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STL376: How Hefty is Your Handplane?

Shop Talk Live - Fine Woodworking

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In this episode, Vic sits down with Fine Woodworking staffers Owen and Bridgid to talk about shop tunes, handplane weight, and ways to systematically shape wood.

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Every two weeks, a team of Fine Woodworking staffers answers questions from readers on Shop Talk Live, Fine Woodworking‘s biweekly podcast. Send your woodworking questions to shoptalk@finewoodworking.com for consideration in the regular broadcast! Our continued existence relies upon listener support. So if you enjoy the show, be sure to leave us a five-star rating and maybe even a nice comment on our iTunes page. Join us on our Discord, linked above!

9 Comments

@reedplanes728 6 days ago

I enjoyed your take on the heavy vs light plane. Your comments on the Japanese plane needing light down pressure are so true and very helpful. If you want to play around and explore the heavy vs light plane try and get a well setup heavy plane to take shavings on a board with no down pressure. Also try placing a bathroom scale on your bench with a stop and plane wood on the scale with different planes. Interesting results will be found. As a plane maker in the heavy camp I find I need very little down force and not much forward force once the plane is started.

@periodcraftsmen 3 days ago

The 5/7 rule can be used for all round overs in curve or straight work. The real advantage is that the layout gives you visual lines for the correct amount of material to remove as yoi transition over.

@periodcraftsmen 3 days ago

Just FYI The 5/7 rule was discovered and implemented by Master Will Neptune. His name should be mentioned more, since masters like him don’t come around often.

@jamesaarestad8761 6 days ago

I was at all three days of TWF and was fortunate to meet Vic (who's on my Mt. Rushmore) but somehow missed spotting both Owen and Dinkle. It was a fun time and I hope someone picks up the TWF mantle for next year.

@HondoTrailside 4 days ago (edited)

If you are worried about joints then get a large tool that is light. Like a wooden plane. Of course you determine what is light for you. But larger tools have bigger handles, and sometime allow the use of two hands, and they take bigger cuts where you can use your body. So once you find the sweet spot your body will help you for not have a small only rule.

One thing that always puzzled me with lutherie is that in the catalogs they have these tiny violin/guitar planes. Some smaller than 2 sugar cubes. And people would use these to hollow out the plates for jazz guitars. You just know that the old school pros started with a guttering adze.

@HondoTrailside 4 days ago

Hollow grinds are fine, and you can easily finesse them with planes, because the angle is fixed so you can steepen the grind angle to establish the same edge profile.

What does it mean that you haven't observed a problem, it could mean that the woods you work aren't that nasty. My woods are red oak, cherry and walnut, and I don't love read oak. You can run on those and use easy steels like O1, and have a happy life. Oddly the worst woods I have seen are spruce 2X where occasionally there is a knot like glass.

@HondoTrailside 4 days ago

Japanese planes are different because the geometry is like a hook, or anchor. A western plane is pushed so that it can come up out of the cut. The right hand on the plane infeed is like a hand on an ice axe, and it naturally sets the blade.

I made this boat in a shop I rented, and most of the work was with power tools. But I took my Japanese "jack" plane, and over 6 months of planing fiberglass, and plywood, it never got sharpened, because that stuff never made it over. I did have to increase the blade projection it got so dull. But it kept cutting, because of the hook geometry. It was the 80s and the plane was made with a Japanese blade that I had purchase for about 10 bucks at Lee Valley, and I still take it with me wherever I go.

@HondoTrailside 4 days ago

I don't think I have heard anyone say in 55 years of woodworking that a heavier plane is faster. What people say is that they stay in the cut, and power through things that might interrupt the flow. If one is talking productivity, getting a lot done, light planes are clearly better, they wear you out less, particularly on the return. When you get out over that table, and then have to haul an 8 pound plane back, it would be much easier if it were light.

@driftlessjoinery5059 6 days ago

Good conversation. See some of you at WWIA on Thursday at the open house....maybe the morning/afternoon sale depending on when I start the 4-1/2 hour drive, and throughout the event.