The follow up from yesterday’s (er, this morning’s) post. I’ve received emails from people over the past 10 hours wondering about a few points in the sequence that I showed in the previous post depicting the steps to cut a dai to receive a plane blade. Frankly, I wasn’t really thinking too much about trying to document every step in the process, and occasionally I simply forget about the camera for a while. So, my apologies if there were a few gaps in the sequence.
At the end of yesterday’s post, I had the blade fitted to the dai, nestled in there at a 60˚ angle, sans chip-breaker:
The next steps were to condition the sole of the plane. No pictures, but if readers are interested in a detailed post on how to do that, I’d be happy to oblige at some point in the near future.
Anyway, with the sole conditioned, and the blade sharp, I tried taking a few swipes on some curly bubinga. The result:
No doubt about it, a 60˚ bedding angle means no tear-out in this otherwise recalcitrant material. I could plane in pretty much whatever direction I wanted with no tear out.
Another view:
I then tried to capture a low angle view in flat light to give an idea of the surface quality, but once again my photography skills were not up to the task. I snapped picture after picture and the results were all kinda lame. But what the heck, here’s a picture anyhow:
The surface, given the Type 2 shavings produced, is not quite as glassy as can be achieved in some more cooperative plane-friendly woods, but it was nice to have no tear-out and the surface was better, I felt than what I would have produced with a card scraper.
I then grabbed a piece of Canarywood, the material I made that Mazerolle sawhorse from a few months back. I had problems with tear-out at the time. The piece I grabbed had nice straight grain with a slight slope, and seemed about as ideal as possible for regular old planing. So I grabbed my Ichihiro finishing plane, bedded at 37.5˚ or so, and took a pass down one face – it planed perfectly! what could be easier? Then I flipped it over 180˚ and took a pass down the opposite side face, and it tore out – that’s Canarywood for you. It’s very unpredicatable.
So, I grabbed the new 60˚ plane and cleaned up the tear-out with no issues:
Then I decided to set up a planing beam. I grabbed a chunk of 8/4 Canarywood, and ran it over the jointer and then planed it, finishing out close to 1.8″. I set up one end on a window-sill, and then needed to make a stand for the other end. I found a piece of 8″ x 8″ pine out in the yard, then cleaned it up, jointed it, and then cut the end square. A few swipes with the plane to dress it more tidily:
And it was ready:
Not a perfect surface, but as it rested on the oily floor, I wasn’t too bothered.
It was nice to run the plane over some pine after all these pit viper woods the past while, let me tell you!
Here’s where I am marking the top of the chunk of pine for the slope of the planing beam:
Time for a little Sawing for Teens:
And that is where I forgot to take more pictures, however I’ll be sure to throw in a picture in the next post or so showing the planing beam set up. It works well and the Canarywood is pretty rigid and flat. Nice looking wood too!
Thanks for your visit today!