Getting Started with Handplanes: How to Choose, Set Up, and Use Planes for Fantastic Results

INTRODUCTION

I cannot think of anyone who has made a shaving with a plane and not been seduced by the sight, sound, and feel of the shaving emerging from the top. It is a tool of enormous satisfaction. However, it is far more than the pleasure of using a plane that makes it important. The handplane quickly and effectively does things other tools cannot. Power tools have redefined and often supplanted the handplane’s traditional role, but have not replaced it. Understanding the handplane (how to set it up, fine-tune it, and adjust and modify its anatomy) and the variety of jobs it handles increases options for work and efficiency and improves results, allowing you to experience the satisfaction this essential tool brings.

THE PLEASURES OF HANDPLANES

A machine might best accomplish a repeated task (you decide how many justifies automation), but hand tools can efficiently assist or accomplish short runs, one-of-a-kind pieces, prototypes, and variations on a theme. I find one of the main advantages to a proficiency with hand tools is fewer limitations in the types of projects I am able to tackle—projects otherwise too small or too big, projects too complex, and projects whose form is evolving even as they’re being produced. Even if you are working in production or large millwork situations, handplane skills can be a godsend.

In addition to extending the range of projects you can tackle, the handplane is demonstrably faster for some tasks, including smoothing small parts. A well-set handplane can smooth a side of a leg, for instance, smoother than 1,000-grit sandpaper in two or three strokes, with none of the rounding or waviness you might get with sanding. A few strokes of a handplane can likewise remove the saw marks and tearing you get on end grain. A follow-up of a few strokes with 220-grit sandpaper and you get quick, baby-bottom smoothness. The best tool to remove snipe and power-planer variations is the handplane, as its flat sole flattens the board in removing the snipe. It is fast, and it is accurate.

The results you get with a handplane are different from those with sandpaper. Assuming the blade is correctly shaped, a handplaned piece is going to be flatter and straighter than all but the work produced with the best wide-belt sanders. Less expensive wide-belt sanders can leave ripples similar to a planer. Belt and orbit sanders leave a gently wavy surface like calm water that shows up especially after applying finish, on horizontal surfaces. If you have a flat-grain piece, say in oak or pine, sanding removes more softer spring growth than denser late-season growth, resulting in a gently rippling surface following the grain. This will not happen with a handplane. Power sanding, particularly with the random-orbit sander, tends to slightly round over work in general, but especially smaller pieces, sometimes giving the work a doughy look. Handplaning also provides a better surface for gluing.

Besides the difference in surface quality, there is a subtle but palpable difference in the look and character between pieces shaped and smoothed by edge tools and those prepared by sanding. The crispness and flow suggestive of the sweep of the cutting edge is not present in work abraded to shape. That is an important and critical lesson for woodworkers. This is not to say one or another piece would be inferior, but there are differences in the look and feel of the piece. Understanding the difference helps you choose the correct tool.

YOUR HEALTH CONCERNS

Also important to consider in the choice between power tools and handplanes is exposure to dust. Long underestimated, the dangers of dust are now becoming more apparent. The U.S. government has officially identified wood dust as a carcinogen. The modern production shop produces large quantities of it. The one-man shop, with its orbital, belt, stationary, spindle, disk, and thickness sanders can produce choking amounts of it. The widespread use of abrasives is relatively new, so the long-term effects of dust inhalation are not fully known, nor are the effects of the many compounds in wood—many of them toxic, allergenic or simply irritating. These include those associated with any rot-resistant wood and many tropical hardwoods. We know they can cause rashes and other skin reactions. Particles inhaled deeply into the lungs can cause permanent lung damage. The smallest dust particles, which sanding produces, are the most dangerous. Some particles are so small they pass through the best filters. Read the product specifications—no filtration system, no dust mask is 100% effective. A dust collector can actually make things worse. Anything not collected by the filter (particles from 30 microns to less than 1 micron, depending on your filter) will be blown back into the air, continually suspended, and circulated by the collector until you turn it off. Even if the filtration material in a dust mask were better, no dust mask fit is airtight, especially if worn over a beard.

Concern extends beyond the lungs. Long-term dust exposure can cause nasal polyps, which can be pre-cancerous. There also is the very real risk of hearing loss from machine noise. Many woodworkers I know who are my age have suffered some hearing loss.

Therefore, woodworkers should approach sanding with more awareness, and take steps to limit and control their exposure to dust and noise. They should also consider methods beyond a sander for achieving a shape or surface. Perhaps the image of the woodworker quietly planing wood, listening for the sound of a well cut shaving, the floor littered with (dust-free) streams of shavings, and the bench and tools so free of dust you could wear black clothes to work and leave without a mark is less romantic and more serious than it would seem. It certainly represents a better quality of life than standing over a screaming, dust-spewing sander for hours on end.

YOUR WALLET

And what about the economics? The handplane can be more cost-effective than sandpaper. Look at the costs of a random-orbit sander. You have the initial investment, less probably than for a good plane, but not cheap. You have the cost of sandpaper: use the sander all day long and you can easily burn through $20 to $30 worth of sandpaper. Three or four days of that and you just bought yourself a handplane. You have downtime when the machine is sidelined for repairs. You are not going to be doing any sanding with it, and when you are not sanding with it, you are not making money. Then there is the cost of repairs: replace the bearings, brushes, and hook-and-loop pad (which also wears out), and you have just about bought yourself another sander. In addition, no matter what, eventually the machine wears out and must be replaced. If you were to use a random orbit sander every day, all day, you would wear it out in a year after having the machine repaired twice. Use a handplane all day, every day, and you have worn maybe a half-inch off the blade. You would be able to get another two maybe three years out of that $40 blade. Assuming you make the correct decisions as to the appropriate tool to use as you work, the efficiency of each tool becomes equal, but the cost of the sander is many times higher.

There are, of course, costs associated with the handplane, but they compare favorably. Once you have set the plane up, maintenance is minimal. Sharpening can be a pain, but with some practice and decent technique, you can be back to work in five minutes or less, depending on the type of plane. The learning curve for the handplane is higher, but woodworking requires the continual acquisition and advancement of skill. That is the essence of the craft. You do not have to leap into the most challenging uses of the plane right at the beginning. Expand your handplane skills gradually as your skill progresses. The information in this book will greatly shorten the learning curve.

Abrasives are here to stay and will continue to be an important part of woodworking. To not use all of the skills and techniques available or to not acquire the knowledge that will help you choose the appropriate technique, and the skill to follow through, limits the scope of your work, your creativity, and growth.

REWARDS

Knowledgeable use of both power and hand tools leads to better, more rewarding work, and the handplane, always the premier woodworking instrument, remains one of the most useful tools available. By temperament, and perhaps because of how you see your pieces, you will naturally favor hand tools over power tools, or vice versa, but it is important you make a reasoned decision. The first step to understanding the effectiveness of a technology—in this case woodworking handplanes—is to fully understand the capabilities and limitations of the tool. That is what this book aims to accomplish.

1

SMOOTH

What to Use, When, and Why

Different tools leave different surfaces, discernable by eye, hand, or both. While the differences may be subtle, they still are often immediately recognizable. End users, in particular, can respond quite strongly, even without fully understanding why. Such subtle differences distinguish craftwork from production work and make it sought out by potential buyers, whether consciously or not, and can literally close the sale.

The handplane is unmatched in its ability to get a crisp, clean, clear surface on wood.

Figure 1-1. The grit in sandpaper acts like a series of minute pointed scrapers, removing wood by compression failure at the points of the abrasive. It is a reliable way to smooth wood, but in some ways it’s like using an uneven bed of nails: it leaves a series of erratic uneven grooves across the board, often leaves little balls of wood fiber at the end of the grooves, and tears the edges of the wood pores and fills them with dust. Clarity of the woods grain and figure is compromised for reliability.

To get to that level of finesse—of craftsmanship—the use, position, and intended finish of a piece, or parts of a piece, all have to be considered when deciding on the best tools to use for a project. To make informed decisions, understanding the nature of the different surfaces different tools produce is essential.

The three ways to smooth wood—sanding, scraping, and planing—all leave a different kind of surface.

SANDING

Sanding abrades the surface, leaving a series of irregular microscopic grooves with slightly fuzzy edges. Sandpaper, which consists of randomly distributed abrasive particles of irregular size, shape, and orientation, tears and scrapes the wood fibers. The points and edges of the particles project and wear unevenly, cutting to different depths. The result is most noticeable when starting with coarse sandpaper and then skipping grits, because coarser grits leave deep scratches finer grits will not reach (Figure 1-1). Sanding also leaves a myriad of microscopic torn fibers hanging onto the surface. And even though you may be meticulous, sanding thoroughly through progressive grits, you still have to sand to a grit finer than 600 to get light to penetrate through the torn fibers with enough clarity to bring out the grain of a figured wood.

SCRAPING

Scraping, using the burr turned on the edge of a sharpened blade held at a high angle, tears the wood fibers as well, removing wood essentially by compression failure at the edge of the burr (Figure 1-2). The burr is a relatively blunt cutting edge that establishes a point where compression failure begins, rather than actually cutting or shearing the wood. Hard tropical woods scrape cleanly, I suppose, because scoring the wood fibers with a blunt edge is more effective on hard, brittle wood. But the softer the species, the less cleanly the burredge pulls wood away, often causing the chip to collapse upon itself, while tearing the fibers from the surface being smoothed. A scraper shapes the surface of pine, for instance, but it ends up fuzzy.

The big advantage the scraper has over sandpaper is that on most hardwoods, it removes wood as fast as 60-grit paper and leaves a finish like 400-grit, all with one tool that will probably last a lifetime and costs the same as a single package of sandpaper. Moreover, unlike a plane, it is virtually impossible to get any major tearout with a scraper, though on some woods, the resulting fuzziness confirms surface tears. Nor is the scraper unidirectional, as some believe. It cuts better in one direction than the other, though cutting in the wrong direction does not usually result in the disastrous tearout you might get with a plane.

Both sanding and scraping leave the edges of the wood pores ragged, though technically the results are slightly different. With sanding, the last grit used determines the size of the ragged fibers. Whatever the grit, however, torn fibers are plentiful. (See Figure 1-3.) With scraping, the ragged fibers are fewer and longer. In both cases, the fibers lie flat until finish is applied, and then stand up, swollen and stiffened with the finish.

Figure 1-2. A cabinet scraper removes wood by compression failure parallel to the grain at the edge of the burr. While it can give dependable results, a heavy cut can result in erratic failure both in front of and below the edge, snowpiling the chip and reducing the quality of the surface. Making a light cut attains best results.

Figure 1-3. Deep scratches and torn fibers characterize the sanded wood surface. Sanding tears fibers in the surface of wood, while scraping leaves behind fewer ragged fibers that tend to be longer.

PLANING

A sharpened plane cuts by shearing the fibers off cleanly. The lower the angle of the cut, the cleaner the shear; the higher the angle, the more the blade scrapes. The shearing cut is clean—the surface is not torn by abrasion or compression failure—and light penetrates the surface structure, refracting through the changes in direction of the wood grain, and revealing the dazzling beauty of the wood’s figure. (See Figure 1-4.)

Figure 1-4. A handplane removes wood by shearing the fibers right at the point of its thin, sharp edge. Though the results can be less dependable (unless the cut is controlled by the methods described in Chapter 3), the remaining surface is not torn by abrasion or compression failure, revealing the beauty of the wood’s grain and figure.

However, in the practical, day-to-day world, even this surface deserves further consideration. Most woods show wonderful clarity with a little raggedness remaining at the end of the pores—a kind of tail or thin fringe to an otherwise cleanly cut pore. (See Figure 1-5.) This residue rises when applying finish and stiffens when the finish dries, resulting in a surface that feels slightly rough. Removing the tails to achieve a smooth surface results in a conundrum: in order to get the smoothest surface you must risk compromising clarity by lightly roughing it up.

ADDING FINISH

There are a couple of ways to approach the issue. The first is to consider the proposed finish. Penetrating finishes, such as oil, raise the grain less and bring out the figure of the grain more than surface finishes. On some woods, vigorous application and removal of the oil with a rag eliminates them, especially if the last step is to buff with a wool rag.

Figure 1-5. Scraping often leaves a tail at the end of the wood pore the length of which varies from species to species. Planing also can sometimes result in a tail depending on the species, but it is usually much smaller. A coat of finish raises and stiffens the tails and other irregularities, making the surface look and feel rough.

Some woods require rubbing with steel wool after the first or second coat of oil. Steel wool hooks the hanging fibers and pulls them off, burnishing, more than abrading, the surface. You can polish some surfaces by rubbing them hard with leftover shavings before applying oil. This method works particularly well with smaller parts, such as legs and stretchers. It is less successful on broad surfaces, especially horizontal ones, as the burnishing tends to be uneven.

I usually go over broad and/or horizontal surfaces after planing, when using oil as a finish, with a very fine grit of sandpaper. If I did a particularly good job on softwood, for instance, I may polish the surface with 1000 grit or finer—or if it looks really good, I may wait until I give it a coat of oil and see if any roughness appears, which I will then remove with 1000+ sandpaper.

On hardwood, especially if I expect to give the surface numerous coats of oil, I may sand first with 400 to 600 grit, depending on how even I was able to plane the surface. After several coats, I’ll sand with 600 to 800 grit and apply more coats. Vertical surfaces don’t need this type of attention; sanding with 400 grit or 0000 steel wool after two or three coats of oil, followed by another coat or two, is sufficient.

Surface finishes, such as varnish or lacquer, do not bring out the figure as well as oil for two reasons: (1) the finish does not penetrate as deeply and (2) light must travel through a thickness of film before striking the wood and bouncing back through again. The clean shear you get from planing is muted, and therefore probably less critical. I have also had feedback from finishers that (in one case anyway) the plane left the surface too smooth without enough tooth for the finish to adhere.

To prepare for a heavy surface finish, such as brushed varnish, catalyzed varnish and lacquer, or nitrocellulose lacquer, my general procedure is to remove the machining marks, snipe, and such with a plane. If the plane leaves minor tearout, I remove it with a card scraper. If the project or parts of it (like shelving) are less sensitive—and especially if the wood is difficult—I may remove the mill marks with a handled scraper, such as the Stanley #80, followed by the card scraper.

A handled scraper is much faster than sanding through three or four grits of sandpaper. I follow the planing (or scraping) with a quick, light pass with 220-grit sandpaper to even out any minor irregularities or any traces of the