I've been learning to use hand tools and I've quickly realized that a good workbench is essential. With power tools, like a table saw or drill press, the tool itself often supports the wood. But with hand tools you must have something to support the wood while you bring the tool to the wood.
So I've started to build a workbench (more on that later). The first problem I've run into is that I'm using hand tools to build a workbench, so... Chicken or the egg...
Here's some tricks that I've come up with to hold boards while I work on them.
The simplest trick is to use a table against a wall stud. The board butts up to the stud for face planing. The board can be offset from the wall stud with scrap wood so that you can plane up to the end of the board without running the plane into the stud. If the board is long, the far end can be supported with a sawhorse.
If the board is the same thickness or thinner than the scrap wood blocks then I've found it handy to put a small wedge under the board to raise it above the level of the scrap blocks.
The last trick is useful for edge planing a board. Turn the board on edge and butt it against the scrap wood blocks and wall stud, as before. Then to secure it in place I put more scrap wood blocks on either side of the board and clamp them in place to keep the board from tipping in either direction.
These tricks work, but they're not ideal, and it's really making me look forward to when the bench will be done and ready to use.
As part of my workbench build, I've been planing some end grain after making crosscuts on boards. The usual tool for this job is the often overlooked block plane. I've found that it's pretty hard to plane edge grain well!
The problem is when planing end grain you are cutting across all the wood fibers, instead of splitting off a few long wood fibers as you do when planing with the grain.
Here's that I've figured out so far:
Make sure the plane blade is as sharp as possible. This is always true, but with other planes you can get by with a less than razor-sharp blade
Set the depth of the plane blade to take a very shallow cut, otherwise the plane will be hard to push and may chatter.
It helps to make a skew cut on the end grain (turn the plane at a 45-ish degree angle to the board)
Soak the end grain with a bit of alcohol to soften the wood fibers
Make sure you're putting enough downforce on the front of the plane. If you have too much force on the back of the plane then it may cause the blade to chatter
If the plane has an adjustable mouth, adjusting it to make the opening smaller helps with making shallow cuts
If you have one available, use a low angle plane, as the lower angle of the blade makes it significantly easier to cut end grain.
A fine tool, but maybe not for planing end grain
I started off with my vintage block plane, which is basically a Sargent 306. It's a good plane but adjusting it to cut end grain well was tricky. There were several issues with that plane:
The depth adjuster had alot of backlash, meaning it was hard to get a really precise depth adjustment
Locking the blade with the lever cap tended to change the depth and lateral adjustment of the plane a little, which usually meant it took several tries to get it properly adjusted
The plane is not a low angle plane
A New Plane
Just when I was getting frustrated, I lucked out and my Mom found a vintage Stanley no. 60-1/2 low angle block plane at an antique store (Thanks Mom!). It needed a little work to tune it up, but it was in good shape.
When I tune up planes I usually clean the grime and rust off, but leave some of the patina that makes it look old. This is less work and in my opinion looks better anyway. Some people prefer to make the plane look like the day it rolled out of the factory, but that's more than is required to make the plane function like it's brand new.
Here's a few before and after pictures:
Top: before, Bottom: after. Not much difference visibly except there was lots of paint and grime in the knurling and threads of the depth adjuster. I cleaned that out with a dental pick.
Again not much visible difference except that the blade was previously coated with lacquer or paint to protect it from rust, I guess.
The blade was sharpened with quite a bit of skew. I straightened it out on the grinder.
After flattening and polishing the back of the blade. There is a bit of pitting, but nothing catastrophic.
The plane sole was in pretty good condition. I made sure it was flat and shined it up a bit.
The first cut: works like a champ!
You never quite know how good a plane is going to be until you're done tuning it up, but this one turned out really well. Here's the payoff:
