Curved iron question for David Charlesworth

Re: Curved iron question for David Charlesworth

david charlesworth

>Dan,

Delighted to hear you got such a good surface on the maple.

I am not familiar with douglas Fir, as I generally work hardwoods.

For hard, dense, interlocked exotics, eg Santos Rosewood, Cocobolo, African Blackwood, Bubinga....an Effective Pitch of 70 degrees with a fine shaving, about 1 thou" works well for me.

For medium hardwoods such as Iroko and Sapele possibly a slightly lower E.P. might work say around 60 degrees.

The soft difficult woods with complex grain, do not respond well to steep E.P.

Thomas L-N showed me that a low angle plane, 12 degree bed with 30 degrees honed on the blade will do a magnificent job on soft curley Maple, if the shaving is kept to about 1 thou". The EP here is 42 degrees. This is the setup wich I think might work on your Fir.

Failing that I might try a really sharp scraper plane with a small hook, though generally scraper planes seem to work better as the wood gets harder.

A clean surface is often only produced with a fine, 1 thou" shaving. Crank it ip to a heavy 4 thou, or even 2 thou and the surface can be torn out in the most heartbreaking way. One thou shavings should be easily obtained with a good well fettled finishing plane. A plane which is not capable of 1 thou shavings is not suitable for fine surfaces.

I suspect that most metal planes were used by joiners and carpenters for more functional work. Most fine cabinetmakers over the last century would have lusted after, or had an infill smoother for fine work, but fine cabinetmakers would have been a small minority of woodworkers.

When all else fails there is always sandpaper! though I try to do as little of this as possible. This explains why I am so interested in getting a near perfect surface from the plane.

Best wishes,

David C

Planing Douglas Fir

Steve Elliott

>I wish I could give you a few tips that would point you on the way to success here, but I can't. Douglas Fir is one of the more difficult species I've planed, for two reasons.

First, the earlywood is extremely soft and spongy, requiring a low effective pitch. High angle planes cause the earlywood to compress as the shaving is formed, leaving a surface that looks dull. I've done a comparison test planing Doug fir and Port Orford cedar, and the cedar was a dream to plane, producing shavings that were thin but strong, and leaving a shiny surface on the wood. The same plane on the Doug fir produced dust instead of a shaving, and left a smooth but dull surface. The Doug fir latewood is very hard and dense, so the optimal blade geometry for it is very different from that for the earlywood. Fir planes just fine if you�re fitting a door or trimming something to size, but if good surface quality is your goal it can be pretty challenging.

Second, there is great variation between pieces of Doug fir. New growth fir has wide rings and is used mostly for framing lumber. Old growth fir with tightly spaced growth rings is almost a different species. My test piece for the comparison with cedar was old growth and I was planing a surface that showed vertical grain, nice tight lines of hard and soft wood. That tends to be the easier type of surface to plane. Flat-sawn boards, especially of new growth fir, have wider bands of hard and soft wood. This makes any method of surfacing more difficult. A scraper tends to dig in on the soft earlywood, and even sandpaper will take so much more off of the soft parts than the hard ones that the surface loses its flatness.

All that said, it can be a beautiful wood. Using very sharp tools and a light touch with fine sandpaper can produce a good result.

Re: Curved iron question for David Charlesworth

Dan S in NC

>Thank you David, and thank you Steve for your thoughtful responses.

I finally *did* get fine to excellent results on my Douglas fir. Originally, before foraying into curved iron bench plane territory, I had tried the LN low angle jack. Before I got to the point of success with that plane, I got the notion in my head that the YP 4 1/2 with curved blade would be the way to go. Sometimes the notions one gets into one's head can be stubbornly held.

LSS, I went back to the low angle jack, as per David's suggestion and *voila* -- very nice results. Almost looks oiled without any finish on it. Still the earlywood is just a hint less polished than the latewood on the flatsawn face, but perfect polish on the quartered face (these are some bench legs where I started from nominal 4x4 stock; beautiful old growth stuff).

I've been practicing my technique on offcuts. Now I must dare to take blade to the workpieces.