Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 9:50 pm
I wish all you "ticking (possibly also tocking) guys would get out of my hair!
Ed:
Lotsa good questions. Without a doubt you will not likely find a better "Guru" of handplanes than Chris Schwarz. That's why when he gives an opinion one has to give it a lot of weight.
Schwarz uses three bench planes to surface boards; a #5 or #6 fore plane with a rather pronounced curved blade, ground and sharpened with an 8 to 10 inch radius. He did demonstrate how to grind and sharpen this blade in the class. Actually he demonstrated in detail how to sharpen all of his bench plane blades. The fore plane is used across the grain to rapidly remove wood. Next, he uses the #7 jointer plane, first with diagonal strokes to clean up the fore plane tracks. Then the #7 is used with the griain to flatten the board. Finally, a #3 or #4 smoother plane, set to take very thin shavings, finishes the surface, which then doesn't need sanding.
In the class, members took turns with these planes on a 16" wide, six foot long oak plank. It finished up very well.
Schwarz doesn't like Lie-Nielsen's #4 1/2 smoother plane, stating that this short and wide plane is hard to push & control and will take longer to smooth a board than a #3 or #4.
The sharpening technique is described in his book "Handplane Essentials". Anyone who is seriously considering using hand planes will get a lot of good information here. I have a lot of rough sawn boards, some as wide as 14 inches. Using hand planes I can remove twist and flatten a board quickly, preping it for the planer. Buying a 10 or 12 inch jointer is not an option for many of us who have small shops, thus hand plane skills can go a long ways.
Ed:
Lotsa good questions. Without a doubt you will not likely find a better "Guru" of handplanes than Chris Schwarz. That's why when he gives an opinion one has to give it a lot of weight.
Schwarz uses three bench planes to surface boards; a #5 or #6 fore plane with a rather pronounced curved blade, ground and sharpened with an 8 to 10 inch radius. He did demonstrate how to grind and sharpen this blade in the class. Actually he demonstrated in detail how to sharpen all of his bench plane blades. The fore plane is used across the grain to rapidly remove wood. Next, he uses the #7 jointer plane, first with diagonal strokes to clean up the fore plane tracks. Then the #7 is used with the griain to flatten the board. Finally, a #3 or #4 smoother plane, set to take very thin shavings, finishes the surface, which then doesn't need sanding.
In the class, members took turns with these planes on a 16" wide, six foot long oak plank. It finished up very well.
Schwarz doesn't like Lie-Nielsen's #4 1/2 smoother plane, stating that this short and wide plane is hard to push & control and will take longer to smooth a board than a #3 or #4.
The sharpening technique is described in his book "Handplane Essentials". Anyone who is seriously considering using hand planes will get a lot of good information here. I have a lot of rough sawn boards, some as wide as 14 inches. Using hand planes I can remove twist and flatten a board quickly, preping it for the planer. Buying a 10 or 12 inch jointer is not an option for many of us who have small shops, thus hand plane skills can go a long ways.
