Lost Art Press

Category: Handplanes

Beading Planes from Caleb James

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Fair warning: If you read this blog entry you might end up with a dog that has decorative details.

If you build furniture of a traditional sort, you should consider owning some beading planes. While beading planes are (in general) quite common, furniture makers use the less-common small ones – usually 1/8”, 3/16” and 1/4”. These planes add shadow lines to traditional work that are sometimes lost on the modern eye.

The margin between backboards or bottom boards, for example, is much nicer if beaded. And any flat expanse is best broken up with a bead when you have drawer fronts and door fronts that are flush to their face frames.

Heck, bead those face frames while you are at it.

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I couldn’t imagine building furniture without them. Beading planes are faster than a router or scratch stock and leave a beautiful, ready-to-finish surface without sanding.

The challenge, however, is finding beading planes that are a notch above firewood. This summer I hit several tool emporiums and inspected at least 100 beading planes that were sized for furniture. None was worth buying.

So if you can’t find vintage beading planes, you need to find someone who will make them for you. Phil Edwards at Philly Planes is one excellent source. And you might be able to talk Matt Bickford into making you some. Old Street Tool still isn’t taking orders.

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So please take a look at the work by Caleb James, a chairmaker, planemaker and excellent craftsman in Greenville, S.C. I met Caleb in person for the first time in the spring, used his planes and placed an order for two beading planes to round out my set – a 1/8” and a 1/4”.

I’ve had the 1/4” plane for a while, and the 1/8” came today.

They are outstanding. Beyond outstanding, really.

One of the nice details on Caleb's planes is the chamfer on the escapement. This makes it easy to press the iron against the blind side of the mortise.
One of the nice details on Caleb’s planes is the chamfer on the escapement. This makes it easy to press the iron against the blind side of the mortise.

Caleb isn’t taking orders for planes right now as he is clearing out a well-deserved backlog. But bookmark his site and watch for when he opens ordering again. Then pounce.

When your beading planes arrive, you’ll want to put a bead on everything. Even your dog.

— Christopher Schwarz

You Aren’t Sharpening Enough (And I’m not, Either)

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If a students shows me a tool during class and asks: “Should I s….”

I cut them off. “Yes.”

I have found that when you ask yourself if a tool is dull, the poor pathetic thing is way past being dull and is on its way to getting chipped and trashed. I think you need to sharpen an edge before it actually occurs to you to sharpen that edge. Sounds impossible, but it’s not.

I sharpen a lot, and it is part of the rhythm of my day. As I finishing planing up panels with a jointer plane, I stop to sharpen the tool before I take on the parts for the lid – even if the plane is performing well.

When I chop dovetails, I touch up the tool between each corner of a carcase – even if the chisel is keen and cutting well.

This is the opposite of the way I was taught to evaluate edges. I was told: “The surface of the wood will tell you how your edge is performing. If the wood looks bad, it’s time to sharpen.”

While that makes sense on one level, I don’t want the wood to ever look bruised or scraped or chunked out. So I sharpen the smoothing plane several times a day if this is the day I’m smoothing things.

This approach not only ensures my parts will look their best, it also removes most concerns about what steel your tool is made of. If you keep an edge wicked sharp (and nothing less) then it really doesn’t matter if A4 steel holds an edge longer than Q4.

So shut up and sharpen.

— Christopher Schwarz

‘Handplane Essentials’ Going out of Print

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u7285_500px_72dpiI’ve just been informed that my book “Handplane Essentials” (F+W Media) will not be reprinted, either in paperback or hardbound. It will, however, continue to be available as a downloadable pdf.

So the following announcement is a public service. Full disclosure: I’ve never received royalties from writing that book – I was an employee of F+W at the time and worked on it during company time. So buying that book – new or used – has no affect on my bank account.

But if you have ever wanted to own that book in paperback or hardback, you might want to buy it soon before the last ones dry up. I was told that while ShopWoodworking.com lists it on its site, the book is actually backordered and they will not be fulfilling it. However Amazon, ABE and other sellers still list “Handplane Essentials” as in stock.

— Christopher Schwarz

It’s Handplane Inoculation Season

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Yesterday, Thomas Lie-Nielsen and I finished teaching a weekend class that introduced the students to handplanes – how to sharpen, tune and use them. Curiously, the class wrapped up a couple of hours earlier than usual, and we’d covered more material than in the last eight classes.

What changed? We steered clear of a full discussion of the silly debates that circle around the forums, woodworking clubs and blogs – selecting tool steel, chipbreakers, bevel-up or -down tools and sharpening media (for starters).

So instead of a technical discussion of the different tool steels available, we told them that all of them work and that keeping them sharp was more important than their molecular composition. Chipbreakers (or back irons) are one of five primary strategies you can employ to reduce tear-out. Here are all five. Use them as you like. What’s the most important strategy? Sharpness.

Instead of getting into a detailed explanation of cutting geometry, clearance angles, wear bevels and the like, we explained the simplest sharpening strategy that will work with all tools, from paring chisels to high-angle smoothers. And that what was more important than the angle of attack was that blade was wicked sharp.

Oh, and about sharpening, the message was this: Making tools dull is way more fun than making them sharp. All the sharpening systems work (including using a cinder block). The more important message about sharpening media is that you should pick a system and stick with it for at least a year before considering a change. This is what I call “sharpening monogamy.”

Our goal with presenting the information this way was to inoculate these new handplane users so they didn’t feel the need to learn everything a metallurgist and machinist knows before flattening a board. If we’re lucky, when these 26 woodworkers see these debates raging on a messageboard they’ll shrug their shoulders, close the browser window and head to the shop.

— Christopher Schwarz

Personal note: I have exactly 103 messages in my inbox that require a response. I am going to be out of commission for about two weeks, and I will be particularly slow to respond to messages. I apologize in advance for the inconvenience. If you have questions about an order through our store, John will be happy to help you at john@lostartpress.com.

Fitting a Blade and Back Iron to the Body

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Part 4 of a British Introduction to Japanese Planes

Fitting the blade and back iron to the body is a fiddle, but not difficult. What you need is a good bench light and a graphite pencil or graphite stick. The essence is of this is DO NOT CHANGE THE GEOMETRY of the plane body. So as the blade fits into the two side channels, do not pare the upper surface; this is the surface that beds the blade at 41° effective pitch.

Remove the bar under which the back iron fits. You will find that this is just a round wire nail sharpened on one end. Fit the blade by rubbing graphite on the sides and on the back of the blade.

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Tap the blade in using a small hammer, tap it out by hitting the top back corner of the wooden body with the hammer, there is a chamfer planed on that corner to allow you hit JUST THERE. Not on the end like European tap-and-try planes.

Pare away the area where the graphite has left an imprint on the plane body and repeat the process. You will find yourself fitting the width first, then paring to allow the back of the blade to sit further down in body of the plane. Allow a nice couple of hours to do this well. If you rush this, the blade will not sit tight and you will not get the polish you want.

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Remember that plane bodies expand and contract in width and blades do not, so open the side channels enough to allow for this expansion and contraction. You see so many cracked Kanna where this has not been done correctly.

Getting a good fit for the back iron is difficult as it is hard to see right down by the cutting edge. You will need a narrow chisel to work the slots on either side and a broad chisel for the land between.

The mouth is pretty well determined by the Kanna’s maker; a good maker will set up the mouth so that the blade trims its own mouth and you can then open it a shaving or two. I have a Kanna that did not have such a good mouth so I have fitted a rosewood dovetailed key in front of the blade.

Next we will look at the sole of the plane and taking a shaving or two!

— David Savage, http://www.finefurnituremaker.com