# Hand dressing rough stock - 1st attempt



## BZawat (Sep 21, 2012)

Finally got some time today to put a few recently acquired & restored bench planes to use. I'm building a radiator cover out of hickory to match a newly installed hickory floor for a guy I work for often. 

The rough boards were approx 7" wide or so; more than my jointer can handle. I figured instead of ripping them down I'd try my hand at hand jointing. 

Using a #5 and a #7, and a cambered fore plane iron for the #5 (courtesy of firemedic), I quickly learned how hard hickory is. Without that heavily cambered fore plane iron, I'd have been there all week trying to flatten out these boards. 

I set the boards crown side down on my bench and shimmed the corners stable to keep it from rocking, then began working at a 30 degree angle across the face grain with the #5 and fore iron. 

Then I put a regular iron back in the #5 and re-set it to start flattening, finishing the process up with the #7. In the interest of time, after jointing one side I ran the boards thru a power planer to finish them up. Hey, I'm on a deadline here. 

It may be nothing to some of you really experienced guys, but man what an "Ah Hah!" moment when I took a look at a nice flat face and a big pile of shavings  

Here's a couple pics









Pretty straight & flat, not too bad! 











The beautiful carnage 










I have a few more boards to prep tomorrow. I'll take some pics as I go & share the process in case anyone's interested


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## BZawat (Sep 21, 2012)

The most frustrating part for me, being inexperienced, was plane setup. Even with the cap irons on both planes honed flat to meet the iron perfectly, the hard hickory still managed to wedge itself up in between the cap iron & the plane iron, causing the plane to gouge & skip. 

So after a bit of cussing, I moved the cap iron as close to the cutting edge as I could possibly get it, and and really clamped down on the lever cap when I reinserted the iron. This helped a lot. I also reset the frog position to ensure there was enough room for the chip to pass through without jamming up. Also I had to set the jointer to take as light a cut as possible due to the hardness of the hickory. There's apparently a world of difference between how softwood planes out and how hardwood planes out. 

I learned all about grain run out and what happens when you plane into it in the wrong direction, too! Ugly!! 

Like I said, more pics tomorrow ;-)


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

Looks great so far. The handwork can be a bit hard on you, but look at all the great exercise you're getting.








 







.


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## firemedic (Dec 26, 2010)

Bravo! That first "ah hah!" Hand tool moment is priceless! Welcome to the slippery slope :laughing:


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## Wrangler02 (Apr 15, 2011)

Good show! I love watching the figure and grain exposed as I work a dirty old piece of rough sawn wood. 

If you plan on continuing to work rough sawn wood, you might want to consider getting a really cheap #5 and converting it to a full time fore plane. That way you can set the frog for a really wide mouth and not have to mess with this setting each time!


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

:clap: Great work! It only gets easier - especially if you usually work with something a little less hard than hickory.:smile:


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## Manuka Jock (Jun 27, 2011)

Looking like good fun so far :thumbsup:

With arthritis and carpal tunnel messing with my arms and hands I'm leaning more towards going back to hand tools myself .

Apart from my computerised jet engine technology Nova lathe that is


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## BZawat (Sep 21, 2012)

Wrangler said:


> Good show! I love watching the figure and grain exposed as I work a dirty old piece of rough sawn wood.
> 
> If you plan on continuing to work rough sawn wood, you might want to consider getting a really cheap #5 and converting it to a full time fore plane. That way you can set the frog for a really wide mouth and not have to mess with this setting each time!


Rough sawn is the only way I'll go when building anything that's gotta actually finish out square & true. I never trust pre-surfaced lumber. 

I definitely do need a dedicated fore plane. Switching irons back & forth was a PITA haha! In lieu of an old #5, I've got a "Four Square" #4 from the late 1920's (I believe) that I'm planning on converting to a dedicated fore plane as soon as I have time to do so. It's casting is 12.5" long, and it seems solid where it counts.


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## Manuka Jock (Jun 27, 2011)

BZawat said:


> Rough sawn is the only way I'll go when building anything that's gotta actually finish out square & true. I never trust pre-surfaced lumber.
> 
> I definitely do need a dedicated fore plane. Switching irons back & forth was a PITA haha! In lieu of an old #5, I've got a "Four Square" #4 from the late 1920's (I believe) that I'm planning on converting to a dedicated fore plane as soon as I have time to do so. It's casting is 12.5" long, and it seems solid where it counts.


Look around for a wooden one . They do the job well .


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## Rob Brown (Jul 7, 2009)

*hand planes*

I use some sort of hand plane on every project. Always saves a lot of time, and noise. Big ribbons are a lot easier to sweep up, too. The jointer and surface planer make a big mess and a lot of fine dust.


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## Wrangler02 (Apr 15, 2011)

Manuka Jock said:


> Look around for a wooden one . They do the job well .


I converted an Ohio Tool transition plane with an iron that is 1/4" thick. It makes a great foreplane.


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## Wema826 (Jul 22, 2012)

Outstanding! 

oh that slippery slope Firemedic was referring to.. I always envisioned one of those plastic slides at the park covered in baby oil and trying to climb up it without using your hands.


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## BZawat (Sep 21, 2012)

Okay. Guess I'm posting this more for new guys like myself or anyone else who may be reading this and thinking about getting into hand tooling. Here are a few more pictures, and sort of a blow-by-blow of the steps that I took. If you guys see something I'm doing wrong, or something different I could do in technique to make life easier, please feel free to let me know!











I started with the board crown down on the bench, hollow side of the cup facing up. Planed diagonally across the grain with the fore over the entire length of the board to knock down the high spots from edge to edge. Where I encountered knots, like this,











or grain run-out, like this










I changed the direction I ran the fore in. In other words, I tried to always plane with the cathedrals in the flat sawn grain opening away from me (or pointing towards me, however you want to look at it). Excuse my lousy phone pics, but hopefully you can see how the cut marks change direction in the next pic 










So once I was satisfied that I had knocked down all the high spots, I went to the jointer plane to straighten the board over its length. I didn't use winding sticks for this process, rather I just let the jointer tell me where the high spots were by where it was cutting and where it was not cutting. 










Even though I was running the plane parallel to the long grain, I kept it angled slightly as in the pic above. This made the plane cut much more easily, as the iron was entering the wood at a skewed angle instead of flat dead on. Again, where the grain direction changed I had to change the direction I pushed the plane in. 

As luck would have it, the first board I picked up was a nightmare. Full of knots and run out 












A frustrating piece to start the day with. But good to get it out of the way. The next three went much smoother. Here's the stack! 










All told it took me about 5 hours to do. With the learning curve, of course. The 4 longer boards I milled today took less time than the 3 shorter ones yesterday.

Thanks for all the encouragement fellas!


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## Wema826 (Jul 22, 2012)

Great start!, 

how are those arms feelin? if they be a hurtin, then you need to sharpen 'dem' blades!!


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## Manuka Jock (Jun 27, 2011)

who needs to go to the gym for a workout after workin' wood all day :smile:


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