My roommate is an instrument maker (high precision machinist for scientific instruments) and we both love hand tool woodworking. He actually introduced me to the hobby and I inherited his attention to these details. I started off really paying attention to that process of flattening and sharpening to specific geometries and so on. In the years since I started using his methods as a guide, I have developed quite a different approach to my tools: flat enough is flat enough. Sharp enough is sharp enough. That does not always sit well in his brain and we've had some disagreements on the matter over the years, but we've come to the conclusion that you arrive at here: in order to fully enjoy working with our tools, we need to instill our confidence in these tools in our own ways. I love the contrast between our approaches to this and it just further reinforces the underlying reasons why we like to create stuff in the first place. It's about the joy of bein a creator and interacting with our tools in the ways that make sense for us! Loved the video!!
If you are accustomed to working to very small tolerances due to your line of work or other hobbies, it can be difficult to remember that what is huge under a microscope might not be detectable to humans.
Only today I installed 6 doors, used my very old no7 that as far as I can tell has never been flattened. The client is a German fella with an eye for quality and detail. He was happy, i was happy, the plane was an absolute pleasure to use all day to get the doors fit horizontally, it hogged off what I needed and no square could prove the plane faulty. And the finish was smooth enough, was sparkling like a diamond. Its about getting work done, nothing more nothing less. And my non flat no7 is a total workhorse ❤ I spend a lot more energy on the iron than the sole.
Needed this video. I'm restoring my grandfather's plane and I have got the rust off, and spent today flattening with 60 grit (lowest i have). I was quite annoyed that i couldn't quite get all the sharpie off, but the main bits are flat so I guess it's fine.
I really enjoyed the thought that people obsessing over flatness will usually use an (actually quite bendy) ruler to check for flat. A ruler is not a straightedge.
Thanks. I just got my first modern Stanley block plane, then spent three hours trying to get the sole perfectly flat, which I almost managed, got bored and decided to see how well it worked before trying again to get it perfect. It seems to work fine, better than I expected to be honest. So now I wont bother trying to get it any flatter. I just ordered an old Record No 5, which may or may not need some work. I now know I needn't be obsessive about it though.
Today, my very first hand plane is supposed to arrive. I am eager to get it. It's a Stanley #4 (don't know the type yet). I got it on ebay and the seller didn't have all the info, but he did say it had brass, not plastic or steel for the knobs etc. I've been planning my flattening (I'm guessing it will need it) and have been on CZcams watching all the "guru's", Paul Sellers, Rex Kreuger, Rob Cosman etc. Glad to find this video. I'm going to find myself a piece of glass, get some 50 grit belt sanding paper, and then some higher grit for polishing, and then will follow this flattening process. Thanks for great info. Subscribed!
Your approach to teaching on youtube goes against the grain and causes a lot of tearsout! Love what you're doing,thank you for a realistic, common sense approach!
It's important, but often hard, to remember that wood naturally expands and contracts by more than the variation in those scratches on James' example plane. Sharpen enough, but not too much.
The type of precision a lot of people seem to think they need exists almost exclusively in high precision shops that are temperature and humidity controlled and working with materials that are far more stable than wood. I get it and it's an easy trap to fall into. Nailing a tight tolerance or being able to change something to a level you can barely feel is amazing! I work in a high precision job shop and knowing when to be that particular about the tool condition and when not to be is how you tell people with a lot of active experience from people who have yet to develop that understanding. That being said, if it makes you feel better about the tool you're using, why not?
I guess one issue is that a lot of noob (me included 😊) will spend hours flattening a vintage plane because they don't really know how to set it up correctly and sharpen the blade. Now with a little more experience I totally agree, flattening while cleaning up the sole for 5-10min would probably have been enough. The other thing is, if you want to use your ruler to check for flatness, you should check if it is straight first 🙄
I did the same thing when I got a few of my granddad's old rust planes 3-4 years ago. Would work for an hour on cheap water stones and it seemed like the sharp factor would get worse. I switched to a Norton set of oil stones (after sand paper on the really pitted blades) and that made a big difference. The leather strop is key IMO too. I used cardboard with some Polish paste to began with and that was okay in a pinch. Turns out not all water stones are created equal. Also, If you are here I am sure you seen some of Paul Sellers YT stuff, but his plane restoration video helped with the sharpening and what parts do and why. It's over an hour long, but it's not super technical. Hope your shaving with the best of them soon! Godspeed.
Fun is main reason to flatten I think. When I can take off a shaving that I can see and read newsprint through, it brings a smile. I have my jointers really flat because I "hog" the necessary wood to straighten the edge, and then reduce the shaving to a whisper with the depth adjuster, rather than swapping planes. I have one problem body, a Bedrock 607 that is seriously bowed, high in the middle and touching the surface the ends. The bow is so pronounced, it rocks side to side on a flattish surface. I haven't figured out a method of flattening it yet that avoids introducing some inadvertent twist or other weirdness.
Would it work to sharpie it, sand to find the high spots, gently file them down and repeat until you can just run it over a sanding sheet? Basically treat it like a bowed board, just file instead of plane.
@@FirstMM That is just about what I was imagining. Side to side rocking is my biggest concern. I was thinking of trying to set the plane body upside down in a vise, and build a sanding block with rails that could ride beside the vise. That would control both any wobble from the plane body, and the abrasive block, I think. The biggest worry is just how much metal would be missing at the ends afterward. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks, as I'm aging I'm finally beginning to use the dozen I've collected. This will be helpful as most were abused before I collected them. Until now a block plane has been all I've used. One my bud made is my favorite. Sometimes I really enjoy the slow pace and the sound of a sharp blade scraping across the wood vs dust collector and planer screaming at me. Just nice to get out of worlds pace.
agreed, I just flattened a board (for a display case I'm making) using my jointer plane and no 5, followed by a smoother. Took a little longer than if I had run it through my electric planer, and is probably less accurate, but it sure was satisfying. :)
You're obviously wrong for reasons I can't quite articulate! 😛 How dare you tell me to only flatten if I want to! In all seriousness, thanks for making this. I'm just about to get started in the hobby, and really haven't been sure how meticulous I need to be in this area.
Most planes for most tasks flat is flat enough. This has served fine for millennia. Maybe for a very precise smoothing plane for the finest of furniture, you'd need to go greater lengths to flatten.
Fantastic video ! Finally I have the confirmation that I was doing the right thing :))) . I have always felt "guilty" for settling with flat enough as long as the plane performs as expected. I was seeing serious woodworkers taking the feeler gauge and the engineering straight edge and start poking around the sole while I was just looking at the sole and saying "it's fine" :))) Thanks for this video, you made my day 👌
Thanks for the video. I am restoring a plane and don't want to bother the patina any more than necessary. Getting bent out of shape flattening, smoothing, and sharpening seemed odd, but I was starting to doubt myself. Now I am back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and a beautiful plane survives another day.
This is good advice, I’ve reconditioned quite a few old planes now. If after sharpening the iron they take a good shaving there done. If I can’t get a good shaving I flatten the soul. At first I followed the internet advise of using 150 grit. After a half an hour and getting nowhere I went to the 60 grit, gets if flat much faster. Follow with 100 grit and put the plane to work.
Indeed, a sole need to be flat (the degree is arguable), but its smoothness doesn't matter at all. So using the smallest possible grit for its flattening is a time-saving technique.
There is a right way and then there's the Wright way... I actually ran off an annoying gentleman who liked to come over and see what I was making or working. It just happened that I needed to hog off a lot of rust and some pitting from the sole of a plane and I fired up the belt sander and went to town... the look on his face was like I just clubbed a baby seal with a nuke, and he hasn't been back since thankfully... also, that particular plane is my daily user and has been for like 3 years now and it's almost always within arms reach.
I think the main reason for people being obsessed with flatness of their planes is that they focus on their tools instead of wood and furniture they would want to make. Kinda shifted focus
Is that "there is no right way" or " there is no Wright way" ? I wonder if a good way would be the very rough paper and then jump to a fairly fine paper to leave smooth crests on a somewhat rough finish. The idea is that the coarse grooves would hold some of the candle wax that some like to use on their metal planes. Me? I like my wood body and transitional planes so it's not an issue.
This video is right on time. Just this morning I was cleaning up an edge of 10mm plywood with a no 4 and then no 5. The 5 which was set previously did not take any shaving, (and it took shaving from regular wood afterwards without issue). Turned out the mouth was a bit higher than toe and heel so I flattened it. I can still see a bit of light in some places, but that could very well be my ruler and the plane is working fine now. If not for this video, I might've come back tomorrow and spent unnecessary time on that plane, thank you.
I am in 100% agreement with this video. I have always wondered if woodworkers in the 19th century where flattening soles and for that matter making mirrors of the back sides of their irons. Almost all the irons I have picked up have a slight concave back. It is so consistent I feel it must be a feature.
Do I need to flatten? Probably not. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes. Just like when I’m loading ammo. Do I need to take to to match levels of precision for hunting? No. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes. Why? It removes any excuse I can have for poor performance other than myself.
Hello, Mr. Wright; I loved this! I just started using hand planes & I really like it. So I was concerned about how to do it 'right'. Thank you for teaching me how to do it the Wright way! In this case I *love* the Wright way! I have a super cheap pair of small "block planes". They are junk but I wanted to see if I could make them actually plane. The 'adjusters' were plastic wheels molded on soft steel threaded shafts. The plastic wheels broke so I tried using pliers to turn the 'adjusters'. Then I realized that Rex Kruger is right, just use a hammer. I started trying to plane w/ it but it wouldn't plane. So I checked the bottom & it was nowhere near 'flat'. I sanded it on an 80 grit sander belt till it looked flat & now it will plane. So following your advice has helped me make junk into 'planes'. Thanks again. Have a GREAT day, Neighbor!
Thanks for the video. I love your no nonsense approach to tools and I particularly like your tee shirt! 😂 The inner maths nerd in me giggles every time I see it.
I started with Japanese planes where you intentionally remove material from the bottom of the plane so that only the toe and mouth are coplanar. For their jointer equivalent the toe, mouth and heel are coplanar. It makes absolute sense, two points make a line, toe and mouth or mouth and heel. Anything in between can introduce error, so best not to have it.
I paid too much for a pitted corrugated #5 when I first started just out of excitement I actually found one. Based on what I see hand planes are more rare in the south, and rust is brutal. I “flattened” it just to remove the last rust and edges on the pits after evaporust. It’s still pockmarked and has valleys where I don’t care. I still use it as a scrub plane and it’s great. Now I’m careful and make sure it’s just surface rust. I don’t often use chemicals anymore. I’ll remove the rust with sandpaper and do a quicky flattening just to make sure the low parts are where they don’t matter. You made me feel better about starting with aggressive grit. I know objectively it’s ok, but had felt guilty about it.
Your end vise looks like the Veritas Twin Screw Vise. I have the same vise and I really like it. Over the last year, or so, the vise has gotten tighter on one side and no longer holds evenly across the entire length of the jaw. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to take it apart and plane the jaw flush, which is a task that I'm not excited about. Hey, I love the thought of wispy, gravity defying shavings gently floating to the floor as much as the next guy! But the reality is that it's near 100 degrees in the shop (I'm in New Mexico) and it would be a day of sweaty grinding through the task of truing the jaw. It's not great wood, either. All I could afford is Douglas Fur. So, all in all I'd rather find an easy way to fix my vise and get back to fun work. This, my good sir, is where you come in. I'm hoping that you, in your infinite wisdom and experience, can bestow upon me a miraculous trick or just in time sage advise that will make the task either: 1, not necessary, or 2: not as hard, or 3: less traumatic. Long-shot much?!? If you can't do any of that, I'd love to see a full video on the twin screw vice and how you use it.
It sounds like one of the two sprockets has slipped slightly. Every now and then it loosens up just a little bit and one of them will rotate a little bit farther. That will cause one side of the jaw to go in before the other one does. So if you take the cover off and rotate one of them back and forth until the jaw is parallel again and then lock it back in place. That should fix your problem. But sometimes the wood itself gets warped. I have the original video installing it and I did a 2-year update video on the whole bench. But those were a while ago.
I bought a recently restored #8 off of Craigslist. It refused to take a shaving in the middle of a board. Low and behold, there was an eighth of an inch gap. Took 10 minutes to flatten with 120 grit. My first clue to be on the lookout was the blade being inserted upside down.
A few years ago I bought a 70cm wooden jointer a local market. Cost me A$18 and a bit of pain to carry it home as I had walked the 1.5 km to the market. This plane had a grove that ran diagonally the full length of the plane ( corner to corner ). It must have been used to joint narrow boards. A few strokes with my number 6 cleaned it nicely although it could do with the mouth closed up a bit.
I agree totally! More often than not there is too much thought or over-kill put into wood working. Have fun with it and just do it. If you take the fun out of it you wont stay with it long. Great video!
Well, I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve rarely had to take the time to flatten a plane, unless, as you said, it wasn’t performing properly. The ruler trick is overkill and leads to a lot of unnecessary sanding. Great vid, James!
I inherited a no 5 from my father. When I tried to flatten the sole I was horrified to see a valley in front of the mouth. After much further scrubbing the valley remained whilst the rest of the sole was flat. I got bored so I tried the plane and it worked perfectly! I’ve decided that there is much baloney spoken on this subject.
Great reminder! As a newcomer in the last year, it can be very confusing out there with person x saying you need to do this, person y saying nah thats wrong. "Its flat enough" is definitely going to be some sort of future sign for my shed lol. Good video cheers
Heh ... Excellent timing. I just got a no name No4 from a friend that is definitely not as flat as it should be (it's rocking), but even though I know its hooey, the gurus do tend to get in your head at times 😂 Thx for the reality check.
#1 through #5 I am happy if heel, toe and mouth are on the same plane for general use. For really fine smoothing I have my Infill Planes soles dead flat..
Thank you for this, I have been shooting for precision, kind of obsessively. It actually doesn't matter. Wood as a natural material will never keep its precise shape. I need to talk myself out of unnecessary precisions. Thanks for this, I liked your explanation of have fun woodworking, 100% agree! That's all that matters!
Glad you addressed this. I have a Grizzly jointer that I could never get properly flat. Some sharpie marks in the center just wouldn’t go away with the outer border just being slightly high. I gave up when my lowest grit sanding belt wouldn’t do any more good. I don’t feel like a failure now after watching this. It just jointed walnut slabs for a table very well, and nobody will ever notice that light gets under a ruler on the bottom of the sole.
Absolutely right! Any further flattening after what you said is done either because some keyboard wood worker said it "had" to be done or for giggles. I do flatten further than that - and I do it for the giggles. I also go through a whole heap of grits and polish the bottom because it reduces friction and I get some giggles from doing it. Waxing the bottom makes little difference to my jack plane.
It's my fault everyone. Literally. Thanks for the video! Although to the error that you're dealing with it's insignificant, I can prove that the planarity of the sole definitely does change whether the frog, handles, and iron are attached or not. The variance is on the order of (likely) less than 0.01". I witnessed it as I was scraping a No. 4 flat (first time doing this) referencing a B-grade granite surface plate (flat to within 0.0002") but didnt have a means of measuring the variance. I will never forget this fact as it meant that I had to go back over a plane that I thought was perfect when I attached the frog and rechecked it on the surface plate. It literally put a very obvious twist in the sole which then told me that the mating surfaces of the frog to plane body were not perfectly coplanar. The only remedy as I dont have a machine mill was to lap in these mating surfaces and re-flatten the sole with everything attached. Error identification, analysis, and mitigation is my full-time job as an R&D Chemist...so I guarantee you that I get far more picky about minimizing error than I really need to, especially when you take into consideration the dimensional variance of wood as a function of relative humidity and temperature...but my whole point is to remove sources of error - in this case, I cannot fault my tools for any performance issues because I've done everything I can to make the tool as perfect as I can...so if things go sideways...it's operator error, can't blame the tool...but damn my planes do run nicely and the technique of scraping provides a surface riddled with tiny pockets in which wax can reside to keep the sole lubricated much much longer than a sanded surface. I'll respond to this with my other YT channel where I do have a video or two on scraping a plane flat. Thanks again for the video my good man!
Dang! Great video. I love it! I have spent time, a great deal of time, flattening the sole of an old #7 I was refurbishing. I still spend time flattening the soles of the smoothers in my corral. I've never put much into flattening a jack, and I won't normally invest a lot of time in flattening any other planes, however, as was mentioned, I DO like the soles of my planes to be clean and if possible, shiny! Rust free, scratch free and patina free. My plane's sides can have all the patina in the world, but the soles are generally shiny. Again, as was mentioned, it's definitely a "me" thing. Thanks for the video!
I'm getting .001" shavings with a transition plane with a metal bottom. Spent like 5 min flattening it, didn't even think about square or anything, just adjusted the blade until I was taking good shavings.
The Japanese actually have a special plane to relieve the areas between the toe & mouth and between the mouth & heel to reduce drag.. These three are the only points/lines that need to be coplanar.
Well, I still don't understand why the Japanese style planes are slightly concave on either side of the blade. I thought it might be to make up for hand planes not having an infeed and outfeed table like the power jointers. Getting a board straight enough for a good glue joint seems to be a problem some times, with a slight hump in the center of the board. I did see some one explain how to get that out, and I think it was the guy who came up with the ruler trick for getting a flat edge on the unbeveled side of the plane blades.... The discovery journey continues....
They do it because of tradition. There is much in Japanese woodworking that is merely done for tradition. It's a lot like the corrugation on the bottom of some old Stanley plains. You would logically think that it would reduce friction make it easier to push but the reality is it doesn't actually make a difference.
Well, thanks for that James, but I would tend to think that is one of those things that has been around for so long, people forgot why they did it in the first place. After I make some and learn to use them, maybe I will have more comments....
I realize I'm off topic but the issue is conventional wisdom without proof. I want to know just how important it really is to sharpen the backs of plane blades and chisels. I don't exactly question that the back of the plane blade should be flat or polished and I do it, yet I wonder how much difference it makes. It seems to me that much of the general plane advice given is really for a smoothing plane intended to produce a finished surface. As I typically plane and then sand, I'm not trying to get a finished surface but rather one I can effectively sand. I've bought and restored several planes and I've virtually never found one where the back of the blade was flattened or the bottom of the plane was flattened by any of the previous owners. Obviously it worked well for them. Further, it strikes me that the early sharpening books I bought didn't harp on flattening the backs much less the sole. The back of old plane blades and chisels I've come across don't typically have a scratch pattern I can see. They are not polished but nor are they obviously scratched. All blades at some microscopic level are irregular and essentially serrated. It appears to me that craftsmen used these planes for over 100 years and never felt the need to flattened the back of the blade or the bottom of the plane. Conceding that it makes some difference, have you ever just sharpened a blade as it comes out of an old plane, tested the sharpness (I know you have a machine that measures this) and then used the ruler trick or whatever to resharpen by addressing both sides (i.e. sharpening the back)? I'd like to know the difference after 10 strokes, 50, strokes, and 100 strokes. By strokes I mean say a 14 inch pass of the plane on whatever species you feel is average. Let's say walnut. I think it would be interesting to find out just how much difference flattening the back makes. I've spent a lot of time doing that and wonder just how worthwhile it is. Thanks for your always interesting assessments.
You don't sharpen the back of blades, you polish them (I think this was just a typo on your part). Flattening the back just makes it easier to get a sharp edge in the future. In my opinion, a really sharp edge on a chisel (flat back, NO ruler trick) makes it easier to cut, and safer. How sharp is sharp enough? That is largely up to you, and the work you do. A carpenter might use brute force (i.e., hit the chisel harder) as a chopping aid using a sharpish chisel on a timber frame joint, whereas a fine furniture maker has a very different definition of good enough!
Once I have smooth the back of the blade one time I never touch it again. As long as it is smooth that's all that matters. Some of mine aren't even perfectly flat. If I'm using a competition plane then I'll have it perfectly flat and smooth but for 99% of the work it's not really that important.
Have you tested how much difference it makes comparing a very rough sole (sanded, scratched) versus a smooth polished sole; i.e. how much effort it takes moving the plane across the wood?
My two big transitionals I check a couple times a year if I don't like the shavings, plural. They are both over 16"and are used for stock removal at the depth my ancient shoulders will push all the way through a piece.
My take is that as long as the toe, heel and front of mouth are planar, the mouth and either the toe of heel is putting the blade where it needs to be. At the start of the cut the downforce should be toward the toe, keeping it flat. Towards the end of the cut the force should be toward the heel, again keeping it flat. If at any point neither the toe nor the heel is in contact with the timber, the plane is too long for the workpiece. The only productive reason to get the entire plane bed planar is to enable the use of the wrong plane for the task, but as stated, if it makes you happy then that is reward enough!
So I inherited a a low angle Stanley Sweetheart Block Plane from my Dad when he moved to Florida. He always lectured me about keeping tools sharp. It took me months to sharpen that iron. I never even considered the sole. He always managed to get shavings with but l will never understand how. I was using it just before watching the video. Now my idea that I need to flatten the sole is unnecessary. That is good because I’ve never flattened my Stanley #5 contractors plane I purchased new 30 years ago!
I’ve recently bought a no 8 cleaned up the blade and been using it and up until now I was thinking of having to find a piece of float glass big enough to fit the thing on but for now I’m just gonna enjoy using it and see how it goes out of interest James would you recommend using a plane stop or vise for holding the workpiece best
A vice is easier to learn but it takes a little bit of time every time you want to put it in and take it out. The planning stop is a little bit harder to learn but once you do it's relatively easy to keep going. I generally prefer to use the vise but in the end it's just a personal preference.
I'm sorry, but just to be snooty, I thought that we use planes in wood working, not in building airplanes etc. If you have to be that tolerance tight use a milling machine (they can do a bang up job on wood, ya know). OK, I'm just kidding, but unless a plane is in really bad shape, flattening it seems a bit of over kill. If it needs it, a trip to the milling machine would seem to be in order, James this is a good video about the subject. I just wonder why other folks have to be so precise, except for corner molding joints, of course. ;-)
Do you happen to have a no.5 Stanley you would be willing to sell? I think it would be great to aquire one from a person that inspired me to get back into hand tools.
You have a machinist friend you can call on, so maybe have him get a plane dead flat and do a video about what difference (if any) that level of precision makes. An apples to apples comparison could change nothing, or perhaps everything about the debate. At least you'd get a video out of the deal lol
I've spent time (far too much) trying to unflatten a japanese plane. Create a hollow between the toe and mouth and mouth and heel. Make sure those three spots are flat-ish and it sings slicing through the board.
I always ask people who insist on flattening a plane sole: What behaviour did you see that makes you believe it needs flattening? Often the answer is that they haven't even tried using the plane.
I jave an old #4 Stanley that was gifted to me as my first plane. I did it up, flattened it, put on ironwood tote and knob, and loved working with it. In the past year or two though, the plane was knocked off my bench, and one of the plane's walls near the frog was badly cracked. The breaks seems through and through, with japanning and the tightness of the area holding the break on. With such damage, the plane is still working. Is there a way to repair the plane wall?
Usually brazing is the way to fix it. It is not an easy task to keep the plane flat while you do that but it's very possible. If you get someone who's really skilled with TIG welding they can also do it.
Great video. You probably have a video on this, but i was to ask about how (1) should the opening of the mouth [before and after the blade] be parallel, (2) if the side of the mouth closer to the blade edge is at an angle compared will planing be a problem, and (3) do you try to level plane frog through the body of the plane [e.g. plane has slight bump on one side of the mouth making the plane blade slightly higher coming out of the mouth].
the front and back of the mouth do not have to be parallel, but the front of the mouth should be parallel to the tip of the iron. if it is not parallel to the iron, one side will be better with tough grain. but with straight grain you would not notice a problem at all. the bed of the frog should be perfectly flat. If if is not then you can take a file or course stone to it. the iron should not touch the body of the plane just the frog.
I started woodworking and turned into a tool collector/ restorer by accident until i finally had to call it quits and just does it do what I need it to do ?? yes , Good enough .. I still dither about stuff .. I mean, I have an old Micheal kors bag scrapped for strops but still looking for local horse butt ......*shrug*
My roommate is an instrument maker (high precision machinist for scientific instruments) and we both love hand tool woodworking. He actually introduced me to the hobby and I inherited his attention to these details. I started off really paying attention to that process of flattening and sharpening to specific geometries and so on. In the years since I started using his methods as a guide, I have developed quite a different approach to my tools: flat enough is flat enough. Sharp enough is sharp enough. That does not always sit well in his brain and we've had some disagreements on the matter over the years, but we've come to the conclusion that you arrive at here: in order to fully enjoy working with our tools, we need to instill our confidence in these tools in our own ways. I love the contrast between our approaches to this and it just further reinforces the underlying reasons why we like to create stuff in the first place. It's about the joy of bein a creator and interacting with our tools in the ways that make sense for us! Loved the video!!
If you are accustomed to working to very small tolerances due to your line of work or other hobbies, it can be difficult to remember that what is huge under a microscope might not be detectable to humans.
Hard to argue when James has been Wright his entire life!
Only today I installed 6 doors, used my very old no7 that as far as I can tell has never been flattened. The client is a German fella with an eye for quality and detail. He was happy, i was happy, the plane was an absolute pleasure to use all day to get the doors fit horizontally, it hogged off what I needed and no square could prove the plane faulty. And the finish was smooth enough, was sparkling like a diamond. Its about getting work done, nothing more nothing less. And my non flat no7 is a total workhorse ❤ I spend a lot more energy on the iron than the sole.
Needed this video. I'm restoring my grandfather's plane and I have got the rust off, and spent today flattening with 60 grit (lowest i have). I was quite annoyed that i couldn't quite get all the sharpie off, but the main bits are flat so I guess it's fine.
I really enjoyed the thought that people obsessing over flatness will usually use an (actually quite bendy) ruler to check for flat. A ruler is not a straightedge.
Thanks. I just got my first modern Stanley block plane, then spent three hours trying to get the sole perfectly flat, which I almost managed, got bored and decided to see how well it worked before trying again to get it perfect. It seems to work fine, better than I expected to be honest. So now I wont bother trying to get it any flatter. I just ordered an old Record No 5, which may or may not need some work. I now know I needn't be obsessive about it though.
Today, my very first hand plane is supposed to arrive. I am eager to get it. It's a Stanley #4 (don't know the type yet). I got it on ebay and the seller didn't have all the info, but he did say it had brass, not plastic or steel for the knobs etc. I've been planning my flattening (I'm guessing it will need it) and have been on CZcams watching all the "guru's", Paul Sellers, Rex Kreuger, Rob Cosman etc. Glad to find this video. I'm going to find myself a piece of glass, get some 50 grit belt sanding paper, and then some higher grit for polishing, and then will follow this flattening process. Thanks for great info. Subscribed!
Sounds like fun. I would not plan on flattening it right away. I would say that only 1 in 5 actually need it.
@@WoodByWrightHowTo Good point, you did say that in the video. I'll run it through the paces first and see how well it does. Thanks.
I love this video because it helps me remember to pay attention to the output and not get as caught up in the periphery
Your approach to teaching on youtube goes against the grain and causes a lot of tearsout! Love what you're doing,thank you for a realistic, common sense approach!
Isn’t every way on this channel the “Wright Way” of doing it?😂
It's important, but often hard, to remember that wood naturally expands and contracts by more than the variation in those scratches on James' example plane. Sharpen enough, but not too much.
Thank you, just saved me some time.
The type of precision a lot of people seem to think they need exists almost exclusively in high precision shops that are temperature and humidity controlled and working with materials that are far more stable than wood. I get it and it's an easy trap to fall into. Nailing a tight tolerance or being able to change something to a level you can barely feel is amazing! I work in a high precision job shop and knowing when to be that particular about the tool condition and when not to be is how you tell people with a lot of active experience from people who have yet to develop that understanding. That being said, if it makes you feel better about the tool you're using, why not?
I only flattened the sole on my planes because I enjoy the process. Though I'll look at my smoother again. A competition plane might be fun
There may not be a right way to do it, but there is a Wright way to do it....What makes you Happy!
I guess one issue is that a lot of noob (me included 😊) will spend hours flattening a vintage plane because they don't really know how to set it up correctly and sharpen the blade. Now with a little more experience I totally agree, flattening while cleaning up the sole for 5-10min would probably have been enough.
The other thing is, if you want to use your ruler to check for flatness, you should check if it is straight first 🙄
I did the same thing when I got a few of my granddad's old rust planes 3-4 years ago. Would work for an hour on cheap water stones and it seemed like the sharp factor would get worse. I switched to a Norton set of oil stones (after sand paper on the really pitted blades) and that made a big difference. The leather strop is key IMO too. I used cardboard with some Polish paste to began with and that was okay in a pinch. Turns out not all water stones are created equal. Also, If you are here I am sure you seen some of Paul Sellers YT stuff, but his plane restoration video helped with the sharpening and what parts do and why. It's over an hour long, but it's not super technical.
Hope your shaving with the best of them soon! Godspeed.
Fun is main reason to flatten I think. When I can take off a shaving that I can see and read newsprint through, it brings a smile. I have my jointers really flat because I "hog" the necessary wood to straighten the edge, and then reduce the shaving to a whisper with the depth adjuster, rather than swapping planes. I have one problem body, a Bedrock 607 that is seriously bowed, high in the middle and touching the surface the ends. The bow is so pronounced, it rocks side to side on a flattish surface. I haven't figured out a method of flattening it yet that avoids introducing some inadvertent twist or other weirdness.
Would it work to sharpie it, sand to find the high spots, gently file them down and repeat until you can just run it over a sanding sheet?
Basically treat it like a bowed board, just file instead of plane.
@@FirstMM That is just about what I was imagining. Side to side rocking is my biggest concern. I was thinking of trying to set the plane body upside down in a vise, and build a sanding block with rails that could ride beside the vise. That would control both any wobble from the plane body, and the abrasive block, I think. The biggest worry is just how much metal would be missing at the ends afterward. Thanks for the suggestion.
I've really flattened a LOT of tools just cause I liked em lol
I've had a new Record #7 restting unused in a closet for several years. Now I'll have to sharpen the blade & put it to work.
Thanks, as I'm aging I'm finally beginning to use the dozen I've collected. This will be helpful as most were abused before I collected them. Until now a block plane has been all I've used. One my bud made is my favorite. Sometimes I really enjoy the slow pace and the sound of a sharp blade scraping across the wood vs dust collector and planer screaming at me. Just nice to get out of worlds pace.
agreed, I just flattened a board (for a display case I'm making) using my jointer plane and no 5, followed by a smoother. Took a little longer than if I had run it through my electric planer, and is probably less accurate, but it sure was satisfying. :)
You're obviously wrong for reasons I can't quite articulate! 😛
How dare you tell me to only flatten if I want to!
In all seriousness, thanks for making this. I'm just about to get started in the hobby, and really haven't been sure how meticulous I need to be in this area.
Most planes for most tasks flat is flat enough. This has served fine for millennia. Maybe for a very precise smoothing plane for the finest of furniture, you'd need to go greater lengths to flatten.
What no pun about woodworking being good for the soul?
Thanks, James! I concur. My former machinist self is long gone.
machinists are often the most frustrated woodworkers.
@@WoodByWrightHowTo you told me that years ago. I am a free man now.
“Perfection is a direction, not a location.”
I ordered a(nother) vintage plane (a nr. 7 coincidentally) and I really needed this video. You saved me hours of flattening
Fantastic video ! Finally I have the confirmation that I was doing the right thing :))) . I have always felt "guilty" for settling with flat enough as long as the plane performs as expected. I was seeing serious woodworkers taking the feeler gauge and the engineering straight edge and start poking around the sole while I was just looking at the sole and saying "it's fine" :))) Thanks for this video, you made my day 👌
here here 🙂
I flattened my No.4 smoother with an 80 grit. I thought it would be rough enough... Boy, were I wrooong :D
Thanks for the video. I am restoring a plane and don't want to bother the patina any more than necessary. Getting bent out of shape flattening, smoothing, and sharpening seemed odd, but I was starting to doubt myself. Now I am back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and a beautiful plane survives another day.
I appreciate your straight forward matter-of-fact advice.
This is good advice, I’ve reconditioned quite a few old planes now. If after sharpening the iron they take a good shaving there done. If I can’t get a good shaving I flatten the soul. At first I followed the internet advise of using 150 grit. After a half an hour and getting nowhere I went to the 60 grit, gets if flat much faster. Follow with 100 grit and put the plane to work.
Indeed, a sole need to be flat (the degree is arguable), but its smoothness doesn't matter at all. So using the smallest possible grit for its flattening is a time-saving technique.
It is so nice to get real world, knowledge and content
There is a right way and then there's the Wright way... I actually ran off an annoying gentleman who liked to come over and see what I was making or working. It just happened that I needed to hog off a lot of rust and some pitting from the sole of a plane and I fired up the belt sander and went to town... the look on his face was like I just clubbed a baby seal with a nuke, and he hasn't been back since thankfully... also, that particular plane is my daily user and has been for like 3 years now and it's almost always within arms reach.
Actually there IS a wright way to do it, and I love it!
Thanks man!
I think the main reason for people being obsessed with flatness of their planes is that they focus on their tools instead of wood and furniture they would want to make. Kinda shifted focus
Is that "there is no right way" or " there is no Wright way" ?
I wonder if a good way would be the very rough paper and then jump to a fairly fine paper to leave smooth crests on a somewhat rough finish. The idea is that the coarse grooves would hold some of the candle wax that some like to use on their metal planes. Me? I like my wood body and transitional planes so it's not an issue.
This video is right on time. Just this morning I was cleaning up an edge of 10mm plywood with a no 4 and then no 5. The 5 which was set previously did not take any shaving, (and it took shaving from regular wood afterwards without issue). Turned out the mouth was a bit higher than toe and heel so I flattened it. I can still see a bit of light in some places, but that could very well be my ruler and the plane is working fine now. If not for this video, I might've come back tomorrow and spent unnecessary time on that plane, thank you.
I am in 100% agreement with this video. I have always wondered if woodworkers in the 19th century where flattening soles and for that matter making mirrors of the back sides of their irons. Almost all the irons I have picked up have a slight concave back. It is so consistent I feel it must be a feature.
Do I need to flatten? Probably not. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes. Just like when I’m loading ammo. Do I need to take to to match levels of precision for hunting? No. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes. Why? It removes any excuse I can have for poor performance other than myself.
Thank you!
Hello, Mr. Wright;
I loved this!
I just started using hand planes & I really like it.
So I was concerned about how to do it 'right'.
Thank you for teaching me how to do it the Wright way!
In this case I *love* the Wright way!
I have a super cheap pair of small "block planes".
They are junk but I wanted to see if I could make them actually plane.
The 'adjusters' were plastic wheels molded on soft steel threaded shafts.
The plastic wheels broke so I tried using pliers to turn the 'adjusters'.
Then I realized that Rex Kruger is right, just use a hammer.
I started trying to plane w/ it but it wouldn't plane.
So I checked the bottom & it was nowhere near 'flat'.
I sanded it on an 80 grit sander belt till it looked flat & now it will plane.
So following your advice has helped me make junk into 'planes'.
Thanks again.
Have a GREAT day, Neighbor!
a great video! Learning what is "good enough" is an important part of this hobby
Beautifully rusted... that's what I'm gonna call my older planes from now on. Love your content brother.
Thanks for the video. I love your no nonsense approach to tools and I particularly like your tee shirt! 😂 The inner maths nerd in me giggles every time I see it.
I started with Japanese planes where you intentionally remove material from the bottom of the plane so that only the toe and mouth are coplanar. For their jointer equivalent the toe, mouth and heel are coplanar. It makes absolute sense, two points make a line, toe and mouth or mouth and heel. Anything in between can introduce error, so best not to have it.
I paid too much for a pitted corrugated #5 when I first started just out of excitement I actually found one. Based on what I see hand planes are more rare in the south, and rust is brutal. I “flattened” it just to remove the last rust and edges on the pits after evaporust. It’s still pockmarked and has valleys where I don’t care. I still use it as a scrub plane and it’s great.
Now I’m careful and make sure it’s just surface rust. I don’t often use chemicals anymore. I’ll remove the rust with sandpaper and do a quicky flattening just to make sure the low parts are where they don’t matter.
You made me feel better about starting with aggressive grit. I know objectively it’s ok, but had felt guilty about it.
Your end vise looks like the Veritas Twin Screw Vise. I have the same vise and I really like it. Over the last year, or so, the vise has gotten tighter on one side and no longer holds evenly across the entire length of the jaw. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to take it apart and plane the jaw flush, which is a task that I'm not excited about. Hey, I love the thought of wispy, gravity defying shavings gently floating to the floor as much as the next guy! But the reality is that it's near 100 degrees in the shop (I'm in New Mexico) and it would be a day of sweaty grinding through the task of truing the jaw. It's not great wood, either. All I could afford is Douglas Fur. So, all in all I'd rather find an easy way to fix my vise and get back to fun work.
This, my good sir, is where you come in. I'm hoping that you, in your infinite wisdom and experience, can bestow upon me a miraculous trick or just in time sage advise that will make the task either: 1, not necessary, or 2: not as hard, or 3: less traumatic.
Long-shot much?!?
If you can't do any of that, I'd love to see a full video on the twin screw vice and how you use it.
It sounds like one of the two sprockets has slipped slightly. Every now and then it loosens up just a little bit and one of them will rotate a little bit farther. That will cause one side of the jaw to go in before the other one does. So if you take the cover off and rotate one of them back and forth until the jaw is parallel again and then lock it back in place. That should fix your problem. But sometimes the wood itself gets warped. I have the original video installing it and I did a 2-year update video on the whole bench. But those were a while ago.
I bought a recently restored #8 off of Craigslist. It refused to take a shaving in the middle of a board. Low and behold, there was an eighth of an inch gap. Took 10 minutes to flatten with 120 grit.
My first clue to be on the lookout was the blade being inserted upside down.
A few years ago I bought a 70cm wooden jointer a local market. Cost me A$18 and a bit of pain to carry it home as I had walked the 1.5 km to the market. This plane had a grove that ran diagonally the full length of the plane ( corner to corner ). It must have been used to joint narrow boards. A few strokes with my number 6 cleaned it nicely although it could do with the mouth closed up a bit.
I checked the flatness on my cheap shopfox plane. It was good enough. Every plane I’ve gotten since I haven’t bothered.
I agree totally! More often than not there is too much thought or over-kill put into wood working. Have fun with it and just do it. If you take the fun out of it you wont stay with it long. Great video!
Sandpaper grit was going to be my next question. You read my mind. Thanks! :D
Well, I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve rarely had to take the time to flatten a plane, unless, as you said, it wasn’t performing properly. The ruler trick is overkill and leads to a lot of unnecessary sanding. Great vid, James!
Great video. I thought I was going to go crazy, since I kept trying to flatten an Amazon Basic planer and it was taking me hours.
I inherited a no 5 from my father. When I tried to flatten the sole I was horrified to see a valley in front of the mouth. After much further scrubbing the valley remained whilst the rest of the sole was flat. I got bored so I tried the plane and it worked perfectly! I’ve decided that there is much baloney spoken on this subject.
Bingo. That's why I generally don't flatten my planes unless it causes a problem. And it takes a lot to cause a problem.
Great reminder! As a newcomer in the last year, it can be very confusing out there with person x saying you need to do this, person y saying nah thats wrong. "Its flat enough" is definitely going to be some sort of future sign for my shed lol. Good video cheers
Heh ... Excellent timing. I just got a no name No4 from a friend that is definitely not as flat as it should be (it's rocking), but even though I know its hooey, the gurus do tend to get in your head at times 😂 Thx for the reality check.
You're wrong James...psych!
Love the practical and mater-of-fact approach. Aloha 🤙
Thanks a bunch for all the tips, James! 😃
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
you have influenced me. I bought 2 irons from lake erie toolworks. see how they hold up
#1 through #5 I am happy if heel, toe and mouth are on the same plane for general use. For really fine smoothing I have my Infill Planes soles dead flat..
Thank you for this, I have been shooting for precision, kind of obsessively. It actually doesn't matter. Wood as a natural material will never keep its precise shape. I need to talk myself out of unnecessary precisions. Thanks for this, I liked your explanation of have fun woodworking, 100% agree! That's all that matters!
Love this and fully agree. Crazy flat soles and see thru shavings are wild to me, just get something ready to do the job, the job being making things
Glad you addressed this. I have a Grizzly jointer that I could never get properly flat. Some sharpie marks in the center just wouldn’t go away with the outer border just being slightly high. I gave up when my lowest grit sanding belt wouldn’t do any more good.
I don’t feel like a failure now after watching this. It just jointed walnut slabs for a table very well, and nobody will ever notice that light gets under a ruler on the bottom of the sole.
Absolutely right! Any further flattening after what you said is done either because some keyboard wood worker said it "had" to be done or for giggles. I do flatten further than that - and I do it for the giggles. I also go through a whole heap of grits and polish the bottom because it reduces friction and I get some giggles from doing it. Waxing the bottom makes little difference to my jack plane.
It's my fault everyone. Literally. Thanks for the video!
Although to the error that you're dealing with it's insignificant, I can prove that the planarity of the sole definitely does change whether the frog, handles, and iron are attached or not. The variance is on the order of (likely) less than 0.01". I witnessed it as I was scraping a No. 4 flat (first time doing this) referencing a B-grade granite surface plate (flat to within 0.0002") but didnt have a means of measuring the variance. I will never forget this fact as it meant that I had to go back over a plane that I thought was perfect when I attached the frog and rechecked it on the surface plate. It literally put a very obvious twist in the sole which then told me that the mating surfaces of the frog to plane body were not perfectly coplanar. The only remedy as I dont have a machine mill was to lap in these mating surfaces and re-flatten the sole with everything attached.
Error identification, analysis, and mitigation is my full-time job as an R&D Chemist...so I guarantee you that I get far more picky about minimizing error than I really need to, especially when you take into consideration the dimensional variance of wood as a function of relative humidity and temperature...but my whole point is to remove sources of error - in this case, I cannot fault my tools for any performance issues because I've done everything I can to make the tool as perfect as I can...so if things go sideways...it's operator error, can't blame the tool...but damn my planes do run nicely and the technique of scraping provides a surface riddled with tiny pockets in which wax can reside to keep the sole lubricated much much longer than a sanded surface. I'll respond to this with my other YT channel where I do have a video or two on scraping a plane flat. Thanks again for the video my good man!
Yeah I'm that guy...
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BUT there is only One Wright to do it!!! LOLOL You are always Wright on these matters!
Dang! Great video. I love it! I have spent time, a great deal of time, flattening the sole of an old #7 I was refurbishing. I still spend time flattening the soles of the smoothers in my corral. I've never put much into flattening a jack, and I won't normally invest a lot of time in flattening any other planes, however, as was mentioned, I DO like the soles of my planes to be clean and if possible, shiny! Rust free, scratch free and patina free. My plane's sides can have all the patina in the world, but the soles are generally shiny. Again, as was mentioned, it's definitely a "me" thing. Thanks for the video!
I'm getting .001" shavings with a transition plane with a metal bottom. Spent like 5 min flattening it, didn't even think about square or anything, just adjusted the blade until I was taking good shavings.
Glad you smoothed things out! 🤭
Argh! I needed this video years ago! Would have saved me so much trouble!
The Japanese actually have a special plane to relieve the areas between the toe & mouth and between the mouth & heel to reduce drag.. These three are the only points/lines that need to be coplanar.
Wait! Hold it! Stop!! I thought that you always do it the Wright way.
Well, I still don't understand why the Japanese style planes are slightly concave on either side of the blade. I thought it might be to make up for hand planes not having an infeed and outfeed table like the power jointers. Getting a board straight enough for a good glue joint seems to be a problem some times, with a slight hump in the center of the board. I did see some one explain how to get that out, and I think it was the guy who came up with the ruler trick for getting a flat edge on the unbeveled side of the plane blades.... The discovery journey continues....
They do it because of tradition. There is much in Japanese woodworking that is merely done for tradition. It's a lot like the corrugation on the bottom of some old Stanley plains. You would logically think that it would reduce friction make it easier to push but the reality is it doesn't actually make a difference.
Well, thanks for that James, but I would tend to think that is one of those things that has been around for so long, people forgot why they did it in the first place. After I make some and learn to use them, maybe I will have more comments....
Thanks James.
I realize I'm off topic but the issue is conventional wisdom without proof. I want to know just how important it really is to sharpen the backs of plane blades and chisels. I don't exactly question that the back of the plane blade should be flat or polished and I do it, yet I wonder how much difference it makes. It seems to me that much of the general plane advice given is really for a smoothing plane intended to produce a finished surface. As I typically plane and then sand, I'm not trying to get a finished surface but rather one I can effectively sand. I've bought and restored several planes and I've virtually never found one where the back of the blade was flattened or the bottom of the plane was flattened by any of the previous owners. Obviously it worked well for them. Further, it strikes me that the early sharpening books I bought didn't harp on flattening the backs much less the sole. The back of old plane blades and chisels I've come across don't typically have a scratch pattern I can see. They are not polished but nor are they obviously scratched. All blades at some microscopic level are irregular and essentially serrated. It appears to me that craftsmen used these planes for over 100 years and never felt the need to flattened the back of the blade or the bottom of the plane. Conceding that it makes some difference, have you ever just sharpened a blade as it comes out of an old plane, tested the sharpness (I know you have a machine that measures this) and then used the ruler trick or whatever to resharpen by addressing both sides (i.e. sharpening the back)? I'd like to know the difference after 10 strokes, 50, strokes, and 100 strokes. By strokes I mean say a 14 inch pass of the plane on whatever species you feel is average. Let's say walnut. I think it would be interesting to find out just how much difference flattening the back makes. I've spent a lot of time doing that and wonder just how worthwhile it is. Thanks for your always interesting assessments.
You don't sharpen the back of blades, you polish them (I think this was just a typo on your part). Flattening the back just makes it easier to get a sharp edge in the future.
In my opinion, a really sharp edge on a chisel (flat back, NO ruler trick) makes it easier to cut, and safer. How sharp is sharp enough? That is largely up to you, and the work you do.
A carpenter might use brute force (i.e., hit the chisel harder) as a chopping aid using a sharpish chisel on a timber frame joint, whereas a fine furniture maker has a very different definition of good enough!
Once I have smooth the back of the blade one time I never touch it again. As long as it is smooth that's all that matters. Some of mine aren't even perfectly flat. If I'm using a competition plane then I'll have it perfectly flat and smooth but for 99% of the work it's not really that important.
Thanks James!
thanks, and I concur
Have you tested how much difference it makes comparing a very rough sole (sanded, scratched) versus a smooth polished sole; i.e. how much effort it takes moving the plane across the wood?
It is the same effort. Just as a corrugated plane is the same effort as a smooth sole.
@@WoodByWrightHowTo Great to know!! Thanks for your answer and have a great day!!
My two big transitionals I check a couple times a year if I don't like the shavings, plural. They are both over 16"and are used for stock removal at the depth my ancient shoulders will push all the way through a piece.
My take is that as long as the toe, heel and front of mouth are planar, the mouth and either the toe of heel is putting the blade where it needs to be.
At the start of the cut the downforce should be toward the toe, keeping it flat. Towards the end of the cut the force should be toward the heel, again keeping it flat.
If at any point neither the toe nor the heel is in contact with the timber, the plane is too long for the workpiece.
The only productive reason to get the entire plane bed planar is to enable the use of the wrong plane for the task, but as stated, if it makes you happy then that is reward enough!
Thanks James
So I inherited a a low angle Stanley Sweetheart Block Plane from my Dad when he moved to Florida. He always lectured me about keeping tools sharp. It took me months to sharpen that iron. I never even considered the sole. He always managed to get shavings with but l will never understand how. I was using it just before watching the video. Now my idea that I need to flatten the sole is unnecessary. That is good because I’ve never flattened my Stanley #5 contractors plane I purchased new 30 years ago!
Thanks again, always informative
Thanks for sharing.
I’ve recently bought a no 8 cleaned up the blade and been using it and up until now I was thinking of having to find a piece of float glass big enough to fit the thing on but for now I’m just gonna enjoy using it and see how it goes out of interest James would you recommend using a plane stop or vise for holding the workpiece best
A vice is easier to learn but it takes a little bit of time every time you want to put it in and take it out. The planning stop is a little bit harder to learn but once you do it's relatively easy to keep going. I generally prefer to use the vise but in the end it's just a personal preference.
@@WoodByWrightHowTo thanks once again for the advice your videos and yourself are so helpful to people like myself that are new to this
I'm sorry, but just to be snooty, I thought that we use planes in wood working, not in building airplanes etc. If you have to be that tolerance tight use a milling machine (they can do a bang up job on wood, ya know).
OK, I'm just kidding, but unless a plane is in really bad shape, flattening it seems a bit of over kill. If it needs it, a trip to the milling machine would seem to be in order,
James this is a good video about the subject. I just wonder why other folks have to be so precise, except for corner molding joints, of course. ;-)
Do you happen to have a no.5 Stanley you would be willing to sell? I think it would be great to aquire one from a person that inspired me to get back into hand tools.
I don't at the moment. Most of the tools I end up getting extra end up being given to new woodworkers.
You have a machinist friend you can call on, so maybe have him get a plane dead flat and do a video about what difference (if any) that level of precision makes. An apples to apples comparison could change nothing, or perhaps everything about the debate. At least you'd get a video out of the deal lol
I've spent time (far too much) trying to unflatten a japanese plane. Create a hollow between the toe and mouth and mouth and heel. Make sure those three spots are flat-ish and it sings slicing through the board.
Nice.
I always ask people who insist on flattening a plane sole:
What behaviour did you see that makes you believe it needs flattening?
Often the answer is that they haven't even tried using the plane.
Would you recommend the same grits/process to flaten a wooden plane (from +/- 50 up to 200) ?
Thanks for the entertainment
I normally find it easier to clamp my wooden planes in a vise and flatten them with another plane.
For wooden plane it's faster and easier to flatten it with another plane. Usually just a couple strokes and you're done.
@@WoodByWrightHowTo
not sure i am confident enough in my 'planing' skills 😅
Agreed. You nailed it. Enough said.
I jave an old #4 Stanley that was gifted to me as my first plane. I did it up, flattened it, put on ironwood tote and knob, and loved working with it. In the past year or two though, the plane was knocked off my bench, and one of the plane's walls near the frog was badly cracked. The breaks seems through and through, with japanning and the tightness of the area holding the break on.
With such damage, the plane is still working. Is there a way to repair the plane wall?
Usually brazing is the way to fix it. It is not an easy task to keep the plane flat while you do that but it's very possible. If you get someone who's really skilled with TIG welding they can also do it.
I just run 600 grit diamond stone over mine 3 or 4 times or even a Bastard flat file you can quickly see the contuor of your surface
Not every plane is meant to be a polishing plane.
Great video. You probably have a video on this, but i was to ask about how (1) should the opening of the mouth [before and after the blade] be parallel, (2) if the side of the mouth closer to the blade edge is at an angle compared will planing be a problem, and (3) do you try to level plane frog through the body of the plane [e.g. plane has slight bump on one side of the mouth making the plane blade slightly higher coming out of the mouth].
the front and back of the mouth do not have to be parallel, but the front of the mouth should be parallel to the tip of the iron. if it is not parallel to the iron, one side will be better with tough grain. but with straight grain you would not notice a problem at all. the bed of the frog should be perfectly flat. If if is not then you can take a file or course stone to it. the iron should not touch the body of the plane just the frog.
There is no right way to do it, only a Wright way to do it.
I started woodworking and turned into a tool collector/ restorer by accident until i finally had to call it quits and just does it do what I need it to do ?? yes , Good enough .. I still dither about stuff .. I mean, I have an old Micheal kors bag scrapped for strops but still looking for local horse butt ......*shrug*