Re: Query for Planing Purists
Sgian Dubh
>I find it interesting Bill that you're only now discovering some of the advantages of hand planing previously machined wood over sanding. Hand sanding out (in particular) the ripples from planing machines is quite a long and tedious task for small parts such as framing, flat surfaced legs and rails, et al, whereas a pass or two with a sharp plane usually does the trick quite quickly.
Hand sanding machine planer marks is difficult in part because the hammering effect of the knives-- which are not always perfectly sharp-- can penetrate deeper than the obvious surface ripple leaving bruised wood below the surface that can show after the polish is applied.
I can't recall the number of times I've witnessed workers sand a part almost to destruction due to a fear of handplaning even with power sanders and still not remove all the thicknesser or surface planer marks. Additionally they often end up with local hollows and rounding over leaving the finished article looking 'muddy' or the edges unevenly rounded over or smudged.
Large panels can present more of a problem for hand plane only polish preparation operations as the grain on one plank can reverse on you causing tear-out, and adjacent boards can have grain rising from one direction and the other causing tear-out whichever way you plane.
If you're dealing with large panels such as table tops there are other difficulties to deal with too. It's probably not perfectly flat, and the face you are planing is slightly concave. How this is dealt with usually incorporates scattering a line of shavings along the centre of the workbench under the centre of the panel followed by cramping the edges of the panel down so you can get at it. There are plenty of other dodges too, and scrapers come in handy.
But how many people polish straight off the plane? Given enough time it can be done, but there's always the question of what to do with the edges and corners. How is the edge arris removed by users of planes only? A wee bit of 150 grit sandpaper on a block knocks off arrises very effectively, especially at corners where three edges meet. How do hand plane only users effect this three directional rounding over? I must admit I don't know the answer.
If you've got your surface pretty good off handplanes and scrapers and you're dealing with some scuff marks a bit of sanding with 150 or 180 grit will do for open grained woods like oak that are to receive a film forming polish-- the pores are bigger than the grit, and you can go up to perhaps 220 grit for fine grained woods like maple or cherry.
At the final polish preparation stages I find it useful to have three or four smoothing planes set up ready to go, with settings like fairly coarse, less coarse, fine and very fine. You just pick up the plane with the setting required rather than fiddle about adjusting.
When using this number of planes in tandem it's pretty essential to have a very efficient sharpening system, and I feel if it takes more than three or so minutes to take apart a plane, touch up the edge, re-assemble and be back in action then probably a swifter sharpening method needs to be found.
I admit that I'm not a handplane only purist being one of those makers that will use any tool to get a job done fast. If there's a large surface preparation job of several panels then I'll usually turn to oscillating thickness sanders and hand held power sanders and so on to do the job at a commercially acceptable speed, but there's almost always a use for hand planing techniques in the smaller parts. You can generally get away with murder on vertical surfaces and edges anyway on large furniture items, which you can't do as easily on small items that can be lifted and viewed from all angles. What always catches the customers eye on large pieces are flaws in the money surfaces, i.e., top horizontal surfaces, such as table tops. Slainte.
