Lost Art Press

After Sawing, the Router Plane

Posted on by Lost Art Press

This is another entry from John who is referring to his previous post Titled “First Class Practice”

As you recall I am making the base of the Trestle Table and am in the process of making notches in two members so when they are glued together I will have a mortise. After sawing into the waste a number of times, I removed it by hitting it with a hammer. A good Maydole hammer no doubt, but any hammer will do. Here is what the joint looked like. Not only doesn’t this look nice but I don’t think I am going to get a good glue joint.

So I took out my Stanley vintage router plane and went to work. Here is the result!

See how much tearout there is on the near-right side? And this was one of the best examples. I was planing directly across the grain and boy did I make a mess. I learned that I could avoid this by canting the plane and paying close attention to the wood that made contact with the iron. It was kind of like saddling an Elm chair seat with an Inshave. If I continued to make angle adjustments I could get a good result. I also used the two top sides of the work as a reference for the sole of the router plane.

I had to adjust the depth a bit deeper than intended but this is the final result. You can still see where big area of tearout was, but this will make a good glue joint.

For explanation purposes here is how I used the sole of the router plane on the work.

John

6 thoughts on “After Sawing, the Router Plane”

  1. John – Try a shoulder plane, if you have one. While I shoulder plane doesn’t have a depth stop as a router plane does, it can be used to take the final few passes on a joint like this, and because it has a sole ahead of the blade, it will produce a very clean cut when used cross-grain. I typically cut one of these joints by marking it out with a marking gauge (tite-mark in my case), sawing and chiseling the waste, then taking it down to the final surface (and to the marking gauge line) with a shoulder plane.

    David in NC

  2. Also, for cross-grain applications, I would have used a rat-stabber bit (the pointy kind) rather than the straight bit.

  3. David in NC, how do you use the tite mark, or any gauge for that matter, to mark the board. It is not a parallel cut to the edge of a board, it is a perpendicular cut, usually in the center of a board? I use a marking knife and a straight edge. Do you have a new trick I need to know. I own several tite mark gauges and use them constantly for dovetails, rabbets, and grooves.

  4. David in NC, are you referring to the depth of cut along the edge when using your tite mark? It took me another minute to think about the process.

  5. Don: Yeah, I’m referring to the depth of the cut. As you noted, it wouldn’t be possible to mark the cross-grain shoulders of the lap joint with a marking gauge (tite-mark or otherwise). The router plane makes this somewhat unecessary because it controls the depth of the cut for you, but it’s a good deal slower than a sharp chisel and a shoulder plane to get down to the line.

    Personally, I use my router plane much more frequently to cut stopped groves in the edge of the stiles in a frame-and-panel assembly. While it requires that you stop every couple of passes to lower the blade, I find it much easier to use for this purpose than a plow plane as Chris suggests in one of the Pop Woodworking videos.

    David in NC

  6. Hey, sorry to be out of touch for a bit. I worked the weekend for Tom Lie-Nielsen and Chris at Marc Adams. They taught a class on planes. Had a great and very busy time.

    Yes, thanks for the comments. I would have preferred to use the pointed knife in the router plane but mine was not sharp. In fact it really needed some love on the coarse stone which I didn’t have time for. My moment of clarity came when I looked at the work while using the router plane and saw how to make it work.

    Hey, regarding the tite mark…Chris taught me a great trick which could be used here although it would not be necessary since it is not a show surface. When dovetailing he uses the tite mark to ride along the end grain of the tail board and cut into the waste area of the board where the half pin goes. You don’t need to cut the entire area only an 8th or 16th in which will show. You can then chisel the rest away. Since the tite mark is already set it will hit at the perfect place.

    Always enjoying hearing from people.

    Best Regards,
    John

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