>For those who have organized or participated in one such event...
We will be using a hard maple board for the contest at the plane orgy, as I gather is the custom. The question I have is, what happens in case of a tie among the top contestants. Our inclination was to use in a playoff another species that is harder to get a thin shaving from. I thought clear white pine would do the trick, as my (limited) experience has shown me that it is harder to get a thin shaving from such a soft wood. Another suggestion was to use purpleheart, yet another was to use poplar.
What would you suggest? The idea is to have a species that's hard to take a thin shaving from, not something that's hard to plane without tearout, which is not the goal here.
>As someone who tied in a plane contest last year, I have a recommendation. Run the contest again with the same rules for just the two that tie. There are two reasons for this. One is that both the contestants and the judge have experience with the format and the rules, so there are fewer uncertainties. The other is that the contestants have prepared for the maple contest so it is kind of annoying to be changing species. I think if you want versatility to be part of the contest, you can incorporate it into the main contest.
I know I've already told you what I think, but I thought I'd throw this out to see if anyone else would care to comment. Having planed a lot of white pine, I say it's dead easy to take a thin shaving from this species if there are no knots (clear white pine is one of the easiest species to plane). Furthermore, at sub .001", there is very little difference between a white pine shaving and a hard maple shaving.
>Is this an edge planing thing or a surface planing thing? You need to decide what you are measuring. If you are trying to measure the combination of a plane's merits with the tuning and skill of the handler, go for a surface shaving metric. Pick whatever metric you want - shaving length, consistant width of the shaving, shaving transparency, the sky is the limit.
Personally, I like competitions where the contestants have a set amount of time to take a rived board to a finished dimension. It measures the skill, not the tool.
>Well, I was told by other people that taking a thin shaving is a combination of plane selection, blade sharpness, and contestant's ability.
The board will be hard maple, 1 1/2" thick, from which we will plane the edge. Our rules demand a full-length, full width shaving (anything less will not be considered for judging), an average of the readings at four pre-determined spots on the board will be used to crown a winner.
>I agree with Warren's idea of having the tied contestants doing the same contest again, and measuring the new shaving; they would hardly be tied twice. So far as planing against the grain, wouldn't contestants be allowed to plane the board in either direction? Or are you planning on having a rule that they can only plane in x direction, and you specify the direction they plane? So far as a full length shaving, are you talking about the full length of the board? Very few people, if any, will be able to take a shaving the full length of the board. The planing contests I was in the length of the shaving was a factor in the score, so a longer shaving received more points. I find planing contests somewhat interesting and entertaining but the application to actual woodworking is slim. Kind of like racing cars. But then again, look at what car racing has done for the automobile industry.
>I am not an expert on these contests, but I've participated in a few of them that were run by Moses and/or Lee Scheirer at Grumbines' picnic and Thompsons' Indyfest. In both cases, the task was to take the longest, thinnest continuous shaving off the edge of a 5/4 maple board. Shavings were mic'd at three or four places and were stretched out along a table for length measurement.
Wood density, width and general planeability are the key factors in this type of contest, as most people can sharpen to a mirror edge and guide their planes reasonably well. The contestants' weight and strength are factors, too, but only vis-�-vis the density and creaminess of the wood. Softer woods like white cedar and pine -- even poplar -- put up less resistance to the edge, so they tend to be easier for lighter contestants to plane. Hard maple, especially if it has any switchbacks in the grain, can be a real bear by comparison. Your notion of using a 1 1/2" thick board is very ambitious, unless the contestants are all gorillas. Different species fall somewhere on the same density/feed resistance continuum. I think you need to design your contest so that it is not so easy that everyone succeeds in getting thin, full length shavings, but not so difficult that no one does.
There are other options for planing contests, I should think. I liked
David Miller's suggestion to plane something to dimension, or perhaps just to flatten a board, perhaps within a certain amount of time. Judging criteria would be flatness and surface quality in that case. Maybe you want to give style points, too.
Another twist would be to require everyone to use the same plane. Each contestant could sharpen it to his/her liking. This would level one part of the playing field.
>Maybe the contest should have more than one task that needs to be accomplished and each one earns you a certain number of points. First the initial task of one long thin shaving. The other as was mentioned of squaring a board in a certain time period. Lets face it we all have a number of planes for any number of tasks. It seems rather shortsighted to only have a contest to see who can plane the longest and thinest shaving. Take a look at your arsenal of planes and think about the many things we use them for, smoothing a flat surface is just scratching the surface of what many of try to accomplish with all of those planes we have collected and fettled until they run like we think they should.
How about pulling out the big guns the number 7 and 8 and seeing on a board of certain dimensions who can make that board the flattest with the least amount of variations.
Or start with the scrub and go to flat and square in X amount of time using a certain number of planes to show proficiency. Now that sounds fun to me.
Lots of options and I'm sure with some thought this could get really fun and interesting.
>Or another option is to say they can only win if they reduce the shaving size. In my experience you can sometimes win by doing higher quality cut with more consistancy. So let's say someone wins at .0006. Then they would have to mike out at 1/10000 better or more in order to win. You are forcing them to do the same cut but at a higher standard.
