mouth position doesn't work when you start moving the plane over the wood. also the wood is of finite length and things happens when the plane starts and edge and finishes and edge. Not to mention random peaks and valleys. the effect of mouth paostion cancels out.

Sorry - but really have to disagree with you there - what part of the description doesn't hold??? At any given point in time the decription is valid - continuous movement doesn't change anything. Can you cite a reference, test data, or point me to a model that demonstrates something different??

There's a reason why Jointers have infeed/outfeed tables essentially the same length - and it isn't material support. It really makes no difference if the wood moves - or the plane moves...that's just a changing frame of reference...it's essentially the same process, though a power jointer is a much more complex system.

I'm not discounting your anecdotal experience - in fact, your own experience is always the most relevant to how you work - but I really don't think you've substantially clarified the explanation by saying "things happen"...or "The effect of mouth position cancels out"...

I'd really like to understand your interpretation of the mechanics...

Cheers -

Rob

Re: Japanese planes

joel

>Rob,

I would love to write a simulation of what happens when you plane a board and how it flattens out - it's sort of the mathematical exercise I used to do when I was younger and smarter - but hopefully my explaination will at least enable you to see why I don't agree.

Let's take a look at your premise:

"Going back to the lines of contact - consider a slice through the plane from end to end - now we have three points of contact (in the "plane" of the plane slice:) )... and the points are not collinear (for a non-zero blade projection)... three non-collinear points can define a circle (and a plane) - varying the relationship between the points varies the resultant radius of the circle. For a given fixed distance between end points � and a fixed distance from the line passing through those end points (the blade projection), maximum radius of the defined circle occurs with the third point equidistant from the end points.

So � if the center point is not equidistant from the end points the radius increases the closer the center point gets to either end. "

It is all quite right - if the board is concave and the plane is indeed resting on both ends.

Now - let's suppose we actually plane a board.

The blade starts cutting at one end and goes off the other end.

We are also pressing down so if one end of the plane is off the wood the blade and the other end is surely contacting the wood.

The blade will contact the wood and cut a full thickness shaving (into the concavity) until the free end of the plane eith starts lifting the blade up or the board is short enough so that the front nose start lifting the plane up.

since the shaving is thin, and the plane fully bearing on the iron the shaving will be mostly of constant thickness but of variable length , dpeending on when the iron gets lifted out of the cut and stops cutting.

(on the next pass of the plane the high ends of the concavity would be slightly lower so the plane would cut longer and the shaving would be longer but that's not important just now)

With a centered iron we would assume that we get similar shavings from each end of the board because after all just as the front of the plane and the iron caused a certain length shaving on the first half of the stroke, the symetric rear half should do the same on the second half of the stroke.

EXcept it doesn't - the reason is that the rear half of the plane is bearing down on a surface that has just had a layer of shaving removed. And the flatter the board is the more this effect will be. What will happen is that the iron will start cutting a little sooner that it would if the iron is positioned a little futher towards the front of the plane.

So by moving the iron up towards the front of the plane a little you even out the effect of when the plane starts cutting on second part of the stroke and you get a more symetric planing.

This makes it easier to plane straight even.

Is this why traidtional planes have the iron a little forward? - no idea. Is the effect mimimal - of course and in my view balance of a plane is a lot more important than iron position. (this is not to say your planes aren't balanced - they are built differently than traditional designs). Does it mean that a shorter plane doesn't work like a longer plane - yes.

Re: Japanese planes

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Fred, where on earth did you find Japanese jointers, much less one that's 22" long? Are the soles flat? Or do they have the traditional two or three points of contact?

Thanks,

Pam

Re: Japanese planes

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>There's a reason why Jointers have infeed/outfeed tables essentially the same length - and it isn't material support. It really makes no difference if the wood moves - or the plane moves...that's just a changing frame of reference...it's essentially the same process, though a power jointer is a much more complex system.

But they shouldn't be at the same height, the outfeed table should be higher to reflect the thickness of wood being removed. Another interesting analogy with Japanese planes, which typically have the heel higher than the toe. This also ties in with Joel's response to your post.

Pam, who's still waiting for the LV bullnose shoulder planes that William convinced me to buy a couple of weeks ago to get to your stock. Aaaarrrgggghhhh, the pain of the thwarted shopper. :)

Re: Japanese planes

Fred Peake

>The shorter 13" plane I picked up in a FS post on the old tools list a couple of years ago. It was listed by the seller as a jack plane, but also functions well as a jointer for shorter stock. He said he got it at an estate sale of a shoji maker on the west coast. The longer 18" jointer was purchased from Japan Woodworker about 15 years ago, but I haven't seen one in his catalog in the last 10 years or so. You might give him a call and see if he could still get some. The one I have is the Fujihisa 47 1/2 degree model, which they used to carry in an 18" length.

Re: Japanese planes

Fred Peake

>The sole on the jointer I got from Japan Woodworker was initially flat, and I used it that way for a couple of years. I think all the planes that I've purchased new have been flat. I think most are left untuned for the user to adjust to his preferences. The first time I scraped the sole due to wear, I put a very slight wave in it. It touches at the toe and just ahead of the mouth (probably only a couple thousanths) but is more on the heel behind the mouth. The shorter one needed work when I got it, and I put about the same amount of wave in it too.

Re: Japanese planes

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thanks, Fred. I'm getting ready to make a jointer. I know the smoothers need the wave tuning, but wasn't sure about a jointer. BTW, a prominent Japanese-tool-wielding woodworker tunes some of his planes so the heel, toe, and area in front of the mouth are coplanar.

The closest thing I've found for sale is the Mosaku shooting plane that Hiraide sells.

Pam

Rob, can you tell us

Derek

>if the bevel is up or down? Inquiring minds who very much like your low angle jack would like to know...