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So I’ve got my eyes on some Bear Claw tops, but I do things the poor man’s way of bringing tops down by hand with planes, scrapers, & abrasives. I suspect with Bear Claw I may encounter more tear out and those types of things, am I correct on this?

Hi I use al large sanding machine to thickness my sitka spruce, I also have a large array of hand planes particularly the japanese smoothing planes which do a great job on softwoods. Dont be intimidated by all the fiddling involved to get them to work correctly. There are numerous youtube videos explaining how to set up new japanese smooth plane. I purchased 2 yrs ago a smaller 9 in japanese smoother for $50 from woodcraft. Good luck. For hardwood planing I prefer western metal style planes. I should add, when planing across the grain for hardwoods, A scrub plane can make quick work of thicknessing your hardwood stock, followed by a jack or smoother set at a higher angle e.g. 50 deg along the grain to get a nice smooth finished surface,

Keep your plane irons sharpened the way they were meant to be and you should have no problem.

I consider sharpening to be one of my hobbies. I've got so many oil stones, water stones, and diamond stones it's ridiculous. Even stones to flatten the other stones. And I've got a wheel grinder that will take knife and tool sharpening stones, and a 2" belt sander. And I have angle guides/holders for everything imaginable. I even set and sharpen my saws.

I also cut up some scrap MDF into oil stone-sized pieces and use it for Knife Maker's Green. If you really want to go for zero bevel, keep going after the green and finish with the pink compound.

I'm retired military, and back when I was still on active duty, my buddies would borrow my knife and cuss me out when they returned it. "Why didn't you warn me about that thing? I didn't even know I had cut myself until I started seeing blood everywhere!"

My favorite sharpening book is, "The Perfect Edge" by Ron Hock of Hock Tools. Ron's company makes good plane irons from both O-1 and A-2 tool steel as well.

For saws I like, "Keeping the Cutting Edge" by Harold H. Payson. It's not very thick, but it's cheap and packed with information.

I'll second what Ernie said about Japanese planes and extend it to include Japanese tools in general. I love my Japanese tools.

Making your own planes is easy, from traditional wooden planes to the Krenov-style. You'll need a few tools, particularly planemaker's floats if you build traditional wooden planes. I own a lot of books on hand planes and can probably tell you most of the designs in history. But the big thing is knowing how to tune a plane. It's worth the time and effort.

If you tune your planes, and sharpen the irons as often as necessary, you shouldn't have any tear-out problems if you use the planes correctly. Those things done, bearclaw spruce should be no problem at all.

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Rick

Ha ha, same experience in the military. Guys would borrow my knife and more often than not they would manage to cut themselves before they gave it back. I like my knives sharp.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

What kills me is that they weren't expecting it! Most of them sharpened their knives to a, "good enough" point and left it at that. Then the few guys like you and me would hand them a surgical scalpel in the shape of a military knife and they'd hurt themselves!

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Rick

Yeah sharp planes isn’t an issue I keep them sharp I just wasn’t sure if the bear claw presented any strange grain issues that I need to be aware vs standard Sitka tops.

Plane it at a slight skew, and that will mitigate tearout.

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Guitar Maker and Purveyor of the World's Finest Tonewoods
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If you have a spare iron you can use a Dremel with a cutoff wheel to cut teeth in the cutting edge and make a toothing blade. It will work fine in a regular bench plane, although some might prefer a low angle plane. If you just tooth the edge of the plane blade you can grind it back to a normal plane blade if you don't like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl8Tj1lUha4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9jVI1CDuNQ
You can then use a scraper to remove the tooth marks from the plane.

You will not tear out the grain. I've used a caruth scraper on it. Not an issue.

Bear Claw spruce won't give you any trouble if you iron is sharp. Its grain is not an issue of runout like you find in flamed maple, so a good set should not give you problems.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier

I've used bear claw for violins that when planing the join, it brought out a squiggly pattern. Never any problem planing it.

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Why be normal?

Slim , if your into thrift and an excellent jack plane , I purchased a chinese rosewood jack plane off e bay for abt $25.. The side dowels make hogging off wood easy. and you can either push or pull it. I believe they are abt $30 on amazon now ???, Makes quick work of backs an tops. and saves yo energy.

Man that sounds like what I need thanks!

FYI slim there are a number of chinese traditional furnituremakers on youtube. the words are in mandarin and i cant spell in chinese to get to their website . and they give explicit instructions on setting up an using this jack plane. In usa scott wynn has setup instructions in his books and online as well , You can find an array of these rosewood an sandalwood chinese carpentry planes on e bay

The planes I think you’re referring to are the ones with the wood handle through the body correct?

Correct slim, the handles are a tapered ovoid so you just lightly tap them in. The wood is not seasoned tropical hdwd, So it should sit in your shop for 3 months to acclimate. Mine took a yr to settle down, Otherwise you will be constantly fiddling an flattening the sole like a japanese plane with relief at the front and before the blade 3/8 th in. The sole should be relieved with a scraper from 1-3 thousandth of an inch .003 more if you want a radius on the blade an take big cuts. I prefer a scrub plane for that , which could be a cheapo used no4 smoother with a pronounced radius. that you grind on the blade .