Types of planes
The planes are sharp blades inserted into a guide, made of very hard wood or metal.
We can distinguish between:
-
jack plane, having blade with straight cutting edge, and a chipbreaker which reduces vibration and helps eliminate the wood chips, (fig. 1);
-
scrub plane, with a curved cutting
edge, without chipbreaker, is used to quickly remove considerable
thicknesses (Fig. 2);
-
jointer plane (also known as the try
plane or trying plane), which differs from the previous one only for the greater magnitude; serves to
straighten the edges of boards and large surfaces, (fig. 3);
-
toothed blade plane
(fig. 3):
-
having a V' shaped tooth, useful in the preparation of the surfaces to be plated and veneering;
-
with a series of small square teeth, to rectify the surfaces with irregular fibers and, therefore, difficult to be planed;
-
rebate plane:, with very thin body and iron
; serves to make grooves and having the exterior of the iron, flush with
the lateral side of the sole, allows planing rabbets, where the normal
planes do not arrive( fig. 4).
-
combination plane, provided of
displaceable guide, so that the cornices can be spaced as desired by the
margin of the workpiece; allows to realize grooves and moldings, through
the use of series of cutters with a shaped profile, (fig. 7);
-
planes with metal
body, if of good quality, allow you to get an exceptionally smooth surface,
(Fig. 8), the first was patented by American Leonard Bailey in 1858, after
which the patent was acquired by the American firm Stanley.
Adjusting the cutting edge
The amount of wood removed in the form of chips, depends on how the protruding edge of the blade
is, compared to the sole.
The adjustment of the cutting is done differently for the planes with wooden body and metal; in the first, to increase the depth of cut, you will have to
turn the
plane upside down and give a firm stroke with a hammer at the
end of the iron,
In doing so, you must check that the edge of the blade protrudes uniformly from one to two tenths of a millimeter for harder woods and from two to three tenths of a millimeter for
for softer woods, (fig. 9).
To ensure perfect parallelism of the
edge of the blade, respect the sole, it may be necessary to hit on the side
of the cutting edge, opposite to the one that protrudes less.
To reduce the depth, it is necessary to knock on the rear of the
stock, (fig. 10).
As the cutter has been adjusted to the desired depth, to lock it in the right position you will give blows to the wedge, as long as this has not
fixed enough.
Because in doing so, it is possible that the blade moves a little bit, it may be necessary to repeat the whole process several times before you get the desired result.
Instead, in the metallic ones, the adjustment of depth, can be obtained with extreme precision, by the rotation of the knob, and the parallelism, acting on
the lateral adjustment ever.
Maintenance
As for sharpening the blade, refer to the discussion in relation to the chisels, indicating that
the sharpening angle must be between 25 ° and 30 ° ( chisels ).
Since with the use, the wooden sole tends to wear out unevenly, occasionally it is necessary to rectify it, using another hand plane or an electric plane.
The scrapers
Consists of small pieces of steel of about 1-2 mm in thickness, the size of 6 cm to 12 cm.
To sharpen them, first you need to pass
the narrow borders on the grindstone, till they become sharp and square,
then the flat parts to remove burrs.
In Figure 11a we see, enlarged, what should be the result.
Subsequently, in order to make a new
burr, the tool is fixed on a clamp, then you pass a burnisher, (of round or
triangular section), very firmly
onto the scraper, pushing it along the edge two or three times.
If you don't have a burnisher, the work
can be done in this way: holding a chisel of high quality with the back upward,
you pass it's edge on the cutting edge of the scraper, with an angle just less than 90 degrees,
(fig. 12a, 12b and 12c)
The final result, can be seen in Fig.11b.
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fig. 1 |