Lifting plane on the return stroke - Bother?

Re: Lifting plane on the return stroke - Bother?

Frank D. in Montreal

>Hi Denis,

try walking around for a few weeks without lifting your feet. I bet your shoes will wear out faster!

Re: Lifting plane on the return stroke - Bother?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>First, the advice to not leave a plane sole down is good advice, given that the intent is not to leave the blade sitting immersed in wood/water.

Second, the drag on the plane may cause more work than lifting for many planes.

Pam

Good question

WoodburnBob

>Why don't you do this: Hone a plane blade to the point it cuts a sheet of paper by just pushing (not slicing) the blade edge into edge of the paper. Look to see there is no light reflected from the blade edge. These are two semi-objective (if not scientific) indications of sharpness.

Load up the blade and fettle your plane to take an average shaving. Then just do dragging back strokes for a while. No shavings. No cutting. Do it 20 times, 50 times, 100 times. Take the blade out and examine it against the paper edge and the reflected light indicators. You then have your own data about whether dragging a plane on the pull stroke dulls the edge.

Re: Good question - What is sharp? *LINK*

Ted Shuck, Centennial, CO

>I think Bob has a good approach to determining if it makes a difference, up to the point of taking the iron out of the plane to test it for sharpness. Brent Beach (see link) has shown that a plane iron will wear primarily on the bevel, making the cutting edge slightly less acute. The iron would still be expected to meet sharpness tests outside the plane, but will not cut well in the plane.

I think if you used Bob's suggested method, but left the iron in the plane and used it to plane some wood, you would get some idea of the effect.

Ted


Brent Beach's "How plane irons wear"

Re: Lifting plane on the return stroke - Bother?

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>An alternatve, compromise, lazy approach is to tilt the plane and drag it back on one edge. Of course, it won't work for edge jointing, and might leave burnished streaks on the final cuts with your go-to smoother, but it works OK with a scrub, jack or foreplane, and even for penultimate smoothing. However, don't try it with the new L-V LA smoother or LA jointer.

Dragging the blade backwards effectively reduces your clearance angle, which makes the blade stop cutting unless you significantly increase the downward pressure on the forward stroke. On a BU plane, it wears a surface you would rather not have to rework every time you resharpen, and puts a much steeper, and therefore disadvantageous, bevel on it than DC's ruler trick.

What you say makes sense, but...

Denis Chénard, Orléans, Ont.

>We are talking about two very different materials in terms of hardness. The hardest wood doesn't even come close to A2 steel at RC 60-62. Sure the wood had to abrade the iron somewhat, it has to. My question is, to what extent?

If by dragging the plane back the edge dulls 10% faster that's something I can live with, considering the reduced effort, speed and precision (the plane being already registered to the wood piece instead of registering it at every stroke). If I have to sharpen twice as often, then that's another matter.

I just don't know what that number is...

DC

Another good resource *LINK*

WoodburnBob

>Ted, re-reading your comment a couple of times, I can see that your idea is right, and better than mine. I've never performed the test I suggested, but I believe dragging the plane back tends to grind, hone, strop the clearance or relief angle to zero as you indicated. And, clearance in crucial.

For those following this thread, reading through Brent's material and Steve Elliott's is highly informative.


Steve Elliott's Site

Re: Lifting plane on the return stroke - Bother?

Jim in Burlington On

>I lift it and clean it out. Not my idea just from watchin Rob Cosman. Also you risk banging your blade and knocking it out of square. It doesn't take much to make a small gouge on almost finished work or get a little piece of wood stuck in the throat and make a horrible little depression. All good reasons to pick to the plane up.

Silica, not cellulose

WoodburnBob

>I think the argument is that silica oxides, i.e. sand-like material, permeates wood, varying from species to species, and that is what is abrasive to steel blades. Teak, I think, is particularly saturated with silica; the flecks in raw teak sparkle if you look closely. I've planed Jatoba (Brazilian cherry) and a few other South American woods and thought they dull keen edges quickly.

I still use newsprint sometimes, with and without ink, to strop edges, because of it's fine abrasive qualities.

Re: Lifting plane on the return stroke - Bother?

Larry Williams

>Hey Denis, of course you should lift the plane on the return. I know several people who strop on just plain wood. Does it make sense to strop at the mounted angle of the blade? I don't think so.

You can also use as heavy a plane as you can get your hands on and simply pocket the cost of a gym membership. I suspect heavy planes contribute to sloppy planing technique or, even worse, not using a plane at all.

Strong Agreement

Dave Anderson Chester, NH

>I strongly agree with Jim. Theories and amount of effort involved aside, why would anyone want to risk damaging either the cutting edge or even worse a workpiece that might be near to completion? If you are surfacing a board that's going to fit into a dado or a plowed groove you and gouge the part, now you have a part that upon rework will either fit loosely or have to be replaced. I'm sure folks can think of lots of other similar scenarios where a moment of laziness or carelessness can cause a lot of extra work and/or expense. In my personal opinion and style, I lift the plane up. Not to do so is something I consider a sloppy work habit and I already have enough of those I'm trying to eradicate.

Re: Another good resource

Ted Shuck, Centennial, CO

>Bob,

I'm glad you had the patience to re-read my post a couple of times. I had a hard time reading it and understanding it after reading yours!! You are correct about what I was trying to say. The clearance angle will be strongly affected by pulling a plane back across the wood. This will prevent the plane from working well, although the iron may still appear sharp.

Thanks for posting the link to Steve Elliott's site.

Best Regards,

Ted

Re: What you say makes sense, but...

Frank D. in Montreal

>Hey denis,

You make a good point about registration, and when it's difficult, like planing a chamfer or at an angle on a small surface, I sometimes drag the plane back not to lose the angle. But when you plane a board that's flat, registration isn't easier if you drag the plane back rather than lift and put it down on its nose. Pressure still has to be on the knob hand (registration is automatic if the nose is in full contact), and you'll still have to line up the cut.

Re: Lifting plane on the return stroke - Bother?

ThomD

>I do sometimes lift. I would with final finishing strokes, or maybe if the wood was dirty or super abrassive, or if the blade as with a scrub plane really projected a lot.

Overall I don't bother, and can't see any real difference in sharpness.

One thing about not lifting which is an advantage is sometimes a little shaving will shift forward and the plane won't cut. If the plane is never lfted, you don't spend all your time reaching in and pulling out shavings.

With some smoothing planes the blade proection is so small that you would be hard put to have it in contact just pushing it back to the start position, it takes a careful efort to get it engaged.

Strong disagreement

Adam Cherubini

>I watched a Rob Cosman video in which he lifted the plane after each deliberate stroke and carefully removed each shaving. To my eyes this was an uncraftsmanly approach which didn't square with Rob's obvious talent and capabilities. It looked contrived.

That sort of fixation on the tool detracts from its purpose in my view. I don't generally think about lifting my planes and generally don't care what happens to them. I know I drag the toes of my long planes unconsciously.

But its not even clear to me that lifting the plane protects the surface or blade better. The lifted plane must be set back down, the blade re-engaged. The faster you work the harder that plane will probably be set back down.

I wouldn't purposely drag my planes backwrads, but being as there's no real pressure like there is stropping or with the forward stroke, I don't see any harm in it. I see plenty of harm the other way, protecting your precious "investment" and not developing skill using planes and getting jobs done.

That's my curmudgeonly 2 cents

Adam

LMAO

Jim in Burlington On

>That's so funny it's uncraftsmanly approach to remove your shavings. Detracts from a tools purpose. I wouldn't purposely drag my planes backwrads. The lifted plane must be set back down. You need a cold one in a brown bottle:) I've watched quite a few people use planes and none that I can remember ever got a useable surface dragged it back over their work.

Re: LMAO

Adam Cherubini

>Jim,

Always happy to amuse!

Seriously, its not the removal of shavings. I do that when I need to...when something gets stuck. Its that ever so careful approach like an artist dabbing at the canvas after each brush stroke and stopping to admire his work. That's what I find uncraftsmanly- not unskillful. The artist is skillful, the craftsman is productive.

A small chest of drawers may have 100bd ft of lumber in it, both sides of which probably needs some cursory attention from a plane. Its true my stock is not curled, my surfaces are rarely fine, but I can finish a job like that in a week or less. I don't have enough time left in my life to complete what I want to complete if it takes 1 hour/bdft. No patron I can attract is willing to pay that sum.

So just for the sake of discussion, a stroke on a 3' long board (requiring little or no foot work) may have a rate of 1/second in my shop. So its bang, bang, bang and sweat and heavy breathing. BTW, that's what the funny hat is for. To keep the sweat off the stock. I think that's a craftsmanly effort. Artists like George Nakashima or Krenov or maybe Cosman can get away with carassing their stock lovingly. But these aren't techniques for we mere mortals. Here arre a few quotes to further amuse you:

"Its wood. You bash it together" my brother Steve

"Trees are evil and deserve to be punished" Roy Underhill

Adam

Another mystery explained!

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Not only the effort needed to produce a paying piece...but we now know about the HAT. :-) JR

Thanks Adam

Denis Chénard, Orléans, Ont.

>You make me feel like I'm not that crazy, after all...

I may get flak for this, but sometimes it seems like some people worship the mechanics of planing more than the end result. The goal is to get a board or panel planed straight and smooth. How you get there is relatively meaningless, IMHO.

I remember reading a while ago about someone, somewhere, who honed his plane blade between each stroke. Come on... That person was not working wood for a living...

DC

I should have mentioned...

Denis Chénard, Orléans, Ont.

>I'm not targeting anyone here with my comments...

DC

Re: LMAO

paul womack

>The artist is skillful, the craftsman is productive.

Of course, as a weekend and evenings hobby-ist (sp?), I can claim neither title.

As I enjoy myself in my workshop, I'm certainly not aiming for high production rates - the doing (for me) is the joy.

I too will something make


And joy in the making!


Robert Bridges (excerpt)

BugBear

Second

Adam Cherubini

>Had you not posted this e-mail, you would have received a rebuke from me. This is not a right or wrong question, and even if it was, I can't give you THE ONE answer. I'm just giving you my perspective.

I know for a fact that there are guys here and elsewhere, involved in woodworking who don't make anything at all. I also know, I've learned a lot from such folks over the years, so we must always be careful not to impose a litmus test. If anything, I consider some of these individuals more valuable because they don't make stuff- they aren't faced with the compromises I am and they have the freedom to explore subjects more thoroughly.

That said, I can only provide you with the view from my knot hole and I say quit gibber gabbering and get back to work. The board's not going to plane itself!

Adam

Re: Lifting plane on the return stroke - Bother?

Todd Stock

>I noticed the tilt-and-return years ago when watching a Frank Klausz video. My guess is that this is a hold-over from wood-bodied planes, which would likely not leave much of a mark with the technique. As to which technique takes more energy, my best engineering guess is that both raise a sweat.

Hey Denis,

Frank D. in Montreal

>Just because you drag your plane on the pull stroke doesn't mean you're not crazy!

Just thought I'd point that out. ;)

Frank