Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wood Plane

mart: Thankyousir. I'll definitely look for instructional videos on the interwebs - good idea. & Yes, I realize that sharpening is a big part of planning and although I have a good set of stones, I’ll need to invest in a jig and either a few more stones, or the sandpaper, as you suggested. So, if you were just starting w/ planes and could only afford 2 Stanleys, which would you choose and why?

High Noon;
Good afternoon to you sir, I trust that all is as well as can be all things considered.

If I may do this first, my background in answering this question is spending 27 years in the kitchen cabinet and furniture industry.

For over 3 years I ran one of these as well as being Lead Hand in the work cell where we did the rough ripping, then molding, planing and sanding of all the cabinet door parts.



Please note that the safety stop bar is missing from that photo - it's a 2 head 37" Sandingmaster made in Holland.

Anyways for the last several years we also ended up with a 52" wide belt sander from Italy - funny the name escapes me at present but will come to me hours later when it no longer is relevant.

Most of my time in the cabinet industry I was involved with millwright work too, since that sort of thing has always made sense to me somehow.

In this instance I'll differ with Sitka Deer in that a good wide belt sander operator can very easily dimension wider pieces such as table tops - we did it daily because our planer was only 24" wide and we made tables which had wider tops.

The front head on a sander like the one in the photo is solid and when the operator runs something like an 80 Grit up front it's not an issue to remove up to a millimeter at a time - but that's about it.

We'd often have folks bring in various projects to get sanded and would do it as long as there wasn't an excess of glue on the laminated tops or the wood was really wet or sappy. In those instances it'd usually mean we'd kill a belt which back then was more than $50 each, having bought none in 6 years I'm not sure what they'd be worth today, sorry.

If it were me building a table, I'd canvas the local furniture and cabinet makers to see if anyone has a big enough machine to take it down to where I need it and what they'd need to do it.

In my experience the end result would be preferable to attempting to do something that large by hand.

Hopefully that was useful information sir, good luck with your project and stay well.

Dwayne

Here is the last known photo of Kobe Bryant, just before he boarded the helicopter he died in. Hope it helps.

Sitka deer;
Good afternoon sir, it's been too long since we've conversed - I hope you and your fine family are still doing acceptably well.

Sometimes I'd use a sled and sometimes not - depending on what the surfaces on both sides looked like, the wood type and all the little details.

The trick I found was not putting it through the same way, or better said rotating the part 180° every time. Somehow no matter how careful one was, the leading edge would always get a tiny bit more taken off - maybe as little as a .25mm Sitka, but that piles up quick when you're doing 40 or 50 passes.

We'd usually save old course belts just for that sort of work, so if they'd get full of glue it wasn't the end of the world.

Funny I still haven't thought of the bigger Italian machine's name yet. It had a slightly deeper throat than the Sandingmaster - we could only do a bit less than 6" thick with it if memory serves.

The front head on both was a rubber coated drum, but hard, hard rubber so not much give at all. The diameter on the front drum would have been 10" or so?

The back head had a platen with a solid steel roller on either side of the platen. The platen was felt with graphite backed canvas material for the contact surface.

All the rollers were super heavy - as in when changing the bearings one needed to be careful even putting the roller down as it'd flatten one's fingers quite adeptly.

Hahaha - I was running that thing and the bearing went out on the extreme rear roller on the second head. It turned that big roller into a cam shaft and the machine vibrated so much it moved a couple inches forward!!!

Was quite noisy too when it let go Sitka - I recall that like it was happening in now!!! Salesman and the boss came running out of the office and show room... Ah good times..

All the best to you folks Sitka - do stay well.

Dwayne

If the grain is not too crazy, I can get a finished surface from the planes. no or very light sanding required.

And you could start slow by making your own planes...

I have actually made some wooden planes. These are hollow and round sets that I made or getting ready to make. I did not make the set of match planes on the right, but plan on making a set sized for thicker wood.



Of course these would be no help to the OP, but I have also made smoothers and jack planes in the past.

Not green at all. It''s been seasoning in a warehouse for over a year.