Shopsmith Forums

There are so many ways we learn woodworking. Magazines. TV shows. Podcasts. Books. Web Forums. Trial and error. I’m sure I left a few out. Last weekend I decided to take a class at Mike Siemsen’s School of Woodworking just outside of St Paul. The full weekend class was broken into 3 sections. (1) Sharpening Chisels, Plane Irons and Scrapers. (2) Tuning Hand Planes. (3) Using Hand Planes. It was a great way for me to learn about planes and scrapers and meet some nice people too. I feel a lot of the mystery of hand planes has been cleared up for me.

I had never used a scraper before. Using a file, sandpaper taped to glass and a burnisher we were able to get the scraper set up with the proper burr. I’m looking forward to putting this to work in my shop.

I finally understand what planes I should buy. I actually was able to buy a very nice Stanley No. 4 smoother from Mike for $25, which I then proceeded to sharpen and tune for the rest of the class.

Mike owns hundreds of planes of all shapes, sizes and type. He demonstrated many of them to us but pointed out the 3 basic planes we need. I added a 4th to my list.

1) A Fore plane like a Stanley No. 26 with a curved blade. Could substitute a jack plane. The curved blade removes a lot of material quickly.

2) A Try Plane Like a Stanley No. 8 for jointing the edge or flattening the face after the rough work is done with the Fore plane.

3) A Smoothing plane like a Stanley No. 4 to make a very smooth surface after steps 1 and 2 above. Needs no sanding, maybe a little scraping.

4) I added a low angle block plane to my list, like a Stanley No. 60 ½. Very useful for so many things.

Mike edge joined 2 large white pine boards with hide glue the second morning. He made sure each edge was perfect, laid one board on edge in the side clamps of his joiner’s bench, applied the hide glue to both boards, then just set the second board in place on top of the first, no clamps. Toward the end of the afternoon he surprised us all by kicking the top board hard. The board broke, not the glue joint.

I’m sure I left a lot out but I would encourage everyone to get out of the shop and take a class some time.

What an awesome weekend. I would love to have alocal woodworking school, only my family would never see me.
Great plane information as they are on my aquisition list.
What about a rabet plane, what are his reccommendations for one of those?

Oh yes, he did demonstrate several ways to make grooves, dadoes and rabbets mrhart but I don't have plane numbers for those. You can contact him via his web site and I know he will help you. His next class is coming up soon (Sharpening and Using Handsaws) and I sure wish I could attend.

I forgot to mention earlier how Mike demonstrated and we all got to try using planes 1, 2 and 3 above along with winding sticks and a pencil to flatten the face of a board. I need a lot of practice but I was able to do it. This was a major outcome I hoped to get from the class.

A lot of the old traveling woodworkers only carried a smooth plane and a very small block plane.
I have read about a number of the old high end colonial woodworkers who had their own small factories. Many could put every tool they owned in one mid-sized wooden trunk. You can put quite a few molding planes in a trunk. My son now owns my gg-grandfather's wooden molding planes, his wooden and brass bit brace and a few other of his tools.
Planes are another one of those things I kind of have a "thing" for.
Some of those early "factories" had half a dozen employees but were smaller than my living room...


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I've looked at Mike's site and unfortunately, at this time money and time are my issues. Looks really neat the subjects that he is covering.

I guess, I could pony up the money and join the Minnesota Woodworkers Guild. I know his is a member and occasionally is listed as one of the presenters. Unfortunately, time and location make it tough for me to attend more than a handful of meeting per year, if any.

Here are a few of the recent topics he covered:

Jan 16, 2013: Hand Tool Olympics event. - pretty sure he is involved in the national event at WIA.
Dec 12, 2012: Build a Jointers Bench for $200 with Mike Siemsen.
Jan 18, 2012: Hitting the Saws: Handsaws Demystified - Mike Siemsen

Great to see people interested in planes. They are addictive.

Just picked this little beauty up. Not a No. 26 but a No. 27 1/2 is just fine too.

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/wsh/a ... 70450.html

I do enjoy using my hand planes (now that I have restored, fettled and sharpened the irons). They are a real pleasure to use.

Personally, I think the order of the planes mentioned above needs to be modified a bit.

1. A good low angle block plane it's what you need for fine tuning end grain

2. Stanley No 4 or equivalent (smooth plane), you can always get a second iron and shape the blade to a rounded profile.

3. The Fore plane mentioned above

Try lane or rabbet plane for cleaning up tenons.

For an inexpensive router plane check out Paul Seller's poor man's hand router. http://paulsellers.com/videos/

Love that poor mans router Terry thanks! One of my classmates was raving about Paul Sellers and I had not heard of him before. Worth a look.

robinson46176 wrote:My son now owns my gg-grandfather's wooden molding planes, his wooden and brass bit brace and a few other of his tools.
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A real family heirloom your son has there.