Gore/Gilet Book Body Plate Thicknessing Board

[Clancy]

Woodrat's review of the above mentioned book's mortice routing jig reminded me that I've been meaning to post about the Plate Thicknessing Board - as described in section 6-1, page 6-4 of the 'Build' book
For those who haven't seen it, it's just a flat board with a row of tacks along one edge hammered in until the heads just poke up above the surface.
Place the plate on the board and plane towards the tacks - no clamps required.

I used to clamp my plates end-on between 2 pieces of 3mm mdf that I had planed down to 2mm.
I used dogs on my vice & on the table to provide the horizontal clamping.
This gave me clearance at either end for the plane and access to the whole surface.
However, too little clamping pressure and the plate would slide free, too much clamping pressure and the plate would 'bow' up.
A picture's worth a thousand.......

Plate Thicknessing.jpg (30.75 KiB) Viewed 7593 times

So I gave the 'board with tacks at the edges' a try.
And I like it.
I made mine with a lip underneath so that it goes onto the bench like a shooting board.
Then I can just slap down my plates on top and start thicknessing.
It also makes thicknessing down small pieces like headplates easy to do.
HOWEVER
If you look at Fig. 6-3 on page 6-3 you will see a photo of their Thicknessing Board
And if you look carefully along the row of tacks you will see one lonely little tack without any material pushed against it.
THIS IS NOT A TACK - IT IS A SNIPER - AN ASSASIN IN DISGUISE
Hit one of these exposed tacks with your much loved wooden plane and it will tear a gouge in it's base.
It will split a chunk out of it's side.
It will cause you much despair!
You will sulk away from the workshop cradling your precious plane, nursing it's wounds, and wonder what you ever did to deserve that outcome.

So,
Use the jig. It works.
But,
Cover all exposed tacks with scrap or you WILL pay the price.

By the way, the patient is recovering thanks to some newly mixed hide glue and some excellent jigsaw skills.
A chip on the front will now be the only scar of the damage that was done.

[colin north]

Ouch!
Thanks for the warning.

[Trevor Gore]

Clancy, sorry to hear about that. I hate it too, if I damage a valued tool.

A couple of points which might help you and others avoid this:

Whilst quite a few texts/teachers recommend it, I would avoid planing on a skew (which you might be doing looking at the pic you posted). Whilst I haven't checked every pic in the books, I doubt you'll find one with the plane shown skew. I've always planed "in line" and it's just the way I work. There's a reason (had to be!). When you push the plane skew, you effectively lower the angle of attack of the plane. So a high angle plane (like the HNT Gordon you have pictured) becomes a lower angle plane, depending on how far you skew it. So on curly back/sides timber you loose the benefit of the high angle unless you push it in line. Now, you're clearly planing a top, so you might have skewed intentionally to drop the effective angle. Works fine, but you then run the risk of dropping the back of the plane off the edge of the wood (and you know what happens then, unfortunately, if you use the tack board). There's also a greater likelihood of "unhooking" the piece from the tacks.

I've found softwoods to plane better using standard angle (I'm fortunate in having a lot of angles to choose from). When working tops I tend to use a standard 5 1/2 or a 7, planing in-line. I have a HNT Gordon plane which looks the same as yours. I seldom use it, because keeping the bottom flat required too much maintenance. Works great as a scraper plane though, with the blade reversed, when a card type scraper leaves too many ridges, but I can mostly get by with my other high angle planes.

Planing thin wood into a stop is a delicate job at the best of times, but I've always done it that way and still do. It takes a bit of getting used to, though.

[Clancy]

Thanks Trevor.
It's an old photo that just happened to show the whole of the setup I was using.
As you mentioned, it's a spruce top in the photo so the plane is skewed for that reason.
I have a Record No.6 that I use for planing guitar tops (I used to use a Clifton 7 like in your book , but found it just too big for me for this)

But the in the picture it's a uke top, and a smaller plane is more managable for me over the smaller surface.
I've since picked up a Record No.3 for this purpose.
For the hard woods I use the HNT Gordon Trying & Smoothing Planes.
I was planing down a hardwood headplate when the 'incident' occurred....

[Dominic]

Craig, did you do that to your trying plane? Thats even worse than doing it to your smoother.


I love my HT G trying plane. I use it for jointing tops and backs and the high angle gives me a very smooth finish. But I have never checked it for flat as Trevor warned about though I don't think there are any issues because I find it easy to get a flat gap free joint. I assumed the wood they use is very stable. I think mine is ironwood ?? Perhaps the issue occurs more in other woods. Anyway, I better check it. Have you looked at your Trying plane and your smoother for flat?

On that, I have been thinking of getting the HT G jack plane for initial thicknessing of tops etc since it has a 60 degree angle which makes it better for difficult woods. But if it is going to require to much maintenance I might just go for a Veritus low angle BU jack plane and get a high angle blade. Good thing about these is I already have the BU smoother and they all take the same blade so this is very versitile. Do you get better blades for your records? I got a hock replacement blade for a stanley #5 and it makes it cut beautifully.


More Ukes for you is it?
Cheers
Dom

[Clancy]

Dom, it was the smoother.
I have checked both for flatness, in Canberra and in Alice.
Both are gidgee and the trying plane moved a little bit.
I will wait till we are back in the ACT next year before correcting.

I'm quite happy with both blades in the Record planes.
They are early fifties models.
The blades took some restoring on the stones, but the bodies were both totally flat & square.

I actually looked at getting the Veritas BU Smoother with high & low angle blades (for hard & soft woods), but since I already had the HNT Smoother, was mainly wanting something small for soft wood, & the Record showed up for a fraction of the price - well that's what I got!
Besides, I always seem to damage my new expensive tools
Maybe I'm sub-consciously trying to make them fit in better with my old rehabilitated tools