Follow up in "Questions about LA planes"

Re: Follow up in "Questions about LA planes"

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Hi Felix,

GLad to hear your happy with your new plane.

I am surprised you are getting tearout on cherry even with reversing grain. You might want to make sure that blade is sharp and the mouth is tight.

WIth a york pitch blade you should be able to plane that wood tearout free.

Dan Clermont

Re: Follow up in "Questions about LA planes"

Greg Sloop, Portland Oregon

>Several notes:

Mouth size does NOT prevent tear-out. What sizing the mouth down DOES do is LIMIT how much tear-out you'll actually see. It does nothing to actually prevent tear-out from occuring - just that it will be smaller, or pehaps invisible to the naked eye.

The tight mouth generally prevents the tear-out from running very far, because the sole of the plane stops it. Tear-out is still occuring however. This is what I call symptom management. Kind of like claiming Sudafed *cures* your cold. No, it doesn't, but it does mask the symptoms for a while. If this is all you can do about the problem/symptom, then perhaps it's the best one can do, but I actually like solving problems, not just masking them.

What does prevent tear-out is the proper total cut angle.

I find that 50 degrees (york pitch) is very often inadequate to stop tear-out on the most highly figured woods I often work. Doesn't matter how small the mouth is, how light the cut, or how sharp the iron is either...

Thus, I've got three *total* cut angles I use that seem to perform very well for nearly every condition I encounter.

These are:

(Iron at 25 deg) 37 Total Cut Angle (TCA) for end grain

(Iron at ~40 deg) 50-53 TCA for most face grain. Most native hardwoods work well here. Exceptions will be very highly figured woods.

(Iron at ~53-55 deg) ~65 TCA for the toughest stuff. I've yet to find anything that can't be planed with virtually no tear out.

(I'm not sure, given how you've described things if your additional iron is 50 degrees or if you're talking about the total cut angle. (38 + 12 bedding = 50...) If it IS the 50 degree iron, then it probably needs sharpening. (I also tend to move up 3-5 degrees above 50 too...)

Some comments on the above:

If you're not going to do end grain with the BUS, then obviously you probably don't need the standard 38 degree setup.

However, you probably don't want to have just one really high angle. It's harder to push, and given most of my experience, the high angles ought to be used only where they're needed. Thus, if you can get a good tear-out surface with a 50 degree total angle, you ought to use it. Thus, having the two angles as described above works better, IMHO.

Glad you like it. I've been very impressed with the whole set.

Cheers,

Greg

Ach...proof reading has it's merits

Greg Sloop, Portland Oregon

>This paragraph should say...

However, you probably don't want to have just one really high angle. It's harder to push, and given most of my experience, the high angles ought to be used only where they're needed. Thus, if you can get a good tear-out [free] surface with a 50 degree total angle, you ought to use it. Thus, having the two angles as described above works better, IMHO.

Re: Follow up in "Questions about LA planes"

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Dunno,

I can pull a flawless surface with a york pitch plane set with a tight mouth and sharp blade.

Maybe I need better eyes

Cheers

Dan Clermont

Re: Have to disagree

Stephen in Ottawa

>In my opinion, a tight mouth with a sharp blade does reduce tearout, not mask it in any way. Ofcourse, the sole of your plane must be flat ahead of the mouth for the tight mouth to have any effect. If it is, then the wood fibres are supported very close to the cutting edge of the blade, thus enabling the blade to slice the fibres cleanly.

I'm not one to over analyse planing dynamics, I go with what I can do with my planes or see someone else do, and I've seen Rob C plane figured grain with a 45 degree blade. He had a very tight mouth on his plane and a very sharp blade. I've had pretty good results with my york pitch frog on birds eye maple myself. One of the disadvantages of going with higher pitches is it makes the plane more difficult to push and the surface is not as smooth as with a blade pitched at a lower angle.

- Stephen

Re: Follow up in "Questions about LA planes"

Felix B.

>I only played with it for a little bit last night - just getting a feel of it.

As I said, I was getting a tear-out using out-of-the-box blades. The 50� blade (62� TCA) produced a very small tear-out compared to one I got when used the standard 38� (York pitch) blade.

I'll sharpen them and I'll try again. However, I tried planing walnut and mahagony with 38� blade and it was flawless.

-Felix

Re: Follow up in "Questions about LA planes"

ThomD

>I think the LA planes are a pretty good thing too. I always say that one should buy planes in the same way one buys chisels: Spend as much or more money and effort on the blade as you do the handle. Otherwise keep it simple. I think that is where the LA works out pretty well. They have a handle on the production of their blades, compared to earlier offering, and the plane itself doesn't get in the way. There is the added advantage of reasonably simple adjustability for various purposes.

The collectivitis that surounds planes these days may someday mature into people buying different planes for various purposes rather than rebuying a series of "improved" models that can't offer a range of cuts without impractical re-adjustments.

Re: Follow up in "Questions about LA planes"

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Hi Felix,

Sharpen it up, close the mouth down to eliminate tearout and give it another go. You should be able to plane that Cherry in both directions with no tearout. If you get tearout let us know as you may have other issues (ie. the sole in front of the mouth is not contacting the wood fibres possibly)

Cheers

Dan Clermont