# Wood Type - Hand Plane Blade Angle



## mwohltman (Sep 17, 2012)

Hello Everybody, I have an interest in taking up woodworking and have been researching various hand planes and options. Like a lot of beginners I'm stressing about which planes to buy. I've read a lot of threads over a lot of forums and often read that for harder and more difficult grains you want higher blade angles. For Block plans this generally means a higher angle frog and for Low Angle planes this means a higher angle micro-bevel.

What I haven't really seen anywhere is what angles woodworkers should expect to use for different wood types. Is there such a chart out there ? Also, are the same angles required for all plane's? For example, If a higher angle is required for you Jack plane, do you expect to need the same angle on your Jointer and Smoothing planes to get through the same "tough spot"?

Thanks,
-Mike


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## jigs-n-fixtures (Apr 28, 2012)

Basically, the more figured the wood the steeper the blade angle.

Really figured wood you are scraping as much as planing.

Sent from my iPhone using Wood Forum


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## timetestedtools (Aug 23, 2012)

its not a type of wood kind of thing. So you won't find something that says for oak use 35 degrees for pine use 25 degrees. I've had pieces of wood that required 3 different planes on one piece. The more difficult the grain, the higher the angle, until you get to a scraper, which is typically about a 95 degree bed. 

There is also the schwartz school of thought that says "Sharp" fixes everything.


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## Dave Paine (May 30, 2012)

+1 with the earlier replies. The angle is not specific to a wood species.

I have a piece of walnut which has a decent size knot. I have not tried to hand plane, but when I ran the board through my planer, the normal straight grain planed easily. As the knot went through the machine growled and was having a difficult time. This was with a depth setting of 1/8 turn which equates to about 1/128in.

The knot and surrounding grain was very dense and the grain was running around the knot, so grain in all directions.

If I had been hand planing, I would not expect to be able to easily use one plane for all the surface due to the different grain densities and orientation along the board.

In theory a shallower angle is supposed to cut end grain better. Low angle planes are therefore supposed to be better for end grain. You may see these called Bevel Up planes, since these planes do not have a cap iron so the bevel of the blade faces up. You can purchase blades for these with different bevel angles, so that in theory you just change the blade and have a different plane.

I have a Lee Valley Low Angle Smoothing plane. I love it. I also have a Lee Valley Low Angle block plane.

Most of my bench planes are the normal double iron (blade + cap iron). I also use these.

If I am hand planing a board and one plane does not seem to work, I will try another one, or will try and modify the technique, such as pushing the plane askew which can help to plane some of the tough spots.

A sharp blade makes a big difference. So does the steel in the blade.

I upgraded the blade in my Record #5 and it made a big improvement to ease of planing, and the general performance of the plane.

I recently purchased some old Stanley's and will be upgrading the blades and cap irons.


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## mwohltman (Sep 17, 2012)

Thanks Guys, I appreciate the feedback. I think I'm slowly getting a better feel for the process. Now I just need to get in there and have at it.


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