Toothing Planes

H

HSteier

Well-known member
I am moving along on my Chippendale Library Bookcase.  I've laid the figured mahogany veneer on the rails and stiles of the doors.  Since the mahogany was hand cut there are slight irregularities in the veneer thickness.  I've planed  these down with a toothing plane and then smoothed with a card scraper.  This is the technique the Colonial Williamsburg boys used in making the veneered top for the Seaton tool chest (viewable currently on line at PBS's "The Woodright's Shop".)  I don't have too much experience with toothing planes and have had some problems.  I was getting some tear out in the figured mahogany.  I have an ECE Emmirich toothing plane.  The iron is bedded at a very high angle, almost vertical and I still seemed to get tear out. Lee Valley sells toothing plane blades for their low angle planes, blades bevel up.  Does anyone have any experience with these?  I would think that the lower angle blades would be more likely and not less likely to cause tear out, even with a high bevel angle on the blade.  But I am interested in comments and experience.

Howard Steier
 
Howard,

I am sure that there are others out there that can give you better advice, but I ran into a similar problem when flatting some curly cherry.  When I got close to the final surface (which is where you are), I had to switch to a LN-112 scraper plane to remove the tear out left by my smoothing plane.  With an extremely sharp scraper blade (45 degree angle with no hook sharpen on an 8000 Japanese waterstone or about 3 micron sandpaper), I was able to use my scraper plane to remove the last bit of tear out.  I will also say that the 112 blade dulls probably 3 times faster than a smoothing plane blade.  But when it was sharp, it took a shaving similar to a smoothing plane and worked the area about as fast. 

I hope that helps.
David
 
Popular woodworking magazine just ran an excellent article on toothing planes in both the bevel up and bevel down variety.

Herman
 
Thank you

I don't subscribe but I'll try to find a copy. Anything you can remember about the bevel up variety?

Howard Steier
 
Howard, here is the info for the issue, October 2009.

http://www.woodworkersbookshop.com/product/print_issue_popular_woodworking_october_2009_issue_178/

And here is a video of the author demonstrating the use of a bevel up toothing plane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pxKo1vjOwA

Looks like the blade is definitely worth the investment.

Herman
 
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