>I have many planes around the shop, just yard sellers mostly but the are sharp and look good sitting on the bench. I can use them to do the ruff work, round overs.
I can not get to the finishing stage.
Question what would be a could book to read "lots of pics" to help me. I have given up at this point "made to much fire wood". I would really like to get to fishing stage without power planer. I make and use my own scrapers, but the hand planes drives me crazy. Thanks for info John
>The Handplane Book by Garrett Hack is always a good choice. But I would suggest the Bench Planes video by Jim Kingshott. Keep at it! It takes awhile to get comfortable. For a smoother, make sure your sole is flat and your blade is sharp.
>My advice would be to get a good iron and put it in one of those planes. A Hock iron or LN for around $30 is the best investment you can make in a plane. The most critical part of planing is to get a sharp edge on the plane iron. A pitted old rusty blade just doesn't cut it. Getting a new iron and polishing the back and sharpening the edge is much easier than trying to put an old rusty iron back into use, and will give you a much better idea of what a good plane is really capable of.
>Scott Burr mentioned the book "Planecraft." This is available from Woodcraft (online or store, if there's one near you), at a very reasonable price (US$10-12). If you're not used to British words and approach to explanations, it'll take a little study, but it's a good book.
Beyond that, remember that hand tool skills are just that: skills. Skills take practice. Get yourself some pine or poplar and spend some time making shavings. Two critical issues first: a) make sure your plane is cleaned up and surfaces and operating mechanisms waxed. It always surprises me, though it shouldn't, how much better the planing is when the plane works well. b) You want fine shavings. One of my mistakes in my early years was trying to work too fast, and I still occasionally get excited and try for really thick shavings, always learning how dumb that is. The ideal shaving is not thicker than, and sometimes thinner than, typing paper; occasionally, you'll set the plane so that you get shavings you can read through.
Experiment with planing across the grain, against the grain, and with the grain, to understand what's going on when you use the tool. Skew the plane, holding it so that the body of the plane is at an angle to the direction you're moving it. A lot of good planing practice is body knowledge, not head knowledge.
Musicians, gymnasts, and magicians all practice; so must woodworkers. When you can make it work with pine and poplar, step up to more difficult woods.
Is this how I learned? Well, not directly: I ruined a lot of projects and frustrated myself because I didn't think I had the time to practice (and it's hard to justify when you're trying to keep a house in decent repair, raise kids, and hold down a job), but after a while, I began to learn to recognize what was happening. The approach I suggest above is better.
>Bill makes some great suggestions. I'll throw in one more.
Do what I did, get a piece of rough lumber and plane it flat. I learned more about my plane and planing in general in that one exercise than I have in most other times I tried to use a plane.
As others have said make sure the bottom of the plane is flat, clean, and waxed.
>I have the seen the following video that cover hand planes:
1) Handplanes in the Woodshop with Mario Rodriguez
2) Jim Kingshott's - "Bench Planes"
3) David Charlesworth's - "Hand Tool Techniques Part 2: Hand Planing "
They are all pretty good, but I like the Mario Rodriguez video the best. The Kignshott and Rodriguez videos cover similar material, but I think the Rodriguez video had a bit more detail on planing technique. Charlesworth's video only covers his approach to hand planing a final surface and edges. He has another video that covers sharpening and new one that cover shooting board operations. His methods are different than what you'll see elsewhere. They seem very methodical and analytical. Personal I don't feel my planing and tool fettling skill are good enough yet to use these methods. I look at his methods as PhD level skills that you might use when you want to push the results beyond what you get with traditional methods.