Smoothing wide board

More Tools! Too Long!

Alan Hamilton

>Gil,

What are you doing? Leveling or smoothing Smoothing I understand, but I'm stumbling over "leveling." In any case, these are very different operations and are best done with different tools--so back to the beginning: The usual sequence is to first dimension the stock, then flatten, and lastly smooth.

Dimensioning, obviously, means to bring the stock to the right size for your project. Depending on how much wood you need to remove, it's usual to begin with either a scrub plane, if you need to remove a lot, or a jack plane, if it's already pretty close.

A scrub plane is a real hog. It can remove a lot of wood easily and quickly. But it's a bludgeon. A scrub is not for fine work. The iron in a scrub is ground so it's massively convex. When you're done with a scrub the wood looks like it's been plowed.

If you don't need to use a scrub, your #5 jack will do fine; a jack is usually used for this job. A jack's iron, too, is usually ground with a pronounced curve--not nearly as much as a scrub, but not straight across. When you're done with your jack the wood will have visible furrows that you'll need to plane out.

At this point your stock is just a bit over its final dimension, but is far from flat or smooth. To flatten it's easiest to use a long-sole plane, such as a #7 jointer. The long sole will bridge the low spots and cut only the high spots. There have been some recent discussions about whether a jointer's iron should be ground with a little arc or straight across. Mine is straight across, but I won't try to defend that choice around here.

Once the stock is flat you can (finally!) smooth it. This is most easily done with a shorter-sole plane such as a #3 or #4 (which are called 'smoothers') or one of the fractional variants. When I smooth I want to remove the sharp-edged trenches left by my straight-across jointer iron, and plane out any problem areas. My smoothers both have slightly convex irons which leave a gently undulating surface--which is the much prized mark of hand work. For me, machines make things perfectly flat; I have no desire for my work to be mistaken for machine-made.

Too long. Sorry. Others more knowledgable than I, and no doubt much shorter winded, will probably give you better advice.

Alan

Re: More Tools! Too Long!

Gil

>Should the jointer be used across the work piece on the diagonals? I just picked up a #8 for $30 this morning and I'm psyched to get to try it out.

-Gil

Re: More Tools! Too Long!

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Once you get to the "flattening"stage I think you can go with the length of the panel. This would serve to reduce tearout if the grain is read properly. This also would maximize the benefit of the jointer's length.JR

Re: More Tools! Too Long!

Alan Hamilton

>Gil,

What Joe said. Because I usually move my jack diagonally, moving my jointer straight down the stock helps make sure it bridges the high spots.

When the wood is being a brat I sometimes skew my jointer, but still--usually--move it straight down the board. When the stock is just about flat, it seems to me it doesn't matter if I take a slightly diagonal pass. At that point I move it the way that seems to be best to avoid tear-out and to finish getting the stock flat.

Alan