A Family of Hand Planes

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi Brendon, PJs, Paul, and others,
What a great post !
I completely share what says Paul and PJs above and your conversation is so instructive !
I think I will try to find one of that books also.
Brendon, by the way, to come back to your palm hammer, could you explain a little bit more how you proceed, how you handle the plane, the palm hammer, where you tap ? A little video with that would be great !
Thanks a lot, your work is always a delight to watch .
Christophe

[Brendon]

Hi Christophe,
Good to hear from you. Thanks for feedback.
OK, how to adjust a hand plane. Let's say you are putting the blade back in after sharpening.
I usually proceed as follows:
Place the plane down on a dead flat surface (I like to use a sheet of glass but a clean melamine surface will work too).
Slide the blade down along the bed gently until the tip of the blade makes contact with the glass surface.
(With many planes you will be doing this with the blade bevel down; with low angle mitre planes it is usually bevel up).
Be gentle, you do not want to damage the newly sharpened point of the blade. Keep the blade as straight as possible in the plane. In other words, don't let it lean over to the left or right. Once you feel the blade touching the glass, tighten the lever cap knob to snug, do not overtighten but tighten it enough that the blade isn't going to slip when you begin to use the plane. With practice you will get to know how tight this should be.
Because you have set it up on a dead flat surface the blade should be sitting straight in the plane.
Gently try to take a test cut on a piece of wood held in a vice.
You may be lucky and plane may cut nicely first time. If that has happened, Well Done!
If the plane does not cut at all, gently tap the top end of the blade (very gently does it, you are not driving a nail!).
This will push the blade a little further down the bed.
Try another test cut. You may have to do this a couple of times to get the plane to cut.
If, on the other hand, the plane is cutting too deeply, tap the rear end of the sole of the plane. The little shock wave that this sends through the body of the plane will retract the blade ever so slightly. Make sure the lever cap knob is tight and take another test cut.
This cut should be lighter than the last one. Keep repeating this exercise until the shaving is a light as you want it to be.
If the plane is cutting deeper on one side than the other, you can gently tap the upper side of the blade to coax it over a bit until the plane cuts evenly across its width.
All this sounds like a lot of work but after just a little practice you will set your plane in a matter of moments.

As regards the hammer, you can use any small hammer. I just like my palm hammer because it gets me closer to the blade, if you know what I mean. I usually hold it a bit like holding a pen, between the first finger and the thumb and tap with the forward end of the hammer. I find the palm hammer is more accurate (for me anyway) at gauging the force of the tap. In my mind I don't have to compensate for the extra force created by the leverage of the long handle on most hammers.

I hope this was helpful Christophe.
If I get a chance I'll try and do a short video.

[daleconway]

Thanks, these posts are very helpful. Is there a source for a plane hammer?

[jjr2001]

Awesome set of planes. Thanks for sharing. Brass, wood, and steel formed to make an instrument to precisely form wood. They look too nice to use in the shop.

Cheers, JR