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hey guys so i have been doing some reading and it seems to just confuse me even more. i have a flamed maple neck that i was trying out my new plane/blade on today and was getting some rough tear out. I have a curly bubinga and figured cherry set of b&s's coming which i dont want to ruin. luckily neck blanks are thick!
anyways i have read things like back bevel? how do u do this what angle is best and i am using a very basic honing guide to do all my sharpening on a 2 sides wet stone. im not sure on the numbers of the stone but i can check if that is a huge deal. Another thing i was seeing is wetting the surface you are working on. Planing at an angle/sideways. Obviously i want a really sharp blade and to be taking very thin cuts.
I know lots of you guys are working with highly figured woods and must be very proficient at planing them by now. Any tips or tricks/ sharpening procedures you have picked up over the years would help me out a ton.

Hi Paul,
I'm pretty new at this myself, but here's what I do:
For difficult grain, I use a low-angle jack plane with a toothed blade at an 38 bevel/ 50 degree cutting angle. I clean the pattern left by the plane with a scraper. Works well for me. I also only use a simple honing guide and a 1000x/4000x water stone for sharpening. No problems shaving the hairs of my arm I sometimes think of getting a 8000x stone, just for the fun of it, but it's not a priority.

Much easier would be a thickness sander of course...

Christian

EDIT: I just remembered that I worked a flamed maple piece with that plane but a regular blade with 25 degree bevel and had no problems getting very fine shavings without tear out...

thanks for the reply Christian ive been cutting at 30/25. and you dont put a back bevel on it for the cutting edge? also if you are using a honing guide how do u determine that 38 and 50 degree angle because on mine in the instructions it gives only two measurements and thats for 30/25.
and a toothed blade thats one thing i didn't run across in my research. hmm something else to consider.

Much easier would be a thickness sander of course...

Christian[/quote]



Paul : This is the way to go.If you don't have acess to a sander then a cabinet scraper, hand sanding or hand power sanding. It's very easy to mess up highly figured wood with a plane.Lots of folks have made thier own thickness sander,tons of info on the internet.Having one makes life a whole lot easier.Something to think about.

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Paul,

I'm no expert, but I did have a similar experience. I gave up and purchased a toothed blade for my low-angle jack. It made life easier. If you don't want to do that, you can try to pay adjust the mouth of your plane. The tighter the opening, the faster the wood fibers break after you slice them, reducing the chances of tear-out. Or so I've read. Try to close the mouth as much as possible. And be sure to skew your cut.

Personally, I found interlocking grain too difficult to plane without the toothed blade. As for drum sanders, they are easier, but no faster. And they're just such insufferable machines. Perhaps Todd Stock or Link van Cleave can help you out with better advice.

Flori

Paul : This is the way to go.If you don't have acess to a sander then a cabinet scraper, hand sanding or hand power sanding. It's very easy to mess up highly figured wood with a plane.Lots of folks have made thier own thickness sander,tons of info on the internet.Having one makes life a whole lot easier.Something to think about.[/quote]

i will have to look into building one myself. my teacher had one he built and it worked amazing. im a 21 year old working part time to fuel the guitar building thing right now so a few grand on a thickness sander would be great but its a pipe dream as of now haha. and i never thought of using a hand held belt sander or something for most of the thicknessing. for some reason i can see that causing some tear out too and possibly being hard to keep things square.

thanks keep the suggestions/experiences coming

1. Make sure your plane is as sharp as humanly possible. Do a search for the "scary sharp" method. It's fast, cheap, and easy to get great results with this method.
2. For highly figured hardwoods you want a steep cutting angle. So if you're using a standard smoother it's best to have a high-angle frog (usually around 50 degrees, though I've seen some planes set as high as 60). A Stanley frog is 45 degrees-good for general smoothing operations but not ideal for highly figured wood. If you are using a low angle smoother, hone at a steeper angle (38 should do).
3. Adjust the frog/close the mouth to leave as small an opening as possible.
4. Take very fine cuts.
5. Skew the plane a bit.

The most important things here are having the blade extremely sharp and having a tight mouth. If so, a properly tuned old Stanley can tackle most woods, including curly maple (at least mine does fine). However, there are some woods out there that you really need the higher angle to cut clean. Hope this helps.

-William

I usually rough in with the bandsaw on the neck , then use a good cabinet rasp for the rough in shaping of contour,. After that, A good Single malt and cabinet scraper suffice. May take a little longer but I don't mind. Sitting outside, small curls of maple falling on my lap and a good Scotch, occasionally light up the pipe with a good cavendish cherry blend . Life is good!

MK

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I'm outside looking in, just farther from the window than most.

All of the advice on planing figured woods is good, but don't even attempt to plane the bubinga. I've had tearout even with a very highly-tuned infill plane with an iron sharpened at 50 degrees. It's beautiful wood, but it's a b*tch to plane.

You definitely don't want to use a belt sander, too easy to gouge the wood. A random orbital sander is much more controllable. You need a way to measure the plate thickness so you can identify the high and low spots.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Hi Paul

I am only a little over 1 hour from you in Windsor, you are welcome to come and sand your figured wood with my thickness sander.

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

My LV low angle bevel up planes are all set up with blades sharpened at 45 degrees .. thats an attack angle (as I call it ) of 57 degrees. When freshly sharpened, they can handle just about anything. I also just got the new LV small scraper plane .. thing of beauty - I use ti to scrape the bottom of FBs prior to gluing to the neck blank.

I imagine you are trying to get the FB surface ready to glue .. flat and true .. not easy on curly maple

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Not often pointed out, this analysis is spot on.
L.

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

Paul,
for sharpening, I find that this honing guide here is money well spent:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=51868&cat=1,43072,43078&ap=1

Also have a look at the instructions: http://www.leevalley.com/shopping/Instructions.aspx?p=51880

Christian

Thanks so much for the offer Fred that is very generous.I will probably take you up on that when my B&S's arrive since we were talking about a visit some day anyway.


and dang i knew i should have sprung for the more expensive honing guide! i just got the little grey thing that really only tells ya how to get a 30/25. no reason not to spend another 40 or 50 and get something better though.

i will be searching for a method of getting dangerously sharp edges thanks everyone that really is a lot of help and useful knowledge saves me ruining my precious "zoot" did i use that term correctly haha? thanks again

I disagree. The little Eclipse guides are as good as any I have seen, for standard width plane and chisel blades. They are easy and quick. Make yourself a little jig to set the depth for the correct angles. Take a look at Todd Stock's You Tube videos of sharpening, and you can't go wrong.

_________________
Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

There's a little book by Brian Burns called "Double Bevel Sharpening" You can get it at LMI. He is able to plane the most highly figured maple with O tearout. Even if you don't end up using a double bevel sharpening method (which I suggest you do - it works) the book is loaded with great info. It's very inexpensive.

Todd that 3 part video of your sharpening demonstration was great! im going out to buy some wet/dry sandpaper and try to find me some plate glass.

300 im worried about 75 dollars! and i think it is very important to learn all that basic hand stuff. nobody uses hand tools barely anymore it seems. i walked into the hardware store and ordered a spokeshave and plane the other week and the guy is like what? that's old school. to that i replied i know no other way. and why mess with success i mean i put a new plane blade into an old # 5 1/2 smoothing plane that i refinished with some steel wool and a bit of mineral oil and it worked amazing for joining my sitka top. why mess with success, that plane had been doing good for my grandfather back in the day

I'll agree with the comments about mastering the hand tools...I really need to do that myself!

I put together a home made thickness sander a little while back that does a pretty good job and was less than 200 to build. It isn't as sturdy as many but I also made it way wider than normal (23" or so) to give me a bunch of options. Even with its lacks and problems, it saves tons of time for rough thicknessing.

As I said, I still need to get a LOT better with the hand tools...if nothing else so I can more easily clean up the rough spots left by the sander.

-Matthew