Planes and Difficult Wood

[jackellis]

I thought I had this hand plane stuff solved until I tried planing a piece of ash this afternoon. Nothing but chatter and gouges and tearout. Oak's not much better. All of my bevels are set at 25 degrees (I use a honing guide) and the irons are quite sharp.

I can make thinner than paper thin shavings on pine 2x4s and maple that have nice grain. The ash has grain running every which way and the oak (solid flooring) just will not produce nice thin strips.

A low angle smoother is a possibility at some point but I'm wondering if there's a better way to deal with this using planes with their bevels facing up.

[MikeMcCoy]

Bump because ash gives me the fits also. A back bevel on the blade helps some but even with an almost completely closed mouth, I still get some tear our.

[LarryG]

Try wetting the irregular grain with mineral spirits. I've not had occasion to do this for planing the faces of boards, but it really helps on end grain.

[cabinetman]

Try resetting your iron depth. Back it up until you get no contact. Then make passes as you lower it until you start to get contact. It may help to run more of a skew angle of the plane to the grain. Or, try planing the other direction.
.

[Russianwolf]

what exactly are you trying to do to the piece? Remove a lot of material, Or just get a nice finished surface to it?

The reason I ask is that from what I've seen there is no plane that will do it all. A Jack is the better all purpose plane, but it still will handle some jobs poorly.

I intend to do a lot of work on wild grained woods, that's why I've opted to get a scrapper plane (I just bought a #12 that needs a bit of work, and may pick up a #112 eventually). But these only work as a final finish, it you're trying to hog off a lot of wood, a scrub may be the better plane for that.

Then there's always this (crokett posted it earlier) http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...88&cat=1,41182 If you still get chatter from this beast, you've got major problems.

[jackellis]

I came across this last night. Helped me understand what to use, when, and how to set the mouth:

http://workshop.tjmahaffey.com/downloads/PlaneInfo.pdf

[SARGE..g-47]

You didn't mention which plane you were using... but if you have squirrely grain.. 25* degrees is way to low.. You need at least 45* (standard for a benchie) and probably an iron ground to 50*-55* bevel or York pitch.

You do need to do some reading on planes it sounds, Jack. Derek Cohen down in Australia has a new web-site, BTW. Some excellent articles there. You didn't mention what plane you were using... but as with a set of golf clubs.... you don't use a #9 iron from 175 yards out from the green with a strong head wind.

There's lots to learn about planes... but as with everything else, you start with learning the basics..

[jackellis]

I tried once with a smoothing plane (Stanley 4, Millers Falls 9 and Sargent 409) and again with a low angle block plane. All of this on a piece of scrap that had marks from a planer.

I can get 2x4 lumber as smooth as ... oh right, this is a family web site

It could also be that I need to check the smoother soles again for flatness.

Someone somewhere had mentioned you could do a better job of smoothing a board with a plane than by sanding. Once I got the hang of adjusting the iron, I understood.



No argument about having lots to learn.