Don't you think it's silly?

Re: I Agree

L. Hanson

>It's an interesting subject, but one I think can lead to many different conclusions, depending on your training and experience.

I think Todd has a good idea of where some of it may have started. I'm not a master woodworker by any means, but I've done a fair amount, and I've never owned a machinists' straightedge, or even a dial caliper for that matter. I have a 12" rule that has 1/32" marks - and a hardware store variety General set of calipers with the same tolerances... Basically it means I can measure to 1/64" accuracy, or thereabouts (1/2 of the way between the 1/32" marks). I've never needed anything more.

I honestly don't know how anyone can actually measure a .001" thick shaving with a standard shop caliper - I would think the cells of the wood would crush between the jaws of the caliper. I mean, you know - I can sometimes dent a piece of lumber with my fingernail..

When I flatten the sole of a plane, I just look at the parts that have made contact with the sandpaper to see if its flat. Much the same with wooden planes, where its needed. I don't measure any dovetails (or any woodworking, really) with a feeler gauge - the only thing I use my feeler gauges for with any regularity is gapping spark plugs and points... I've had no issues leveling the two surfaces of my jointer using a $5 aluminum rule - I get good results from it, and have done it that way for many years.

I don't think I'm saying that I don't work to those tolerances, but that I haven't needed to quantify or measure those tolerances with that sort of accuracy. If the blade in the table saw is bit off, it burns the wood, and adjustments are made to compensate. I've not needed to measure it, as I can see the burn marks...

However, if you are doing testing of such things, there's no fair way of saying what looks obvious to you, and some form of measuring becomes necessary - which is maybe why testers and reviewers get out machinists' calipers and straightedges to measure them. It simply wouldn't be a fair measurement of performance for them to say "This is better because that's how it feels/looks to me". It could be one source, as such reviews are where many get their "education" of different tools and methods.

A novice might not have the feel for such tolerances, and need a way to measure them to assure him/herself that they are doing whatever it is properly. Having the peace of mind might make the expense of such tools worth it.

A machinist might be used to using such tools, and consider it as just the way its done.

I guess it comes down as much to personal preference and ones individual training/experiences as anything...

Just rambling,

Leif

www.norsewoodsmith.com

Re: Common misunderstanding

Dale Stansbery

>I've bought a fair number of planes over the years, and probably less than 20% of them show enough wear to think they were used by a cabinetmaker who would worry a lot about whisper thin shavings. The few that look like they have had years of steady use also seem to have the most wear in front of the mouth and most in need of flattening.. The rest look like they were used a few times to trim a door, or a little carpentry work, then thrown in a tool box to rust away.

Good points, Leif

Ellis Walentine

>You have put many of my impressions into words here. I used to liken woodworking to learning to dance by stepping on painted footprints on the floor. You learn things by numbers and then, as you get more comfortable with the techniques, you loosen up and your instincts and motions become more fluid and assured.

Empirical woodworking is the most enjoyable kind for me.

Ellis Walentine, Host

re: straightedges

glh

>I guess I will chime in on this since I posted the question about storing staightedges in the first place. I'll address two seperate issues (questions) as briefly as I know how to.

First, why the post about the proper way to store a straightedge? I paid about $60 for the 24" se and about $140 for the 48" one. I was willing to pay that amount because I wanted something that was straight to a fairly high degree of tolerance. I had other 24" and 48" stuff around the house that is reasonably straight, but I wanted something that was real straight. I want to keep my se's as straight as possible for as long as possible, and I wanted to know the best way to store them, especially given their expense.

Second, I'm a mid-50s age hobbyist who has been serious about ww for 3-4 years. Until that time, I hadn't done enough ww to call it ww for about 30-35 years. I took ww in high school and helped my dad, granddad, and uncle on some things, but that's it. I point this out just to note that I don't have experience or a mentor to call upon when something goes wrong. I don't have the sight or feel for straight and other skills that experience brings. I use a se, marking knife, winding sticks, etc... for the same reason a person with a lack of experience in adding and subtracting numbers would find a calculator beneficial in doing his taxes. A professional accountant might not need one (although most that I know (and that's a lot) use them), but a tax-preparer with a deficiency in arthmetic might find it beneficial.

I bought my 24" se about 2 years ago. About a year later I got the 48" one. I was willing to pay the price of the 48" one because of my experience with the 24" one. My ww improved. My boards were straighter and my machines were set up more accurately. I could make adjustments easier because I could trace down the problem faster. If my board wasn't straight, I didn't know if my table fence was out, my jointer was out, or if it was my technique. Precision measuring tools help me trace down a problem. If this isn't a problem for you, then consider yourself lucky, you can certainly save yourself some money and some time. However, in my opinion, it's the best way for me to get things done the way I want them done.

Re: Common misunderstanding

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>Hi Jim,

Look, I�m very sympathetic to Ken�s point of view. I�ve written similar things here, and will continue such sentiments in PW�s Arts&Mysteries column.

My only disagreement is in the application of such things. Furniture needn�t be perfect to be functional, but some tools do need to be.

What about all the old woodies that had/have soles that aren't (and probably never were) flat?

You�re right if your point is that a jack/fore plane needn�t have a perfectly flat sole. But any plane that needs to take a fine cut (I�d say any smoother, the jointer, maybe the try plane) needs a sole that is sufficiently flat to produce the desired thickness of the shaving. In general, the tighter the mouth, the flatter the sole must be. These things are related and I think DC was suggesting as much.

Did those old masters spend hundreds of hours lapping their plane soles true? It really doesn't seem so, does it? I wonder if Chippendale, or even the old Shakers, ever lapped their planes...

I think there�s plenty of evidence to suggest this was exactly (or should I say precisely?) the case. They didn�t need 100�s of hours to true a wooden sole, however. This is a 5 minute job. Judging from the wear of old planes, frequency of patched smoothers� mouths, and the complicated geometry of wooden planes� throats this was probably done with some regularity. There was certainly an awareness of this issue.

So I don�t want to give the impression that I think machinist tools are necessary to perform good woodworking. (And I�m not putting anyone down who does.) I also don�t want folks to think every tool needs to be a silver bullet. I just want to make it clear that while you may not need to work to .005� tolerances making furniture, you may well need to work to those tolerances making and tuning tools. They were capable of such work in the 18th century and regularly achieved such precision.

Adam

Re: Common misunderstanding

Roger Nixon

>Quote Adam: I just think it would be a mistake to suggest there is no place for precision. Instead, I think you should say precision has a place and isn't appropriate everywhere.

End Quote

This is the real secret to efficiency in woodworking and many other endevors. As Mr. Charlesworth stated, the goal of flattening planes is not to dimension wood to unrealistic tolerences but to make the tool work properly.

Working to tolerences that are too high or too low are both wasteful, the real skill is knowing what is necessary and how to get there. I know this from experience other than woodworking because I'm sure not skilled at that yet :).

Re: Common misunderstanding

MikeS

>To have the capability of working to those tolerances, the craftsman would have had to possess measuring instruments made to even tighter tolerances. Where do you suppose a Newport, RI cabinetmaker in 1770 would have found such a straight edge? Could he have afforded to own one? Would he have understood its limitations and how to correct for thermal expansion, etc? Would the crystaline structure of the steel made at that time have supported those tolerances with thermal movement?

Re: Common misunderstanding

Joel

>really really simple - take 2 peices of wood let's say 24" x 1/2" x 2". dowel them together on the 2"x 24" face. (glue on dowel into one hole on each side so the thing will only assemble one way.

Pick one long edge as a reference. Taper the out side so the top is only 1/8" or so wide.

Assemble both halfs. Plane reference edge as flat as you can.

Unassemble - hold edges on top of wach other. If the sticks are out of straight there will be light between the two sticks.

reassemble and correct as needed. and you may need to correct it if the weather changes. Good straight timber helps jkeep it straight.

(this BTW is how you make winding sticks)

THere are many other ways of creating a reference. Those lads a few centuries ago were pretty clever.

OF course the simple way to figure out if you plane needs adjusting is when the plane stops working right you shoot it against a longer plane. And the longest planes in your shop, with the best accuracy are kept as references.

Re: Really? But.....

Alan Hamilton

>ken,

This is a fun thread!

I'm still waiting for an explaination of why anyone would spend several times the price of a perfectly good marking gauge to buy a "Tite-Mark" gauge. All that expensive precision is wasted when it's used on a material that changes its dimensions as much as wood does. The gauge is capable of more precision than the material it's used on. Yet everyone that has one sings its praises. I don't get it.

Alan

I agree....

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

>I do check my tools now and again for accuracy but I don't have the time nor inclination to worry about rocket parts tolerances. That's why I have several cans of wood putty on hand. ;-)

Thanks for an interesting post.

Tommy

Re: I Agree

glh

>I'm one of those amatuers who believes a plane's sole ought to be flat. However, I've never flatten the sole of a plane without using it first. I've found that I can take finer shavings with a flatter sole. I'm not worried about that on my scrub and jack planes, but I am on my smoother and jointer. I have several planes and only felt the need to lap two of their soles, both new Stanley's (#4 and #7). I can assure you that these two perform better after lapping their soles.

What I don't understand is why some predominate professionals recommend flattening a planes sole if it is, as you believe, unnecessary. Frank Klausz, Jim Kingshott, Mario Rodriquez, David Charlesworth all have vidoes on tuning and using hand planes, and all recommend lapping the sole if its not flat. In addition, Andy Rae and Garrett Hack recommend the same thing in their books. I have yet to read (other than in this string of messages) any professional woodworker say that flatness of the sole is unimportant so long as the plane cuts.

Are these professionals delusional, do they hold stock in wet/dry sandpaper companies, or do they get a purverted pleasure out of imaging all us amatuers out here sweating over our lapping plates? Is LN just misleading us into paying more for his planes because they're claimed to be lapped to within .001?

Moreover, I don't know what craftsmen did about the soles of their planes 150 years ago or so. I've read where their soles were flatten with another plane whose sole was flat and that occasionally they remouthed their planes. Perhaps, this was also a part of the master plan passed through generations by a few purverted professionals to delude us amatuers into believing that planes' soles ought to be flat, and that the size of the mouth opening mattered. I don't know how these guys determined "straight," but if they'd had a reliable straightedge, I'd bet they'd used it.

Re: I Agree

Todd Hughes

>Don't know how many videos or books would get sold that was about not doing something. Imagine the market would be pretty small for an instruction video that just showed a plane setting there and not anything being done to it!

I think a plane does need to have a flat sole to work properly, thats not in question I don't think. The question is just how flat does it need to be? Kind of flat, sort of flat,flat enough for goverment work, pretty flat,about flat,almost flat,flat, flat flat,precisly flat, perfectly flat, any flatter and god would have to do it. ....Todd

I don't know about actual tools

Doug Littlejohn

>but the thread was mostly to do with refences which are used to set/align other main tools. In this case, I want very accurate and for them to stay that way.

If I miss on a jointer by 5 thou, that may be okay but if I don't have references that can decerne that, I will have no true idea of where I am set to. Make sense??

Now as to planes, etc., I am no where near qualified (read that very good) to say my plane must be lapped to +0 -.003 for it to do it's job.

I do agree that when making good joints, the relative measurements are indeed rather important. While wood does indeed move, I want it all to move the same way and be very close fitting before it starts to move. That way the joints will stay nice an tight.

So whether the M&T's are .500 or .550 is not very important but the fact that both of them are within 5-10 thou of each other when cut seems to be very important.

Sherwood

Re: I Agree

glh

>Here's my point about measuring accurately? Suppose my plane is not working as well as I want it to. What's the problem? Sharp blade, blade/frog set incorrectly, technique, or is it the sole? I can work on the first three, but I can't tell how flat the sole is by looking. I want an accurate measurement of that.

I can get an idea by running it across what I think is a flat surface. But, how do I know my reference surface is flat and, consequently, how do I know my plane is in fact not flat if the results show that it is.

It seems somewhere along the line I need a reliable measure of flattness. Now, I can't ever be truly certain that my measurement is reliable, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt to Starett, at least until I have reason to believe otherwise.

I understand that wood moves and that it's easy to get overly concerned with fettling tools, especially hand tools, at the expense of getting the project done. However, I've run across numerous cases where a plan calls for flat and straight in order for something to fit. The plans never give tolerances so I try to get things as straight and flat as I can. Until I got a straightedge, I never knew whether something was straight or flat until I tried to fit it. I would rather have a earlier indication that there is a problem. Straightedges and winding sticks help me do that. Now, I know some of these things can be made in the shop a lot less expensively than bought. But, I never saw how I could make a straightedge without a straightedge. Undoubtedly, lack of experience.

I'm not sure that this disagreement is as great as it sounds. The goal is to get things done correctly. Different people go about that in different ways. If I could have gotten the results I wanted without spending a bunch of money on a straightedge, I would much have preferred it. (The things aren't much to look at and all you can do with them is test flattness.) Some folks may not need such an aid.

Re: I Agree

Sgian Dubh

>glh, I'm one of those professionals that doesn't get overly excited about plane sole flatness and the ability to measure to .0001 of an inch.

I do agree that a reasonably flat sole is important and I teach newcomers the tricks of tuning and fettling a plane where it matters, but it's not something I make a big song and dance about.

A bit of glass on a flat surface, such as a surface planer bed or saw table and some 80 grit paper will soon let you know how far out of whack the sole is. It's never been worth getting finer than 80 or 120 grit for me if sole flattening is needed-- after all, all I need is flat enough and I don't need to use the sole of my plane to see in and shave.

It's also easy to bend the sole of a metal plane as you use it-- just move your leading hand away from the front knob and press hard with your leading hand thumb right by the mouth, or you can move the cutting edge of the iron up and down by rotating your wrists against each other as you hold on to the handles thus flexing the plane, which is quite often a useful dodge.

When it comes to preparing edges for gluing planked up table tops and the like I've learnt the trick of tilting the whole body of the plane over a bo'hair to square up the edge to the wide faces. My blades are generally sharpened straight across, although some are curved.

I'm not sure how I know what angle to tilt the plane to make corrections, but somehow I can achieve it and this sometimes means tilting the plane first one way and then the other to get things right.

It's a bit of a mystery to me that I can do that, but I guess it's instinctive, and for the life of me I can't get students to emulate the trick successfully, ha, ha. Slainte.

Mounting a straightedge *LINK*

Wiley Horne

>Hello glh,

I use wooden planes, and use reference surfaces to check and true them. You can also tell by how they're working if they're true.

Here's an alternative to storing your straightedges in a drawer. Actually I think most people wish to do it your way--witness Dave Anderson's testimony of keeping his references stored and brought out only to check his 'secondary' references.

But I prefer to mount my straight edge so it's handy for use. See attached link. To make the mount, I face- and edge-jointed a sugar maple board, then routed a groove along one edge which was about 1/32" wider than the straightedge and 5/8" deep or so--so it loosely clamps the straightedge. This is a 5-foot straight edge, and Starrett incised two arrows indicating support points in case the tool is stored on edge. If interested in mounting your long straightedge, you might check whether support points are shown. Anyway, I placed the straightedge in the groove of the mounting board, and put a small piece of rubber washer at each support point (to maintain positive support at these points, as the wood moves over time).

The straightedge is backlit during daylight hours so you can see daylight under whatever you're testing.

Thanks to Roger Nixon for the image hosting!

Wiley


Mounting for straight edge

Re: Common misunderstanding

MikeS

>Familiar with winding sticks. Ken's original message was on the need for one ten thousandth of an inch accuracy. Charlesworth relaxed that to 2 to 3 thousandths. Adam was talking about 5 thousandths. You might be able to obtain the 5 thousandths in the way you describe. You'll have to have better eyes than me, though.

Re: Common misunderstanding

Joel

>if you shine a light from between two sticks the human eye can detect a gap of a millionth of an inch. that's an extreme but that's how Starrett still checks it's precision squares.

In wood - with the same light - and a little skill and practice a straightedge around a .001" is no sweat. (think how thin a plane shaving is anyway).

You were wondering how an 18th century cabinetmaker could even afford a reference that flat. I'm just saying it's not that hard in the context of the tools and skill of the time.

Re: Common misunderstanding

Adam Cherubini

>I agree with Joel, (and don't fully understand Mike's point) and I'd just like to add working to this tolerance is important only when its important.

If Ken's point was that we should challenge our notion of when its important, I'd agree. But to suggest there is absolutely no place for precision in woodworking (including tool making) is a mistake in my opinion.

Adam

Thanks Ken for an interesting thread. Its fun here, isn't it? Isn't it great that we can discuss such things without resorting to name calling?

Re: Mounting a straightedge

Bob Hackett

>Found the site but no pics.Looking forward to seeing it.

The only pics in your gallery are the 3 pics of the furniture.

MB

Thanks

glh

>

Re: Mounting a straightedge

Alice Frampton, UK

>I think you have to be registered and logged in to see them.

Cheers, Alf

Try this 

Roger Nixon

>

That did it.Thanks Rodger.

Bob Hackett

>Nice set up.If I had more room,which I probably would if I could keep the benches clean,I`d think about a setup like that.Sure beats wishing for a third hand.

Mainely,Bob

PS-Not to drive anybody over the edge here but I find alot more uses for my machinist tools in WWing than I had imagined I would.

Things like indicators,gauge and angle blocks and dial calipers all come in handy during setup and tool maintenance chores.

Hmmmmmm.....

ken c

>I'm not saying that you're wrong but resolving light through a 1 micron gap is a little hard for me to believe, especially when the wavelength of visible light is in the 0.4u to 0.7u region.

Certainly semiconductor manufacturing (the area where I work) ceased using visible light as an exposure medium a decade or more ago for more or less that reason.

It has been an interesting thread tho'