Another shapton Q

Certainly adds some perspective, Joel, thanks.

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

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Re: Reality...

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Yes, normally, like in car racing, I'd agree with you; but in the case of the kezurou-kai I submit that the competition is much more rooted in reality, maybe just a tad over the top.

Pam

Re: Plane competition

elmariachi

>Joel, If you ask any professional or experienced carpenters/timber framers in Japan, they will all swear that whispy thin shavings produce better surface. You simply can not dismiss that all of them must be full of bogus, or assuming they must have no idea how to distinguish smooth surfaces, because we are not experts or actual practitioner of Japanese carpentry. Honestly do you really think Japanese woodworkers have no idea how to properly smooth a surface? It is irresponsible for being so sure about their faults simply because we work in a different woodworking logic and traditions. Just my two cents.

Re: Plane competition

ThomD

>I'm all for the whispy shavings (though Joel is right about what happens when finish is used). I wanted to do furniture that way when I started out 25 years ago. The actualy number of situations where unfinished wood is a reasonable alternative have turned out to be few, for me at any rate. I wish someone like Simon Watts would go to Japan, and come back with a book called "Building a housefull of Japanese Furniture". I don't see much progress in the whole Japanese woodworking scene in 25 years. I have the Brackett book in hand and hope that will be an inspiration.

I haven't had any problem getting 4/10000" shavings sharpening on the King 8000. If one needs a few hundred dollars more Shapton stones to do the same, I'm not buying them.

I have an iron flatening plate and grit. LV sells/sold them. Your right about them producing a fantastic finish on the back of a blade. The process also semi-permanently blackens your hands. I haven't done it in a while I guess I could use rubber gloves now that John Wayne has passed on.

Re: Plane competition

Joel

>How whispy? (there is whispy and there is "planing contest whispy) incidently nice soft open pored wood measured with a caliper (or any compression means) will read thinner than nice hardwood as the softwood compresses into the pores.

BTW do those carpenters put any finish on their planed wood? or do they leave it to age in the elements?

Incidently if you want a shiny burnished surface rub the wood with a handfull of shavings.

Again my issue isn't planing by professionals, it's trying to extrapolate practice frfom competitive planers who are much much different in the details.

Re: Plane competition

elmariachi

>Hi Joel, thanks for your response, but I am talking in regard to your dismissal about Japanese method of final planing. Japanese carpenters use a full size plane 70mm+ to take thin and wide passes on stocks to create smooth and burnished surface. You seem to be very dismissive of that whole logic, insisting the superiority of traditional Western planing method of taking thicker shaves etc... That is my issue, unless you are very aware of the planing properties of the softwoods they use in Japan. Yes Japanese carpenters use softwoods predominantly, and surfaces are either left bare, or finished with kakishibu among others. I believe they also use an array of burnishing and texturing tools. Their method obviously won't work for Western furniture making based on hardwoods, which is more prone to tear. But of course, Japanese equivallent of woodworkers (Shashimonoshi) also work quite differently from carpenters, and they use an array of much smaller planes and scrapers to work on various kinds of hardwoods.

Re: Plane competition

Joel

>I'm not at all dismmisive - what I am saying is that the tricks using in a planing compettion to get a shaving as competiively thin as needed in a contest are a lot thicker than what is needed in the field for anyone to finish plane. You are right of course that when you apply the techniques of planing Japanese softwoods to Western furniture hardwoods the ideas become even less applicable but what is thin to a Japanese carpenter is still a lot thicker than the contest planer shaving (if it wasn't there wouldn't be much of a contest).

Re: Plane competition

elmariachi

>yeah, though I bet in real life (job site), none of those carpenters actually sharpen and tune all day long to make shavings like they try to do at the competition. In kezuro competition, some of them use really wide 7" blade planes (2-man job) too. Now that's what I call not so practical in real life (although I'm sure some may argue)

Re: Plane competition

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Oh, I know one and of several US woodworkers who have and use, alone, 5"-6" planes for planing posts and beams. This is practical and real.

Pam