surfacing rough stock

Re: surfacing rough stock

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Hi Chico,

YOu don't have to throw them in the air and I don't recall seeing Rob throwing shavings in the air at the woodshow this year. However Rob does believe in removing the shavings from the plane before taking another swipe.

Was Rob not removing every shaving from your planes after every cut? Tsk, Tsk, was he using one of your Veritas or LN's?

I don't remove every shaving from my plane either unless I am edge jointing or doing a final smooth. Takes too long but then yet again my work doesn't look like Robs

Have a Good Night Chico

Dan Clermont

Re: speed is good

Dean J in MN

>Frank,

I have found considerable evidence that the scrub plane was not built for cabinetmakers, but instead for carpenters.

In Stanley's catalogs from the early 20th century, the company touted the plane as being useful for when a rip saw was not appropriate. And the plane was mostly a 20th century phenomenon, and it disappeared after the circ saw was invented.

Chris --

My 2d...

I tend to agree with your findings. I see a scrub plane as a "more controllable" hatchet for edge work, the fore seems to be have the choice for face work. However, the hatchet is much quicker for edge work. :)

-Dean

Re: surfacing rough stock

alan womack

>I got the chance to take the week long training the hand course that Rob teaches, and you do EVERYTHING by hand there except putting the initial bevel on a blade, which you do use a grinder for.

Sometimes making the initial side sit flat on the bench took all of us a LONG time, like an hour in a couple of cases. I noted that nearly always I would scrub almost the entire rough surface off the boards diagnonally before I could get them to sit truly rock proof.

When working to get the initial side flat enought to sit on the bench, you can burnish the high spots to help spot them a lot of the time by pressing hard and rubbing on the bench surface.

Also I started to notice that you could use a single finger to move along the diagonals of the board to find the general area of a high spot.

So, coming from memory: Note my scrubplane is longer as it's a Knight

1. scrub diagonal both directions to knock off most of the crude and to get to fresher wood. This helps knock off some high spots too.

2. Flip the board and check for rocking. Always pay special attention to the ends. Use your finger to walk along the diagonals putting point pressure to find the fulcrum of the rock.

3. Knock of the percieved high spots and a couple more you thing might look funny. It can help to use the edge of your plane at this point to look for high spots too.

4. Repeat 2 and 3 a number of times. Use light pressure to test for a rock.

5. Now I always used my scrub on steep diagonals to start knocking off the crud for upcoming reference face. Rather have a chip on my scrub than on my jointer plane!

6. Use the jointer a bit to knock off the last of the rough stuff. Now do some checking for twist.

7. Deal with the twist now, plane diagonaly high side to high side.

8. Start to plane mainly with the grain from here and recheck for twist when you are starting to get somewhat smoothed out.

9. Finish flattening with your smooth plane. Check with a straight edge for convex or concave, and recheck again for twist or wind.

10. Mark this new face as your reference and joint one edge square.

After that you pretty much know. But be aggressive in the initial flatting for it to sit on the bench. This process can take quite a bit of time!

i feel better now

frank_shic (walnut ck, ca)

>alan, thanks for your input as my initial question was mainly about rob cosman's method! although i've since learned that it is possible to use the scrub, the jointer or the jack to accomplish this task. thanks especially for being genuine enough to admit that the process can take time - i spent at least two hours in the garage thinking that i had gotten close only to have more rocking on the next go around. i tried cosman's method of burnishing which probably works as well as the winding sticks provided that your table top surface is as hard or harder than your wood. unfortunately, i've got a PINE benchtop which i don't think cuts the mustard for burnishing.

Re: i feel better now

Paul Kierstead

>You get much much much faster at it with time. It often takes me only a few minutes (often only 2 or 3) with a jack or a scrub :) but it used to take me ages. After a while you get a real feel for how much and where. I expect to get even faster at it.

Re: i feel better now

Arw01

>You are more than welcome. SOMETIMES you get lucky and it only takes a bit of time to get it flat. Anything under 10 minutes is very fast. One board Rob worked in class took my about 20 minutes to get it truly flat. He doesn't allow ANY rock in the board, feels it throws off the whole process. Watching him in class, he is super fast and precise. When getting ready to lay out the pieces for the dovetails, they are flat to .001 definetly. I slacked a bit and would put up with .002 to .003. I know .005 can be spotted across the room by a woodworker.

I have some of those in this project..

Beech lumber from two local sources, one a massive cabinet maker that sells their reject wood, and the other a local source. there is some different in wood thickness, but I tried to hide that down inside. :)

That whole project except for sawing and routing was done with handplanes. My son did ask that I sand the wood to make it soft. :)

Alan

Alan, in the Cosman method

Wiley Horne--Glendora, CA

>when you are working the initial side, what do you do to keep the board steady under scrubbing pressure?

I capture the board with as little pressure as I can get away with between bench dogs, and then shim whatever corners are in the air so that the board'll hold still while I work it, and not rock away from the pressure. However, this is self taught, so I thought I'd ask what the professionals do.

Wiley

Re: Alan, in the Cosman method

Arw01

>There were two methods used.

Rob would try to use nothing more than a dog for a planning stop. If this didn't work, a scrap piece was used to bridge the gap on the bench's tail vise so the board always sat completely on the bench and barely any pressure used to hold it.

So you are pretty much figuring it out on your own just fine.

personally I have clamped boards crosswise in my vise a few times to scrub them. It's a lot of bearing service and doesn't require much pressure if you are scrubing diagonally.

Alan