Of Woods and Planes and Sharpening

Woodworking and furniture building
by Sean Aquino

Series I

MY TIME AT THE COLLEGE OF THE REDWOODS FINE WOODWORKING PROGRAM SUMMER COURSE 2012

READ EARLIEST POST FIRST (CHRONOLOGICAL)
READ LATEST POST FIRST (REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL)

Series II

MAKING A TANSU-INSPIRED CABINET

READ POSTS

First!

Monday was the first day at college of the Redwoods Summer Course in Tools and Techniques!  I meant to post this last night but I stayed late on the first day…maybe a sign of things to come.

This week we are to make two Krenov-style handplanes starting with the irons and then working on the plane bodies. Monday was all about sharpening and the first thing to do was tune your block plane.

Yep, you need at least a block plane to make another plane- solves the chicken and egg question of planes anyway…the block plane comes first.  I yoinked mine out of the box and we took it apart to start squaring it up and prepping it for use.  Since this one plane will be used to make all of your others, it’s really important to make sure that it was aligned and flat.  One thing that they stressed to us was that although you are after perfect alignment and dead flat; both are merely a reference.  If you have a slight skew when grinding out your blade or if your sole is a bit dished, it’s almost as important to know how to compensate for those imperfections as it is to be able to correct them.

 I also completely retuned my sharpening stones after discovering several were crowning.  I for sure thought that they’d be dished and was totally surprised to find out the opposite. Really fine woodworking starts at a snails pace.  I spend all day in the shop yesterday and, after intros and the shop tour, mostly did sharpening on one block plane and two other blades. Blade tuning plus the stone retuning put me at around 7:30pm having arrived at 8:30am.  A long day but well worth it.

11 months ago
Brand new block plane out of the box from Lee Valley.  First thing to do is flatten the back of the blade.  We do this to remove the machine grooves out of the back otherwise those grooves act like a comb on top of your surface.  Not a good thing.

Brand new block plane out of the box from Lee Valley.  First thing to do is flatten the back of the blade.  We do this to remove the machine grooves out of the back otherwise those grooves act like a comb on top of your surface.  Not a good thing.

11 months ago
After tuning the back of the plane blade was flattening the sole of the block plane.  I didn’t think this was necessary until I put my Starrett on it and sure enough dished on both the length and the width. I then put the sole on the 800 stone and soon enough the dishing revealed itself

After tuning the back of the plane blade was flattening the sole of the block plane.  I didn’t think this was necessary until I put my Starrett on it and sure enough dished on both the length and the width.

I then put the sole on the 800 stone and soon enough the dishing revealed itself

11 months ago

Day Two: Plane Body

Today we started on the guts of what will be the body of our handplanes  (previous images).  

Since we spent a boatload of time on our block planes yesterday, they had to make it worth our while so we planed the ramps of the body to square to the sole and to the sides.  This was in place of what would normally be a table saw operation and we instead got to use one of their monstrous band saws.  

11 months ago
Pre-assembled hand plane ready for dowels

Pre-assembled hand plane ready for dowels

11 months ago
Dowels inserted into plane body

Dowels inserted into plane body

11 months ago
One of the College of the Redwoods’ famed bandsaws. This thing is a beast of a machine- old-school giant proportions. They changed the blade out midway through class and it was basically like the wood wasn’t there and you were pushing through air. Oh did I mention that the cut was nearly perfectly perpendicular to the table and had no drift? Cutting with an expertly tuned band saw was a like semi-religious experience.

One of the College of the Redwoods’ famed bandsaws. This thing is a beast of a machine- old-school giant proportions. They changed the blade out midway through class and it was basically like the wood wasn’t there and you were pushing through air.

Oh did I mention that the cut was nearly perfectly perpendicular to the table and had no drift? Cutting with an expertly tuned band saw was a like semi-religious experience.

11 months ago - 8
Water makes the crown Yesterday while sharpening, one of my fellow students was having trouble getting his sharpening stones flat. One of our teachers started troubleshooting it and discovered that the glass which he was using to flatten his stones was crowned (bulging out). Troubleshooting more, We discovered that water and a little bit of grit trapped underneath with the combination of the table it sat on caused the problem! Moral of the story- always check for flatness on everything

Water makes the crown

Yesterday while sharpening, one of my fellow students was having trouble getting his sharpening stones flat. One of our teachers started troubleshooting it and discovered that the glass which he was using to flatten his stones was crowned (bulging out). Troubleshooting more, We discovered that water and a little bit of grit trapped underneath with the combination of the table it sat on caused the problem! Moral of the story- always check for flatness on everything

11 months ago
Squaring the pin by marking the depth of a wedge on each side of the ramp

Squaring the pin by marking the depth of a wedge on each side of the ramp

11 months ago
Instructor Greg Smith demonstrating how to tune up a cabinet scraper.  Really cool stuff!  He starts with flattening out both faces of the scraper to remove the machining marks just like you would with a plane blade.  Moving from 800 grit all the way up. Then flattening out the edges, first with a file then again on the stones until they’re all shiny.  Then it’s two quick passes with a burnisher and boom! finished scraper. The sharpening on the stones part, I had never seen anyone do but it totally makes sense given that a scraper is often one of the last things that touches a piece before finishing. And the two passes on the burnisher are really light and fast.  I’ve seen people crank on their burnishers forever but he advises against it since a more burnished edge has more stress, is steep and more brittle than one that’s been simple laid flat. Greg said that you could stop at any step in the tuning process depending on how fine of an edge you want e.g. stop at filing if you’re scraping paint. Really awesome stuff, would have never thought to do this whole process on a plain old cabinet scraper.  He says gets students calling him all the time on how to get it just right.

Instructor Greg Smith demonstrating how to tune up a cabinet scraper.  Really cool stuff!  He starts with flattening out both faces of the scraper to remove the machining marks just like you would with a plane blade.  Moving from 800 grit all the way up.

Then flattening out the edges, first with a file then again on the stones until they’re all shiny.  Then it’s two quick passes with a burnisher and boom! finished scraper.

The sharpening on the stones part, I had never seen anyone do but it totally makes sense given that a scraper is often one of the last things that touches a piece before finishing. And the two passes on the burnisher are really light and fast.  I’ve seen people crank on their burnishers forever but he advises against it since a more burnished edge has more stress, is steep and more brittle than one that’s been simple laid flat.

Greg said that you could stop at any step in the tuning process depending on how fine of an edge you want e.g. stop at filing if you’re scraping paint.

Really awesome stuff, would have never thought to do this whole process on a plain old cabinet scraper.  He says gets students calling him all the time on how to get it just right.

11 months ago

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