Handplaning

[redraiderjd]

Good Morning All,

I am new to the forum and had a question (lots, but I will start with this one) in regards to hand planing.

I got some old 1.5" thick pine flooring from a salvage store the other day, and in order to get the old stain, sealant, and gunk off, I used a hand plane. Question is, is it normal to have deep cuts in the wood and ridges due to planing? Is this something I shouldnt worry about and will just sand out later or is this something I am doing wrong with the plane? It could also be that I bought the plane from Home Depot a while back and its not of good quality.

Once I rip the edges off of these boards with my table saw (I have not made the investment in a jointer yet) I plan to biscuit them together and will likely need to hand plane the tabletop again and didnt want to destroy the top by cutting it up with the plane. I also will probably need to invest in a larger jack plane at that point?

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

[LCHIEN]

Doesn't sound normal to me.
Planing should leave a smooth surface, take off a very, very thin layer. If you are leaving gouges and peaks then your plane is very out of tune. Have you tuned it at all before using it? Where did it come from? Lots of adjustments to tune, and an well used one needs to be sharpened.

MPC has a detailed list of questions and explanations about how a plane is supposed to work. TUning sets these things to the right settings. A blade needs to be sharp, at the correct angle, very little set below the sole of the plane and level across the plane. THe last, if tilted will gouge one side and leave the other side high.

FInally, I don't think its usually advisable to use planes to remove finishes and paint and dirt.

[mpc]

A few ideas come quickly to mind:
1: how sharp is the blade?

2: how far is the blade extended below the body of the plane? It should take just a thin shaving of material - the shavings should be about as translucent as waxed paper and feel paper-thin.

3: is the cutting edge of the blade dead-straight? An improperly sharpened blade, or a blade that is bent (side-to-side bending), can have the corners deeper than the center portion of the cutting edge leading to grooves. Take the blade out of the hand plane and lay it on a dead-flat surface. If the entire cutting edge rests on the surface then the blade is flat enough. If either corner is "in the air" though the blade is a mess and needs a lot of work. Some plane blades - those intended for rapid stock removal instead of for finishing work - have a "cambered" blade. Such blades are slightly arc-shaped along the cutting edge... the center of the cutting edge cuts deeper than the corners so the corners don't leave gouges in the material. Such blades leave slightly scalloped cuts in the material. Such blades will still lay flat on that dead-flat surface but a ruler placed along the cutting edge will reveal the arc.

4: Are you planing in the correct direction? Hand planes should be moved in the direction of the wood grain. Going "into" the grain is like trying to pet cat fur backwards - it just lifts the wood grain fibers leading to a lot of tear-out. Depending on the material, the tear-out can rip out chunks of wood well ahead of the blade.

5: How hard are you pushing the plane downwards (into the wood)? How hard are you pushing it forwards (along the wood)? Ideally it should not take a whole lot of downward pressure to make the cut... just enough pressure to keep the plane body in contact with the material. If you feel you have to put all of your weight into it...that's too much. Either the plane's sole is not flat or the blade isn't extended far enough. If the plane body isn't flat - i.e. if the body arcs from front to back then the blade isn't in proper contact with the wood. Arcing "up" lifts the blade away from the wood so you end up lowering the blade to compensate... thus the plane sole just in front of the blade isn't in contact with the wood and thus doesn't prevent it from lifting so you get more tearout. The sole of the plane immediately on either side of the opening must be in contact with the wood. Ideally the whole bottom of the plane is in contact but the most important contact areas are the ends and the half-inch or so just in front of the blade opening. If the plane bed is arced the other way - such that the area around the blade is lower than the ends of the sole - then you'll never be able to hold it consistently flat to the workpiece so your depth of cut will vary... at too much depth of cut = big chunky shavings and tear-out.

6: Wood with a lot of "figure" (grain that changes direction a lot) is harder to plane because you'll be planing "with the grain" at some spots and "against the grain" a moment later. Thin shavings help with that. The angle of the blade relative to the wood, and the angle of the blade's bevel, also play a big role. It's somewhat counter-intuitive but the more perpendicular the cutting edge is to the wood the more resistant the plane will be to making tear-out in figured wood. You'd think a cutting edge nearly parallel to the wood would lead to a smoother cut but in actually that is more like a lever trying to lift wood fibers leading to more tear-out. Do a Google search on "card scraper" or "cabinet scrapers" for images of a tool used almost perpendicular to the wood. Scrapers are basically a thin sheet of metal, with a slight "burr" on an edge, moved across the wood to take the finest of shavings and were used to do final smoothing of wood before sandpaper existed. "Low angle" planes & blades (cutting edge angle closer to zero - i.e. the blade is more flat relative to the wood) are good when cutting through the end grain of a board but not so good along the face grain of a board. (end grain = like cutting the ends of a box of straws, face grain=cutting along the length of straws)

7: Is the chip breaker too far back? The chip breaker is the beefy metal bit holding the blade to the plane body. It should have a rounded part right next to the cutting edge of the blade. The chip breaker should be VERY close to the cutting edge of the blade - almost as close as you can get it. And the lower part of the chip breaker touching the blade should be DEAD FLAT and in contact with the blade along the entire width. The rounded portion is on the TOP of the chip breaker. The chip breaker is supposed to take the shavings coming from the blade and quickly bend them forward - busting the fibers just after they've been cut. This prevents those cut/lifted fibers from prying up the fibers ahead of the blade - i.e. the chip breaker reduces the blade's desire to lever fibers up and out of the wood which in turn reduces tear-out. An improperly adjusted chip breaker lets the fibers retain structural strength so they pry up ahead of the blade. If the chip breaker isn't in firm contact with the blade then wood fibers can wedge into that gap and do all sorts of undesirable things... lots of wedge action.

8: is the wood being planed well supported? A long board bridged across saw horses will flex and hand planes don't work too well when trying to cut the inside of an arc. The ends of the plane ride the arc, the blade and throat/mouth of the plane end up above the wood which is the same as that non-flat plane described in #5.

9: is the blade well supported in the plane body? The wedge-shaped part of the body that holds the blade is called the "frog" assembly. It MUST be level from side-to-side and from the throat opening to a bit above the throat. That area supports the blade. Without that support, the blade will flex a bit leading to a lot of chatter. Chatter means "inconsistent cutting" which in turn means tear-out and other poor-quality cut issues. The frog needs to be adjusted to line up with the back of the throat opening too. If the frog is too far back then the throat edge ends up lifting the blade off the frog. If the frog is too far forward then the edge of the throat isn't touching the back of the blade so that last little bit of blade support is missing. And it means the opening in front of the blade is smaller which may choke the shavings being made.

Tips for adjusting the blade in the plane:
1: Get a thin scrap of soft wood like pine. Ideally it's several inches long, about an inch wide, and a quarter inch thick. Hold the plane upside down and run the quarter inch edge along the center of the blade. Adjust the blade to get a paper-thin shaving.

2: Then run the scrap along either end of the blade and see if you get the IDENTICAL thickness shaving to what you got from the center of the blade. If one side is thicker or thinner then the blade is rotated in the plane body. Some hand planes have a side-to-side moving lever to adjust this angle; on others you gently tap the non-sharp end of the blade with something to rotate the blade.

3: once adjusted, make sure the "lever cap" (the item that locks the blade to the plane body) adjustment screw is tight enough to actually hold the blade in that position. The lever cap screw should be loose enough that you can adjust the blade in-out and side-to-side with the lever cap locked... but not so loose that using the plane can shove the blade out of position.

Some materials won't hand plane very well. Anything "glued" like chipboard, particle board, MDF, and plywood are poor candidates for hand planes.

mpc

[JR]

Welcome to the forum redraiderjd!

You have dived right in to the deep end. Planing is a skill that takes a lot of practice, a lot of sharpening experience, and a lot of experience setting up your tools.

I got some old 1.5" thick pine flooring from a salvage store the other day,

Nice score!

and in order to get the old stain, sealant, and gunk off, I used a hand plane.

I'd probably start with stripper. Chemicals deal with that kind of stuff a lot better than tools.

Question is, is it normal to have deep cuts in the wood and ridges due to planing? Is this something I shouldnt worry about and will just sand out later or is this something I am doing wrong with the plane?

It is not normal and you should worry about it. Sanding will not fix this problem. I think of it this way: Cutting tools shape the wood, sandpaper prepares it for finishing.

It could also be that I bought the plane from Home Depot a while back and its not of good quality.

No doubt, but that should not inhibit you from giving it a try! Good planes are expensive, but I've spent a lot of time using cheap ones in order to "hone" my skills (yuk!).

Once I rip the edges off of these boards with my table saw (I have not made the investment in a jointer yet) I plan to biscuit them together and will likely need to hand plane the tabletop again and didnt want to destroy the top by cutting it up with the plane. I also will probably need to invest in a larger jack plane at that point?

Unfortunately, a whole array of hand planes are required to properly prepare wood. I wouldn't want to scare you off learning how to use planes, but there is no loss of face in purchasing a lunch-box planer from Ridgid or Ryobi for this kind of project. A good Lie-Nielsen #5 plane can cost as much as a Ryobi power planer, then you're still several hand planes shy of a quorum.

It sounds like you have a very cool project in mind, but it's going to take a long time to learn the necessary skills going about it this way. If I was in your shoes I'd take that nice 1.5" stock and strip it, power-plane it, rip it, biscuit it, sand it, finish, and shout Eureka!

[Pappy]

No doubt the plane you have is not the best quality but not the worst either. Haven't looked in a while but HD sells either Buck or the new Stanley planes if I remember correctly. It can be tuned to work well. I once tuned a HF special just to see if I could get decent shavings from it. Like has been said, hand planning takes a lot of practice to tune and use them but once you get it down can be a relaxing experience.

[vaking]

No doubt the plane you have is not the best quality but not the worst either. Haven't looked in a while but HD sells either Buck or the new Stanley planes if I remember correctly. It can be tuned to work well. I once tuned a HF special just to see if I could get decent shavings from it. Like has been said, hand planning takes a lot of practice to tune and use them but once you get it down can be a relaxing experience.

Don't worry about brand or cost of a plane. All my planes are cheap. I have Stanley #4 from Lowes, Buck #5, Stanley #6, Harbor Freight #33, block planes by Stanley and Footprint. All together they cost probably less than one Lie-Nelson or Veritas. But they work. In order to make a good table surface you will probably need #4,#5 and either #6 or #7. Hand planes are the most universal tool. Lunch box power planer can make a flat board but it will not work on a table surface after glue up. A good sander can make a surface smooth but it can't make it flat.

[capncarl]

Old pine isn't the easiest wood to plane. The iron must be really sharp and set to only take off a whisper. It will dull a blade really fast. Everyone has covered the plane set up quite well. Good luck and welcome aboard
capncarl