Popular Woodworking 2003-06 № 134, страница 49

WHAT IS A SMOOTHING PLANE?

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Tune up a smoothing plane and you will greatly reduce the amount of sanding you do. Here's how to select, fine-tune and use this oft-neglected traditional tool.

In the days before sandpaper was invented, fine furniture was prepared for finishing using planes, scrapers and little else.

Smoothing wood surfaces with a handplane is a skill, and doing it well takes practice. But the rewards are substantial. With a well-tuned plane, you can quickly take a piece of wood from rough to ready-to-finish. In fact, I find that in many situations, smoothing planes can be faster than a random-orbit sander.

Also, surfaces that have been smoothed are different than surfaces that have been sanded. The wood fibers have been sheared

cleanly instead of abraded. So the wood looks - in my opinion - luminous after it has been smoothed.

And finally, smoothing is healthier. It's a mild upper-body workout, though nothing like running a 5K. But more importantly, smoothing is better for your lungs. You're not producing clouds of the unhealthy lung-clogging dust that power sanding kicks up.

But before you can get started in smoothing, there are three important hurdles: selecting the right plane, tuning your tool and learning the basic strokes.

Picking a Plane

For some, choosing a smoothing plane is like picking a computer operating system, spouse or a religion. It's personal, and people get worked up about it.

So let me say this: All good-quality smoothing planes can be tuned to handle most workaday smoothing tasks. Each kind of plane has its strengths and weaknesses; and in the end, you'll probably end up owning several smoothers. But before we talk about the different varieties of smoothing planes, let's look at the factors that make smoothing planes work well.

A Well-bedded Iron: Without a doubt, the most important characteristic of any plane is that the iron be firmly fixed to the body of the plane and not rock or vibrate in use (even the tiniest bit).

All planes smooth wood to some degree, but not all planes are "smoothing planes. "Smoothing planes - or smoothers as they are sometimes called - put the final finishing cuts on your work. Typically, they are 6V2" to 9" long and 2V4" to 3V4" wide, according to R.A. Salaman's "Dictionary of Woodworking Tools" (Astragal). In the common Stanley plane-numbering system the #2, #3 and #4 planes are considered smoothing planes. Wooden smoothing planes made since 1700 are typically coffin shaped. Infill smoothing planes - which are based on Roman planes believe it or not-are usually the most expensive planes and are highly prized by collectors.

The Clifton #4 smoother is an excellent modern-day handplane.

If the iron isn't seated well, it's going to chatter.

The Angle of the Iron: Garden-variety Stanley smoothing planes have the iron bedded at a 45° angle to the work. This angle allows the plane to be pushed without too much effort and handles most straight-grained domestic woods without tearing out the

Here you can see the different angles that smoothing planes commonly come in: a low-angle, a Norris 47¹/2° pitch, 50° and 55°.The higher the pitch, the better the performance on tough-to-plane woods (but the harder the tool is to push).

grain. Some smoothing planes have irons bedded at 47¹/2°, 50°, 55° or 60°. The higher angle makes the plane harder to push, but it increases the plane's performance on some tricky woods such as curly maple and situations where the grain is interlocked or wild. You'll get less tearout with a high angle.

Other smoothing planes have

by Christopher Schwarz

Comments or questions? Contact Chris at 513-531-2690 ext. 1407 or chris.schwarz@fwpubs.com.

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