When I embark on a writing project I try to begin with a ridiculous premise. During the revisions and the re-writes, the absurdity begins to mellow or even drain out of the manuscript altogether.
Take “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” for example. When I began writing the book, the nutty, never-happen-but-it-would-be-cool premise was to sell most of my tools, write a book, then quit my cushy corporate job… aw crap.
When Roy Underhill asked me to be a guest on a couple episodes of “The Woodwright’s Shop” for the upcoming season we decided to do a show on planes and a show about the English Layout Square that graces the cover of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”
So I began thinking about new ways to talk about handplanes. Stupid and perhaps insensitive ways to talk about handplanes. Stuff that would generate angry letters.
Here’s the set-up: What if smoothing plane use were an addiction? And there were support groups?
The following unedited script was completely discarded. We probably used only one line on the show. And yes, I know that addiction is a serious problem – ask me about my family’s struggles with it over a beer sometimes.
— Christopher Schwarz
Smoothing Plane Recovery Program
Chris: My name is Chris Schwarz, and I am a recovering smoothing plane addict.
Roy: An addict? Really? Strong words. Well let’s see … there are basically six steps to recovering from some sort of addiction. Let’s check the list:
“Step one: Admitting that one cannot control one’s addiction or compulsion.”
Chris: At one time I had more than a dozen smoothing planes. I was trying out all the angles, all the mouth apertures, infills, vintage, new, bevel-up, bevel down, woodies, different sizes, you name it.
shows different planes
I had a micrometer to measure whether I was making shavings that were .0005″ thick. I was watching Japanese planing contests – where they measure the shaving thickness in MICRONS.
shows wispy shavings
My wife even caught me down in the shop making shavings… and I wasn’t even building anything. Just… smoothing.
Roy: That is serious stuff. What made you finally quit?
Chris: The good book.
Roy: You mean…
Chris holds up and opens book
Chris: Yup. Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises; or the Doctrine of Handy-works Applied to the Arts of Smithing, Joinery, Carpentry, Turning, Bricklaying.” The first English-language book on woodworking.
Roy: That’s the second step – recognizing a higher power can give you strength. So you found strength through a 17th-century printer and hygrometer to the king?
Chris: Yes I did. Moxon showed me the error of my ways.
Roy: How’s that?
Chris: When I first read Mechanick Exercises I was struck – nay – blown away by how much Moxon wrote about the “fore plane” and how little he wrote about the “smoothing plane.” It was incredible. More than 1,800 words on the fore plane. And on the smoothing plane: just 33.
shows fore plane.
Roy: Dang. Well I hope they were strong words about the smoothing plane – about how it is the end-all plane, end of story.
Chris: Hardly. Here’s all he said:
“S. 6. The Ufe of the Smoothing-Plane.
The Smoothing-plane marked B 4. muft have its Iron fet very fine, becaufe its Office is to fmoothen the work from thofe Irregularities the Fore-plane made.”
Roy: That’s it? Nothing about finding your power animal or opening your heart chakra or adjusting your aura with sub-thou shavings?
Chris: Nope. That’s it. So I started diving deep into Moxon’s text on fore planes and I found that this plane (holds up plane) is the most powerful bench plane in the world.
Roy: You don’t say.
Chris: With this plane I could correct all the things I was doing wrong with my smoothing plane, and that’s ….
Roy: …the third step.
Chris: Indeed. The secret is inside the mouth of the tool. The iron (shows iron) is a convex arc – this one is an 8″ radius. And this radius can give you superpowers.
(reinstalls iron)
Roy: Like making paper-thin shavings?
Chris: Like making shavings the thickness of an old Groat! (makes massive pass with plane, pulls off thick shaving). This is what gets the work done, not the mamby-pamby lacy doily shavings where each one is unique like a snowflake!
This is what flattens boards (continues to work). Every shaving from a fore plane equals 10 from a smoother. You can do 10-times less work.
Roy: But won’t thick shavings tear up the work?
Chris: Ahhhh. That’s where Moxon helps us again. He tells us to traverse.
Roy: Traverse?
Chris: Yes. Don’t push your plane with the grain (shows) or against the grain (shows). Instead go ACROSS the grain.
Roy: Won’t you go to a dark and very warm place for doing that?
Chris: Hardly (demonstrates). By going across the grain we can take a much thicker chip with much less effort. And because we aren’t levering up the wood fibers, the tearing is minimal. This also allows us to get boards really flat – something a puny smoothing plane can’t do.
(discussion and demonstration of flattening a board by traversing bark side, then heart side. showing the different sounds and how to determine flat – just wink!)
Roy: That’s pretty remarkable, but the tool seems rather coarse; aren’t you going to make a lot of clean-up work for the other tools?
Chris: Hardly. Moxon says we can reduce the cut of the fore plane and clean up our dawks before moving on. (demonstrates; discussion of dawks ensues).
Roy: It seems like you really got true religion here. As I understand it, you are supposed to “make amends for your errors” in cases like this. Did you. Did you really?
Chris: I did. I sold almost all of my smoothing planes or gave them away to friends. I’m now down to – two smoothing planes, which is probably still one too many. And I’m trying to live my life with a new code of behavior – working as much with a coarse tool before I switch to a fine tool. That’s the core message in Moxon.
Use a hatchet more than a fine file. Use a rough plane more than a fine one. Chop. Don’t pare. Pit saw. Not coping saw.
Roy: And then there’s the last step, right? Helping others who suffer from an addiction to smoothing planes?
Chris: Yup. Wherever there is a woodworker using a Norris A13, I want to be there. A Holtey No. 98? I’m there to take your hands off the $5,000 tool. I’ll be there to trade you a moldy Scioto Works fore plane and show you the way: Across the grain, to get thick shavings, to actually accomplish something.
Chris, the only angry letters you and Roy would get from that script would be from current adicts who don’t know, or just won’t admit that they have a problem. I think it’s perfect! Too bad you didn’t use it. Hopefully you guys came up with some equally flame worthy stuff for the show. Too bad I have to wait until they put it on the web site to see it. Our local public stations have never, and it seems will never carry the show. It’s heartbreaking.
You have found the Holy Grail of hand planes. Peace, contentment and flat smooth boards will be with you my son. Now to expose the false dogmas of sharpening.
I saw the wispy shavings this week from the infill planemakers – those must be hard to sweep up…
I hope the line that made it in the show is this one: ” You can do 10-times less work”
It sounds like Casey Stengel.
Hi,
I’m Mike and I have a fore plane problem.
Chris writes, “I’m trying to live my life with a new code of behavior – working as much with a coarse tool before I switch to a fine tool. ” This is a good and true message. Equally wise is to always use the tool that is easiest to sharpen and set up. Many times they are the same tool.
Mike
Great information and entertaining (if unused) script. What’s the story behind that picture, though? 🙂 It looks like a low-budget alternate-reality zombie student film where 19th century joiners are re-animated and crave either wood shavings or brass, instead of brains. Chris, either sharpen an edge of your English Layout Square and start severing heads boomerang style, or embrace the opportunity to discover which bench plane is best for clubbing in skulls – the heavier #8 or the “swing all day” #5.
I feel a bit vindicated.
Though my serious interest in woodworking is relatively new, I have a plethora of childhood memories from which to draw. My family would vacation often in Appalachia (sp?) where I was exposed to all manner of self sufficient people seemingly always introduced as cousin so and so.
I often find myself trying to reconcile memories with modern teachings. One of those memories was the consistent presence in barns of large wooden planes, but no little ones. I distinctly remember one fellow taking his knife to boards after planing them. I know now that he used the knife as a scraper when he was done with a plane about as tall as me; he put those boards on the floor of a porch.
Ask me about it over a shot of George Dickel sometime. 😉
Ok, so I don’t really drink any more, but I used to.
Great script, even without the show the script seems fully alive. Thank you for sharing.
Everyone needs a stick in the mud and I’m here. My first plane was a Stanley #6 fore plane (bows to tremendous applause). I was shocked though by one persons opinion of said plane. It was that of Patrick’s Blood and Gore who wrote “I’ve never found this size plane useful.”. I always have found it useful and own 2 now. I hope this script gets to him and maybe he will give his opinion, or not it’s whatever. I enjoyed the script.
Hey Chris,
What two smooth planes are you down to now if you don’t mind me asking. ( Unless it hurts to talk about it, recovery can be painful )
So is a 5-1/2 big enough, or do you have to step up to a 6?
Ahhh … vindication feels wonderful. I’m new to the craft and spend my time building pieces that stay relegated to my garage shop. I hope by learning through these projects I’ll gain enough confidence to build more useful projects. After taking your sharpening class I quit buying a new plane for every desired shave (end grain, face grain, left cut, right cut … Ect). After you told me the old term for using a jack plane to size wood I new a special bond would develop between me and my old Stanley no 5 And my LN low angle Jack. I now have an assortment of blades each sharpened differently (toothed, high angle, low angle, cambered). Now I can move through flattening to finish in no time. It took awhile to accept less than the high gloss I expected based on the massed produced furniture I am accustomed too. But I realized if I was mail ordering cut nails then why go for a glass smooth surface for a saw bench? Make it look real and move on or I’ll never get to making a new workbench (further delayed by your lack of classes in 2012).
Thank you for making me feel worthy and not just lazy or talentless for not obsessing over paper thin tear out free shavings! Now if you could just help me master the camber edge! I still struggle with that!
TH
Now I must know, what are dawks??
WONDERFUL COMMENTARY GENTLEMEN, I am so excited to learn about your partnership with the Woodright Shop and the upcoming episodes! Chris plays an excellent part in this drama, and what better medium to expel such profound wisdom than within the Woodright’s Shop! I hope that you two do more together, your well suited to work with one another, your obviously having fun working together, and lets face it… you both bleed quietly on camera! Keep up your outstanding work!!
So, are you moving Lost Art Press to North Carolina or what? That town sounds like the ideal spot to build a “Mecca” for hand tool woodworking. I sure would like to visit.
Great script and quite the timing for it for me that is. I’ve been looking for a good fore plane (I currently use a Jack) and this script confirms my instincts. I also was able to avoid the smooth plane addiction by watching Chris’s and David’s Charlesworth’s DVDs. I didn’t come away from watching those thinking “I need a smooth plane collection”.
Thanks for the ‘session’ Chris.
I’m with David. I love that Patrick from Superior Works slams the #6. I got both of mine cheap ($20) and they are the most used planes in my shop–I don’t own a power planer or jointer. I also have a wooden fore plane I need to fettle a little to get working right. Even in its present state, it takes off big, honkin’ shavings that make any mice in my basement think twice about trying to drag it to their nest.
I hardly have to sharpen my smoother because it sees so little use (maybe I should rename it my aft plane), but my #6 gets sharpened pretty often. My #5 jack plane almost never even sees any wood. I think it is the most worthless plane in my arsenal, despite many people suggesting that as the first plane to get. I have found no need for it.
Very funny script.
But so I have a question for you, since Moxon isn’t around to tell me. I can understand why the jointer has the advantage when planing with the grain, or even at 45* to it. But why use a very long plane for planing directly across? Why not use the shorter, lighter jack plane? It seems that the length of the jointer offers no advantage over the jack in planing across a board, unless the board is very wide. (In Moxon’s time, that may have been a common scenario for all I know.) In my shop, the jack plane does all the heavy work, and the jointer and smoothers just finish up.
I’ve been away from the computer for a couple days….
A jack and fore plane are the same tool using Moxon’s terminology and Knight’s Mechanical Dictionary. One source (I cannot remember which right now), says carpenters called the plane a jacvk. Joiners called it a fore.
So No. 6 fans can rejoice — as can fans of the No. 5. Same tool.