Woodworker's Journal 2008-32-1, страница 24

These methods are derived from the English Arts & Crafts movement whose members devoted considerable time and thought to the most effective use of hand tools. What was adopted and adapted from this movement on this side of the Atlantic were very different techniques — but that's another story.

In a world without machines, we would begin making a piece of furniture by preparing the sawn stock to dimensional and geometric accuracy using a handplane, very likely an 07 trying plane. However, handplanes have been rendered obsolete for this kind of work by jointers and planers, which do a good job of sizing the stock to the required squareness. The downside of stock prepared by machines is the scalloped surface left by their revolving knives. Tearout may also be a problem, the result of reversed grain direction or feeding the stock the wrong way over the cutterhead. Neither scalloped surface nor tearout affects the marking and cutting of joints, nor does it affect shaping, gluing or clamping operations. However, the milled surface and any other imperfections have major implications at the finishing stage. Just as polish highlights the color and grain pattern of the wood, it also emphasizes all its defects. The challenge is to remove those defects so that the piece presents an absolutely flat surface reflection.

The area between the fingers is a "snipe." You can see in the right foreground where mill marks have been removed by the handplane.

Clemen, lAp^

To bring the machined surface to a polish-ready state, we have three tools to choose from: scrapers, handplanes and abrasives. The Arts & Crafts practitioners deemed scrapers inadequate for the task. They didn't use them — nor do I.

If there is any process in a small shop, of one to five workers, where a hand tool is best suited to a task, it's cleaning up with a smoothing plane.

Handplanes: In most cases, faces and edges can be planed using an 04 or 04'/; smoothing plane, provided the grain is oriented to advantage. If the grain is difficult and prone to tearout, use a blade that has been back sharpened. In extreme cases, even on relatively narrow faces, you may have to resort to planing across the grain.

Assuming that the workpiece is narrower than the plane width, that it's sharp and correctly set, it usually takes four passes to make a machined surface smooth and ready to polish.

The first pass removes the tops of the scallops, which collect as fine slivers. The second pass removes larger slivers. The third pass removes a near-complete

When using a sanding block (the author prefers cork), hold the block flat with constant pressure. Don't let more than half of it overhang an edge.

Woodworker's Journal February 2008

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