April 15, 201412 yr Salutations, Working with chisels bevel up or bevel down is pretty common knowledge...Things which are not often considered however are bevel positions in axes and drawknives.This is a video of a friend of mine who has a primitive woodshop in Jonesborough Tennessee, a few miles from my home.http://youtu.be/03O4GTIjBIENotice in that video how he has so much control over the shavings with the bevel up or bevel down drawknives.Something I do a lot is use a single bevel down broad axe, I'm right handed and swing it with the bevel down, striking the timber to shape it, with perfect accuracy.Some broad axes are dual bevel and they are very handy, but to get that perfect amount of control in your cuts you should stick to a single bevel, with the bevel edge down.This thinking of course is also used in Smoothing planes, if you don't already you really should have two smoothing planes you use most often, one with the bevel up and one with the bevel down. Try it.
April 15, 201412 yr Thanks Mark very interesting information. John MoodySite Administratorhttp://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com“Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.†Shaker Saying
April 15, 201412 yr Cool video and information! Thanks! Lew Kauffman-Wood Turners Forum HostTime Traveler and Purveyor of the Universe's Finest Custom Rolling Pins!
April 15, 201412 yr  I think a major contributor to the control when drawnife work is from the fact of the wood having been riven and not cut.Riven wood has complete grain cut wood has cut grain and trying to use a drawknife on cut wood is pure miseryHis tools are also very sharp
April 15, 201412 yr Author Oh yeah, sharp, always very sharp.Good practice btw to have a dedicated sharpening area in your workshop.I'm curious.. Who's using drawknives on sawn wood?
April 17, 201412 yr For fun, and to distress some 2X s, I tried a draw knife. It wasn't pretty and not as much fun as was anticipated. It was, however, distressed.Being an absolute novice in the use of hand planes, I'm curious about reversing the blade's bevel. How does it change the use? What is the effect of the bevel down?Gene'The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.' G. K. Chesterton
April 17, 201412 yr Author Take a look at this blog post, it does a good job:http://lumberjocks.com/topics/18077note: Smoothing planes really are the do-alls in the hand plane world, some are used primarily for cross-grain smoothing, which for any tool is hard to pull off, but with the properly setup Smoothing plane you can rip cross grain on rough timber and get it smooth enough to finish with a scraper, pretty amazing and doing it is fast work too.
April 17, 201412 yr Hmm, the only bevel ups I have are the block planes.   You CAN buy planes set up as bevel up, or down, but I don't think you can just flip the iron over ( cuts lousy, actually) because the support for the edge of the iron changes.  The bevel on a bevel down plane is the edge's support.    On a Block plane, the ramp the iron sits on is it's support.  Besides, one can't put a back bevel on bevel down planes.Bevel up, or bevel down?  Get a large chisel and try it out. Planer? I'm the 'planer', and these are what I use...
April 17, 201412 yr Author Actually there's an entire world of planes and blades, some of mine are exactly the same if you flip them, all we do is create a center secondary bevel, which is pretty common on smoothing planes.When we use this method for chisels, as I've been doing all day, it's often bevel up on firm chisels so we can cut deeply. I do most of my shaping with a variety of chisels, one I use has dual bevels and is very heavy, with it I can work magic.
April 17, 201412 yr Author You know, I just realized where the confusion is coming from, there are Smoothing planes that are designed to be bevel up, like the one Garret is using here:http://youtu.be/f_jVcgnGPxMSure would like to have that one, she's a beauty.
April 17, 201412 yr Most of my bevel downs run with a chip breaker.  Had a few planes come into the shop with the chipbreaker on bass-ackwards, though.   Kind of hard to make them work that way.   Bevel up, then a chipbreaker on top of that?  still, I do like a bevel down planeDE6c Rebuild.  Oh, I take that back, I DO happen to have a bevel up planeHungry little beasty, a Harbour Freight #33, reground as a #3 sized Scrub plane. All $9.63 of it.  About the same type of plane as a Stanley #40.   Thick iron, 3" radius camber.  Have sharpened it once since the regrinding was done. Planer? I'm the 'planer', and these are what I use...
April 17, 201412 yr Author I've got one of those HB's that I modified for roughing.The blade on that thing will work no matter how you assemble it. Actually the way you drop the blade in and the adjusters stay in place is pretty handy for a cheap plane. There's a recent study about chip breakers and how they can be used better, was done in Japan.In slow motion under a microscope you can see the benefit of a very small gap. I'll try and find it...
April 17, 201412 yr  Seen the video, over on SMC.    Also seen how this works on mine.    A few planes I"ve had will not close up to the edge, and still be able to adjust the depth ( ran out of threads on the wheel) so either a camber gets ground, over they are sold off.I have a Wood river #4 V3 I use instead of sandpaper.   It is usualy the last plane used in the series of planes, with the H-F being the first one used.   Scrub (if needed) Jack/fore plane, tryplane ( the DE6c works for me) and then the smooothers. Planer? I'm the 'planer', and these are what I use...
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.