Popular Woodworking 2006-02 № 153, страница 44

Smoothing planes are the elite (and most demanding) planes in your shop. Shown is a Lie-Nielsen No. 4, a Veritas bevel-up smoother, a wooden-bodied Clark & Williams smoother, and my most guilty pleasure: a custom-made plane by Wayne Anderson (bottom right). Yes, it's a smoothing plane, too.

Smoothing planes remove wispy shavings and prepare a surface for fi nishing.

On narrower cabinet components, the jointer plane works along the grain. Skewing the tool slightly during the cut makes it easier to push and does assist in flattening. One wider panels - say 14" and wider - I'll begin with a few diagonal passes before switching to long-grain ones.

big tabletop, a largish panel or my benchtop, I'll begin with diagonal strokes. This helps keep a larger surface in true.

As you start to work, the first pass or two should produce irregular shavings as you remove the high spots left by the fore plane. After a few passes, long and wide shavings should emerge from the mouth. When this happens all the way across a board's width, you are ready to work the other face of the board.

If you're surfacing the board entirely by hand, use a marking gauge to scribe the finished thickness on all four edges of the boards and work that rough face with the fore plane almost to the scribe line. Then true the second face with your jointer plane.

This is the point at which I'll typically perform joinery on the piece (with some exceptions). If

you proceed to the smoothing plane before you cut your joints, you can make more work for yourself in the end.

That's because j oinery can be hard on a board. You'll mark it up with the typical shop bruises from cutting and clamping. When the joinery is complete, I'll generally assemble the project and then

smooth the exterior - if possible. Sometimes you have to go to the smoothing plane before assembly. Experience will be your guide.

Smoothing Planes: An Addiction for Some

The smoothing plane is the tool that usually hooks woodworkers into hand tools. They're the "fine"

tool in the troika of hand planes and they produce gossamer shavings and leave shimmering surfaces. I like my smoothing planes, but if I've done a good j ob with my other planes, the smoothing plane should see only a little use.

This is a good thing because it saves you on sharpening and setup. Fore planes are the easiest

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102 Popular Woodworking February 2006