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Thread: Scrub plane? Maybe? Perhaps?
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14th July 2014, 09:50 AM #16
As usual, there's a great range of opinions, & all good!
Obviously, what radius blades you prefer boils down to how much wood you need to remove in a hurry, plus the type of wood. Some woods will tear to pieces and leave you with split-outs that are way below what you intended as the finished surface, if you use a very tight radius blade that takes deep gouges.
Wrt to Derek's and others' comments about the surface quality, my philosophy follows the carvers' motto: "rough out & refine". I see it the same way you use different grades of sandpaper in decreasing grit size to achieve a finished surface. And just like using sandpaper, you have to judge when to move on to the next grade (plane) so as to remove the larger scratches (gouges) without losing more wood, or wasting more effort, than necessary. So there's definitely a place for tight-radiused blades in my tool kit, along with gentler ones. Much depends on on what armaments you have to follow up with, too, which means we develop our own styles and sequences. If your planes are all in good order & you use each to its full potential, one way is probably as efficient as any other, & the final result should be the same, at least.
Something I have noticed, Derek, is that tighter radiused blades last longer (& consequently remove a lot more wood!) between sharpenings. The broader the radius, the more sensitive they are to sharpness, which makes sense to my mind, as you are using with more edge to cut with, but it also has to do with the way the fibres are being dug out of the surface, I think.
Must be something about the West. Though certainly not as ubiquitous as #4s, #5s seem to be a pretty common size over this side of the continent, though I must admit I haven't been checking out flea-markets of late.
I second Ross's suggestion of using as thick a blade as you can if converting a cap-iron style plane to a scrub. The thinner blade in mine worked far better than I expected, given the length of blade sticking out past the cap iron, but I'm sure that the better action of my dedicated scrub is due in large part to its thick, solid iron....
Cheers,IW
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15th July 2014, 02:17 PM #17Senior Member
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18th July 2014, 12:26 PM #18well aged but not old
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To summarise:
It seems that opinions vary depending on the direction of the wind and your time zone. There are those who say that a scrub plane would be a great idea if it was not such a bad one. I have been told that I should use a metal bodied plane with an 8 inch radius unless I use a wooden bodied one with a 3 inch radius. My impression is that the consensus of opinion lies in the direction of using a light wooden bodied metal plane with a tight but large radius blade.
It seems that the only way to find out will be to face north on the night of a full moon with my modified Stanley jack plane made by Veritas and try it myself.
One way or the other I will have some fun.My age is still less than my number of posts
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19th July 2014, 07:25 PM #19
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19th July 2014, 07:32 PM #20Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.
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19th July 2014, 07:46 PM #21