Building a jointer - opinion sought

Re: I think they do have the edge in efficiency...

ThomD

>John,

Have you mortised one? Where the Krenov ones are concerned I allow 45 minutes to make them and about half that is all the details you need for any plane. I'm sure others are faster, since the only jig I have is one I used to use for routing the cap screws (no longer use breakers for the most part). But that said, how long does it take to chop out the stuff you need to remove from the average bench plane. To get it to the stage where you are where you would be with the sawn routine after glue-up it's not a long procees. It takes me a while because I don't have much practice or some of the necesary tools. But the working pro can probably do it in 10 minutes to 30 minutes.

Where the sawn routine ("Krenov")is fast is in comparing the hand mortising process to a power tool process for the resawn method. Hardly fair, except that for many of us those are the tools we have. But if we are asking why these forms exist, then we can dial in past and present technologies where I expect the mortised plane is a lot faster. A properly designed mortiser should get the block in a minute or so. And at that point you are pretty close to where the Krenov style is after glue-up.

Re: thoughts on laminations

ThomD

>Actual wax encapsulation on Lignum Vitae, not merely the ends. It's as stable as a snake. Shipped pretty wet. Vine like stock it gets cut form the days of huge pieces for ship's bearings are pretty much past. Of course people make it work, but as far as it being a big improvement, it's hard for me to see.

Diamond wood is that stuff they use in pens, multi laminated, and in one form impregnated with resin. I tried to make a plane out of it, but it was pretty miserable in the large sizes. Maybe it would be better now that I have a metal saw. But it is stable.

http://ruger.com/Firearms/FAProdView?model=11302&return=Y

Thanks Mike

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>

Re: Building a jointer - opinion sought

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I admit to never having built a laminated plane, have only built Japanese chopped; but it does seem a hassle, all that gluing and sanding.

Interesting that the blade placement turns out not to be much of a factor from an engineering standpoint. I wonder why Inomoto-san made such a point of his starting point being n shaku from the toe/heel?

Pam

Re: Building a jointer - opinion sought

ThomD

>Well I guess maybe he was providing us with the traditional layout which is something one wants to know. Also I'm certainly not suggesting the traditional layouts aren't the best. It's just that in my design activities I often come across stuff where there seem to be data points across a the spectrum which tends to leaves me thinking it's a wash. Sure it ends up turning out that there are specific reasons, and it isn't all a wash but it can turn out to be secondary characteristics that are determinative, as in this case where the cutting dynamics don't change that much, but it maters were one places the handle, or how the plane reacts to distortions from the blade.

Re: I think they do have the edge in efficiency...

John in New Mexico

>I've only done a couple mortised planes and one glued up. The mortised ones, I drilled the throats, and roughed down to the lines, then carefully pared the bed flat (not having a float). Having the proper tools for the job would probably cut the time considerably down from the hour or so that I took. By comparison, the whole operation on the skewed bed of the glued up one took about ten minutes, not counting stock prep- you'd do that on a mortised one too, though the individual operations and parts are different. But that was using a compound miter saw, rather than hand tools.

I keep forgetting about the mortiser you mention, having never seen one. Is it kinda like a chain mortiser or one of those oscillating blade things? (I've never seen one of those either)

John

Yeah, suppose so,

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>might be a good idea to ask him if the chance arises.

Pam

Re: Building a jointer - opinion sought

Paul Kierstead

>... but it does seem a hassle, all that gluing and sanding.

Let us assume you are a reasonably well equiped woodworker and you have:

- bandsaw. TS could do in a pinch.

- handplane or two

- couple of clamps

- drill press.

You take your 4-square stock, rip 2 cheeks off of it, plane smooth, cut the middle block (really not that hard), plane smooth, clamp togather, drill, take apart, place glue, put togather with dowels for alignment, clamp.

Now assuming you have the plane design in hand, that really ought not to take more then half an hour (or an hour maybe the first time if you're real careful) and is certainly not very much work; very basic woodworking indeed. After this, you have a basic body done.

I think you are vastly over-stating the effort required to laminate, regardless of whatever merits various schemes offer.

Re: I think they do have the edge in efficiency...

ThomD

>Sounds good John. What remains is trying the resaw method by hand, and the mortise method by power. :)

I don't know what these mortisers look like. Inamoto's blanks showed lines in the sidewall where one knife came in to cut about 1/8" of the bed, alternating with a second knife cutting the outfeed.The mouth was not formed by this process, though it could have been on a separate machine. He lost two fingners to this monster. Presumably some machine exists to mass produce the Japanese dai of today, or the ECE bodies, or the Chinese ones. One thing I do is drive a 1/4" slot as far down into the mouth areas as possible, it's fast and makes a great place for the chips to escape. I have toyed around with making it come from two angles so I could rough the whole mortise. I bet some form of chain would work also.

Thanks, Paul...

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I did read Finck's book. It doesn't look all that difficult, just fussy, several tasks I don't enjoy, like dowelling and sanding, power sawing. This was after I learned how to make a Japanese plane, in which the most fiddly process is the blade contour fitting, lots of back and forth with graphite and checking out whether I've gotten close enough. Much of that goes away for subsequent dai making, but not all.

So, assuming I'll always use Japanese blades and that the most time consuming part is precisely fitting the blade and that that process must happen regardless of how the dai is formed, there's no real advantage to making a laminated dai and several potential disadvantages.

Where I do see value in the Finck process and result is when making small planes for one temporary use with smaller, lighter blades. For example, hollows and rounds and other molding planes that I wouldn't expect to use all that often.

Pam

One more thing about glue

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I don't know if I've concocted my own superstition, but it seems to me that while glue does indeed bond the wood in a superior fashion, it seems to weaken the wood around it in some way that allows the wood to break very close to said glue line. For example, I can easily break apart wood near a glue line that I couldn't begin to break were it a sold piece. Maybe it's the challenge of a glue line that brings about super strength or maybe it's grain weakness or maybe something else, but this seems real to me.

Pam

yes, I agree on that one...

Paul Kierstead

>It always bugs me a little when people say that the "glue is stronger then the wood", which might be true, but clearly a glue joint is not generally stronger then no joint (very easily demonstrated). I think breaking the fibers makes things weaker.

However, I don't think it is an issue in plane construction; rigidity might be a factor, but I don't know that a glue line is more or less rigid (which is not at all the same thing as strength).

I see you point quite clearly on the Japanese planes, and I would agree that tradition western planes are much more aesthetically pleasing then krenov style ones (though there are a lot of finishing touches on something like a C&W which could be translated to a Krenov style, but usually aren't), but I don't see any hard evidence that they are inferior in performance (not that performance is everything). Your anecdote about your own twisting laminated planes is a good data point, but wood planes cover an awful lot of ground in construction (wood selection alone is a monster factor) that I think it needs something more concrete to be convincing one way or the other, performance wise. Unfortunately, I expect your characterization of krenov-style planes have both kick-started discussion (good) and also polarized the camps a some (not so good, leads to too much dogma and not enough thoughtful discussion). Mind you, I think some discussions need this kind of kick start, sometimes.

Re: Building a jointer - opinion sought

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>I honestly think that people make life much more difficult than it really has to be. I think perhaps the main reason we do is so that we can feel like we are worth something, in other words to feel good about ourselves. While a plane does need enough toe area and heel area to work well, the actual proportions could vary quite a bit and still work well. But if the plane is not built in such a fashion that it looks like we are used to seeing a plane look, we will probably not like the looks of the plane and therefore will think it does not work well. I would also say I have debated the morticing versus laminating a plane myself. I have a very nice piece of ebony; when I saw the piece, I knew it would be a plane. At the time, I was thinking it would be a laminated plane. Later on I thought about ripping into that ebony chunk which took probably about 40 years to grow and would have to say I cannot rip it apart just to laminate it back together again. On the other hand, I have never made a morticed plane, so I might destroy the piece of wood forever. Thus you can see my life becomes extremely complicated to the extent I can hardly sleep at night sometimes from fretting over things that really do not amount to much more than one bean.

Re: yowza! How far . . .

Paul in NJ

>The front of the mouth is 12-1/4 inches from the front of the plane. The balance point is midway at 18", just in front of the handle. The plane is not light but it nestles comfortably up against your forearm.

Paul Dzioba

Re: Building a jointer - opinion sought

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>OK, Moses, then let's all stop fretting and go somewhere else; because none of our discussions really matter in the great scheme of things. At least that's how I interpret your missive. Do you now want to talk about marriage, children, religion, politics, or what?

I don't worry about the proper relationship of plane elements because otherwise I'd feel worthless, give me a break. I do it because I'm trying to make sense of the relationships that exist.

I agree that you probably will want to, assuming you really want to make an ebony plane (personally, I think ebony might be a bit brittle, but you wouldn't be the first), make it something special.

Pam

Re: yes, I agree on that one...

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>It always bugs me a little when people say that the "glue is stronger then the wood", which might be true, but clearly a glue joint is not generally stronger then no joint (very easily demonstrated). I think breaking the fibers makes things weaker.

Now I'm at a loss, Paul. If you make this statement, how could you posit that a glued up plane is as good as a solid plane, given same wood, etc.? Even solid planes break near the corners with use (I'm not talking about blowing out cheeks).

Pam

Re: yes, I agree on that one...

Paul Kierstead

>I don't *believe* the sort of failure exhibited by a glue joint is a factor in planes, or in other words, I don't thing the stresses are in that plane (no pun intended). As well, it seems in my experience that failure is largely catastrophic; there is not additional 'flex' introduced by a glue joint.

I could be swayed, but so far have not seen any evidence presented to the contrary. Mind you, I still want a C&W, or would be pleased to make one of that quality (not bloody likely).

Re: Apologies for jumping in...

steve knight

>I have thought long and hard about �chopping out my planes� but I can�t see doing it unless I am doing mass production. Plus that means some expensive machines. Working with tropical�s has it downsides. Trying to mill a 3� ramp at 45 degrees in purpleheart would be no easy chore. I would think I would atleast need a cnc 4 axis mill to do it. I have thought of dovetailing the sole to the body but the woods I can get are pretty much as thick as I can get. 8/4 for the body wood and 4/4 for the sole and I need all of it. So then I would need a floating dovetail.

It gets worse and worse (G) even though I am setting up a cnc router for bringing in outside work in my shop I don�t see it doing a huge amount for my plane making.

Re: A little update ****

steve knight

>looking good. not sure where you got some of those great idea's though (G)

anyone who wants to come and chop mortises out of ipe or purpleheart or jarrah are whelcome to do so. hope you live long enough (G)

Re: A little update ****

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>Hi Steve

Looking familiar, is it?! < grin >

My inspiration definitely comes from you and Terry Gordon.

Actually, I began this jointer as part of the bevel up plane making venture initiated by Ron Hock on the Porch. Ron was kind enough to let us all have blades at a reduced amount. Since I had recently built a BU infill smoother I decided that I would rather make a big jointer (for edges), something I have wanted for a long time. I tried to make this body BU, but the blade was too short. I didn't fancy cutting it low to accommodate the blade as I thought it would induce flex over this length - so the BU project became a BD one.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: A little update ****

steve knight

>bevel up and wood don't work well. I did a few with a metal plate to support the iron. but a wooden wedge or the design made the plane really hard to adjust. you need fine control so I think a screwcap is a must.

but I did have to rib you a bit.

Re: A little update ****

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>The HNT are bevel down when used in scraper mode, work great. Intuitively I think I understand this, something about the main stress being 90� rather than, say, 55�; but I can't quantify this.

Pam

Oops, meant to say HNT are bevel up when...

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>

Wooden BU planes - just for Steve!

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>Well Steve, it must be placed on record that the BU woodie I made several years ago is still going strong. Admittedly, this one does not get a lot of use. It is a 15 degree bedded Jarrah chamfer plane. This uses a couple of old Mathieson tapered and laminated irons (one for face grain, the other for end grain).

The BU infill smoother I recently built (using the shell of a Stanley #3) has Jarrah infill and a bed of 25 degrees. This plane has been a stunning success! It has a superlative performance on the most difficult grain, and is right up there with the best smoothers I have used.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Apologies for jumping in...

John in New Mexico

>A cnc mill might be usefull if you could do a lot of other jobs with it, but I agree with you as far as not over-investing in tooling - not to re-hash old ground, I think that was one of Shepherd's mistakes. I say, if you've got a good thing going, don't abandon it for a method that is a dubious improvement at best.

A friend and I have been discussing mortisers for making 5 1/2" through mortises for doors. He has described some kind of oscillating knife deal that sounds like what Thom is talking about for roughing. I've never seen one, so I probably shouldn't attempt to describe it, but it sounds like a big version of barber's clippers, essentially a set of pronged knives that oscillate side to side making little shearing cuts. I still maintain that in that case a chain mortiser is the way to go, but that's really a topic for the other side.

John