%!$ Easy Diy Woodworking Bench Plans For You #!@

smoothing-plane-tips Smoothing planes are useful tools for finishing wood. With the proper technique, you can get whisper thin shavings and glassy smooth wood surfaces. Learn how.  Use a Smoothing Plane to Prepare Wood For Final Finishing. Before the widespread use of sandpaper (or glass paper as it was formerly known), artisans used smoothing planes to prepare their work for final finish. When it comes to smoothing a board by hand, nothing gets the job done quicker than a properly tuned, traditional handplane. In this short video, Vermont furniture-maker Garrett Hack offers tips on using smoothing planes including: freehand sharpening, how to apply the proper amount of camber to a blade, and what to look for when it comes to the perfect shaving. Sign up for eletters today and get the latest techniques and how-to from Fine Woodworking, plus special offers. Sign Up. The smoothing planes, the jointer, the jack plane, these have a few more parts and pieces in them, and it’s useful to look at these, too, just to understand how they work. The one extra piece that these have is a chip breaker on top. That’s an extra piece of metal that sits on top of the blade. Built to trim into corners A shoulder plane is basically a narrow plane with a blade that is the full width of the body. This only works with planes that have parallel sides. Hock - Shoulder Plane Smoothjng. Hand tools lend a hand when machines fall short. Finally, the block plane is a perfect miniature smoother. Topics Cabinetry. The next item of smoothing plane tips is the blade.

A block plane is made up of three main pieces: the body, the blade and the lever cap. This plane also has an adjustable mouth and a depth adjuster. These can be coined as apron planes, standard angle blocks, English miter planes, low-angle block planes, pocket planes, or anything in between.

Higher-end models will have other features, such as an adjustable mouth, a depth-adjuster, and other add-ons. My first block plane was a vintage Stanley shown in image 2. After using it for years, I can say this: get one with a depth adjuster. A sharp block plane is great for trimming end grain. I use a shooting board for support when I can.

There are a few aspects of block planes that make them work well where other planes might struggle. One is the ability to have a lower cutting angle that allows a block plane to effectively plane end grain. For wider end grain trimming, it helps to skew the plane and keep pressure on the toe.

Another thing that helps all planes work better is a tight mouth scrub planes excluded. On a standard bench plane, the mouth is controlled by adjusting the frog. On a block plane, there is no frog. This design allows the blade to be supported all the way to the cutting edge less chatter and a smoother cut. Instead, some block planes will have an adjustable mouth. This allows you to tighten the mouth for fine smoothing operations or open it up for heavier cuts.

This specialized rabbeting block plane has a blade that runs all the way to the edge of the body, so you can use it to clean up tenons and rabbets. Two of my favorite manufacturers are Lie-Nielsen and Veritas. They both make new block planes, roughly based on old Stanley patents.

Vintage block planes are, as a rule of thumb, quality. They may need a little fettling to get them in tip-top shape, but are usually available for a song and a dance. The small size and light touch of a block plane is very useful in tuning joinery and joints. Getting a block plane ready for use follows the same tactics as any plane. The sole needs to be flat. This can be accomplished by lapping it on sandpaper on a flat surface.

Next, the blade needs to be razor-sharp. The final key is to make sure that the lever cap is free of paint, dust, chips, etc. This will make sure you get firm pressure on the blade without chatter.

Most modern block planes from reputable manufacturers will come ready to use out of the box. A specialized toothing blade can do the heavy lifting on wild grain.

Paring and trimming end grain is best done with the lowest angle block plane you have. I use two different approaches here. For narrower tasks, like cleaning up the end of a rail or stile, I like to use my shooting board with my block plane on it.

You can see this in image 3. An Eclipse-style honing guide works well to ensure that the cutting edge remains square to the sides of the blade when sharpening.

The next item of concern is the blade. Most importantly, its beveled end needs to be dead square to the sides of the plane body. If the end of the blade is out of square, it can be corrected during the sharpening process. I usually sharpen thin blades simply by honing them with waterstones through grit. To cut properly, a shoulder plane blade must project the right amount from the side of the body as well as from the bottom of the sole.

While common sense might indicate that the side of the blade should be set flush to the side of the plane body, cutting geometry dictates otherwise. As shown in. In order to cut a square-sided shoulder, the side of the blade must project by about. Therefore, if both sides of a shoulder plane are to be used without readjustment, the blade should be about. Unfortunately, the blades on many older planes have been ground down to match the body width.

And, surprisingly, the blades on many new planes come the same way. This shortcoming can be corrected by adjusting the blade to project from whichever side is being used as a reference for a particular job. To make the adjustment, lay the plane on its side spanning a couple pieces of paper on a flat surface. Then push the blade down with your fingernail, and tighten the blade clamping mechanism Photo B.

The downside of this approach is that the blade must be shifted to the other side when you need to use the opposite side of the plane as a reference.

To trim a tenon cheek, use a fine cut and a steady hand, resting as much of the sole as possible on the tenon before beginning the cut. To set the blade projection from the sole, use the blade depth adjustment screw. When hogging out a rabbet or dado, you can set it for as heavy a cut as possible without suffering clogging or blade chatter. The mouth opening, which is locked in place by the toe-locking screw, should be adjusted to suit the depth of cut.

As with a smoothing plane, close the mouth as much as possible to minimize tear-out without clogging the opening. Simply clear the throat manually when the occasion arises. Before the advent of power tools, tenons were hand-sawn, and their shoulders almost always required some cleanup to achieve a tight-fitting joint. When laying out tenons, I use a marking knife to lay out the shoulders.

I then cut them on the tablesaw a hair shy of the knife line. After sawing the cheeks, I place my workpiece on a bench hook, butting the tenon shoulder against the bench hook fence to prevent tear-out at the end of the cut. A couple of light passes with the shoulder plane is all it takes to shave perfectly to the knife line, as shown in Photo C.

Because there is little frame of reference, you have to take care to cut parallel to the tenon cheek to prevent tapering it. With your plane adjusted for a very light pass, start the cut with the toe firmly registered on the tenon surface Photo D. Then carefully push it forward while keeping it level with the surface. If the tenon is longer than the width of the plane, start at the shoulder and take overlapping passes until you reach the end of the tenon.

When trimming cheeks, always take very light passes, frequently checking the fit of the tenon in the mortise to avoid removing too much material. While at the bench hook with plane in hand, I like to put a small chamfer on the tenon ends, as shown in Photo E.

The chamfer eases assembly and helps to prevent pushing all the glue to the bottom of the mortise during glue-up. Another ideal use for a shoulder plane is fine-tuning machine-made rabbets, dadoes, and grooves. To widen a joint or create a new one , you need a way to guide the plane to your cutline. To cut a rabbet, I first lay out the joint lines with a knife or marking gauge.

A knifed shoulder line helps prevent cross-grain tear-out. I then clamp a stout straightedge flush to the scribed shoulder line, and plane to my depth line, as shown in Photo F. To prevent exit tear-out, clamp a piece of scrap to the workpiece at the trailing end of the cut.

You can also correct mismatched rabbets with a shoulder plane by removing the toe and employing the tool as a chisel plane. After flushing up the corner Photo G , the toe can be reinstalled and the rabbet faired, using the plane in the conventional fashion. To ensure an even depth of cut, scribe depth lines on both sides of the board and check the depth frequently while planing to prevent overcutting or undercutting.

To avoid tear-out at the ends of the cut, start from each end of the joint, working your way to the center. Most of my cabinets are fitted with tongue-and-groove backboards.

If the tongues and their mating grooves are perfectly centered on your boards, clamp the boards on a bench and take a thin, continuous shaving from one side of a tongue, as shown in Photo H. Then flip the board end for end and take a second cut from the other side. Test the fit in a groove, and repeat if necessary. If the misalignment is small, a shoulder plane can help acceptably refine the joint.

Since the blade will nestle into a corner, the case side can be used to support the plane while removing small amounts of material from the top edge of a molding strip Photo I. Complex moldings may require some additional gouge or chisel work to bring curved surfaces into alignment, but the shoulder plane will handle all the flat edges and faces. The only thing sweeter than picking up a good commercial tool and putting it to work is making your own.

Ron Hock offers a wooden shoulder plane kit Woodcraft that promises to make this dream a reality. To satisfy my curiosity and inner craftsman, I ordered one and went to work. It took me about two hours from start to finish. The most difficult part of the process was coming up with an attractive, comfortable design that was uniquely my own. Craig Bentzley has been restoring antiques and building furniture for nearly 40 years.

In addition to writing, Craig also teaches at guilds, woodworking shows, and at Woodcraft stores. Quick View. Hock - Shoulder Plane Kit.

View Details. WoodRiver - 92 Medium Shoulder Plane. Add to Cart. WoodRiver - No. You must be logged in to write a comment.

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