How to Plane Against the Grain and in Figured Wood With a Hand Plane
How to Plane Against the Grain and in Figured Wood With a Hand Plane
A hand plane is ao much fun to watch curls come off aboard. But when planing figured wood or planning against the board it can be a plane. so today we are looking at how to plane against the grain or how to plane figured wood with a hand plane.
The plane used: https://lddy.no/gt1v
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Res Kruger on Bedrock planes: https://youtu.be/UJMgHzoUGFo
How to set up a smoothing plane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG-DULSw6Zk
Best smoothing plane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ9-LGMO7OA
How to setup any hand plane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMfLtGQKoIg
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Thank you!💜
Thank you so much for these great videos. I am just starting out and have no one to teach me. Been a tool maker my whole life and have really become respectful of carpentry work. Working with organic material instead of steel has opened my eyes. Those grains can really throw you curve balls.
Solid video Ty mate
Not gonna lie that Taytools No.4 looks so damn fine. Nice finish on the steel, heavy duty actual brass screws/hardware, nicely shaped satin finish handles in what looks like a nice wood, and clearly can be tuned to do amazing things. Is this the best No.4 regular money can buy?
I’m feeling so defeated today.
Time to get some good quality wood tips.
Really interesting comments in particular re planing parallel and not skew when smoothing. Thanks good man.
I’ve only used some recycled American white oak,. But if you think that’s hard try some of the stupidly hard eucalyptus we have here in Australia. Have a nightmare on some – stupidly tried turpentine the other week. Will try again with your tips!
Very nice work!
give an EC Emmerich plane a try. Was made for figured woods… A pretty spectacular mechanism (German).
I thought maybe you’d mention putting a back bevel on an extra iron for the really bad stuff. I have some Osage orange and it doesn’t matter if I use scary sharp 30k grit on a Hock cryo blade – it still tears out! It’s like every quarter inch the grain completely switches directions, and the only thing I got to work was scraping it. And then I tried grinding a high angle on an old block plane (around 35 ish, add to the 20-some it is bedded at and I have a 55-ish degree) and it mostly worked. Emboldened by this, I tried an old (like 7 years ago) Rob Cosman recommendation and I ground a small 15 degree back bevel on a jack plane iron and… success!! It is harder to push but with a new effective angle of 60 degrees my Stanley no. 5C blows right through the task… I get whisper thin shavings (they break apart a bit, of course) and ZERO tearout. Sorry for the long-winded post but I appreciate all the videos and thought I’d pass this on as it may help someone out
Taytools no 4 "relatively affordable" ? Here in the UK Amazon market it at 235 GBP. That’s 300 US dollars!
I was first introduced to this a number of years ago by Derek Cohen, but I stuffed the cap iron. I ended up taking too much off and I couldn’t adjust depth of cut any longer. I would like to give it another try as this is a fantastic idea. Is the any harder to push like it would be on a higher bevel angle
Hi James, thankyou for another excellent,well explained video-very much appreciated.
I’ve heard of relieving the corners of your iron (not like a scrub plane radius, just a very small curve at each corner) so that you don’t plane ‘tram lines’ into your work from the sharp, square corners of a ‘normal’ iron. Would you do this and, if so, when? Would it be unnecessary on this set up because of how much you’ve closed up the mouth?
Thankyou again for all your insights and good humour.
DUDE!
Over the last year or so I have been moving farther away from power tools whenever time allows and your video’s are SO helpful. I put a project on hold for problems with tearout (partially due to lack of my sharpening stones so my blades aren’t nearly as sharp as I’d like) but this is so similar to the issues i have been having with a burl and I think this really ought to clear that up! Thank you!!
Very timely for me. I’ve been struggling with quarter sawn white oak and had almost given up on it for hand tools. This will be today’s project.
I watched Rex’s video the other day. Watching this video made me want to go back and watch his again. I was really glad to hear you added a link to his video. I was sad to see that the link wasn’t actually included.
Ohhh, this crotch figure is gonna be sooo gorgeous with a coat of BLO! By the way, every time I work with oak, I get black finger prints all over the wood… I guess it’s the tannins in the oak reacting with the iron…?
Hi James, do you put a back bevel on any of your blades to control tearout?
I see you have a steel ruler.. why not use that technique? (Not saying anything is wrong or right just curious)
Dear James, I too got frustrated trying to plane wood which has grain going in both directions – for example a piece of Jarrah with a section of fiddleback. I almost gave up and headed for the sander. But there on my planes rack was a little-used low angle plane from Fine Tools. It’s blade is set to an angle of 12˚. I gave it a whizz and wow, beautiful tissue thin shavings for the whole section of wood and after a few strokes my tear-out had disappeared.
I love white oak! I harvest my own, get a japanese pull plane and flip the bevel up,
Remove the iron assembly and loosen the frog screws. Reassemble and adjust the mouth. Remove iron assembly and tighten frog screws. No guess work.
Oh yes, planing can be so therapeutic when the plane is set right, and I’m using Bailey pattern planes that cost under 10 USD delivered, it just had to have a lot of elbow grease put into it to get it set right. Thank you for the vid. Oh yes, I got my planes of Ebay and they are "Marksman Iron Jack"
really great to actually see how things might not work. I experienced these exact problems without finding satisfying answers in other woodworking videos. Other youtubers usually show how things work perfectly when done right but I couldn’t understand my problem with white oak. Many big thanks for this video that actually helped me
I wish YT would require people to give a reason for a "thumbs down". At the moment there are 2 on this vid. Maybe from people who are ardent fans of an expensive brand of plane? Someone who dislikes free-hand sharpening? I can’t imagine. A few things in this one you (and others) have covered before, but shucks, it takes most of us a few repetitions to learn stuff. Good job as always.
So u don’t use a higher angle? Did i miss it? U let it at 45°?
Thanks for the vid..nice job!
I think you managed to show me that I was DOING EVERYTHING WRONG!!!
I don’t have a Taytools plane, but my budget allowed me to get a Kobalt plane (I know, I know). I think I’ll apply some of these lessons there, to see what I can do with a $30 plane.
Any tips on how to hand plane rough cut Purple Heart, should i use a high angel or low angle plane? What degree should i have the blade, been at this all weekend with a woo driver no 6 plane at a 35 degree blade with a micro bevel and no luck. Plenty of tear out. Any advice would help.
Thanks
Love seeing someone(besides me n not knowing much) tackle some good figure like that on a video
Very nice brother
James – how can I prevent the plane from causing tearout if I’m an idiot who has spent 3 months trying to learn how to sharpen but no matter what I do, my edges won’t shave hair?
I Greatly appreciate the time you spend explaining both the what and whys you are doing what you do. As a first time plane buyer, I’ve read that a #5 or #5.5 is better to start with as your first.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks again.
New subscriber here!
Thanks good info been struggling with the changing grain issue in hickory one of my favorites but it can be difficult to work
I have a tay-tools #4 and except for a bowed blade it is a great plane.
So when starting with white oak that’s got some pretty deep mill marks, would you still go with a tight mouth setup from the beginning or would you start with a more open/cambered scrub plane setup and then just deal with the tearout after the scrubbing’s done?
Thanks for the great information!
Try the Faithfull hand plane, very reasonably priced and superb to use !!!
Great video James. I enjoyed watching Rex do his best to destroy the myth of the Bedrock as well. The back and forth you had with the TayTools No. 4 was a major reason that I like the Wood River version of a Bedrock.
What is the set of sharpeners you use?
Good evening my amazing friend
So, my question is if I ever need to open the mouth up MORE than the setting you show.
Is there a reason to have a smoothing plane more open, or just scrub planes?
I’ve been wondering about that plane. Tempting. Aside from the setup adjustments that you mention, is it pretty flat out of the package? I hate flattening planes lol Thank you for the information!
You have explained the workings of a plane very well. Curly maple is not the worst with grain changes, I work a lot of figured eastern red cedar. I think it is more difficult as the straight grain is very soft and the figured can be very hard and creates deep tare out. The same set up works well even with the hard/soft changes, just keep it stupid sharp. I paid attention in earlier videos. Thanks for all the great help.
Dumb question, who not just always plane with a higher angle plant all the time? Why use a plane with a 30° angle when you’ll get tear out when you could increase the angle and not worry about it? I ask this cause I’m new to woodworking and just ran into my first frustrating case of tear out
Nothing beats a properly set up plane. Really well explained how to, James.
I take it one step further and fettle the sole and knock the sharp edges off the nose, heel and sides of the sole as well. My planes almost do the job without me having to push them 🙂
There’s one point you might’ve forgotten: a sturdy bench. Without a bench that doesn’t rock or walk across the floor, it’s really difficult to plane a board to a baby’s butt smooth. Thanks for the great videos!
Nicely informative. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
This information is exactly what I needed for my next project. Thanks!
Love the t-shirt. And the photography. And the info.
I’ve been feeling guilty lately because I’ve been buying wood planes, I started with one beat up Stanley no. 4 from the 80’s about a month ago, now I’ve got About 10 and still looking for more, but after seeing about 15 or so on the rack behind you, I don’t feel so bad.
Thanks for all the good info and for taking the time to make videos.