Introduction:
My first handplane almost ended my interest in woodworking. To
say it was useless is an understatement. It did not plane. It
hacked. I wasn't sure whether to fault the tool or the user.
I replaced the handplane with a belt sander, which performed well
straight out of the box and saved my interest in woodworking.
Although my skills were still primitive, the sander allowed me to
complete some projects and they did not look hand hewn.
A few years later, the notion of handplaning wood resurfaced.
Determined to succeed, I took a class that devoted the first several
sessions to simply flattening and sharpening the plane iron. Hours
and hours of labor later, my hands stained black from fine steel and
abrasive particles, I was rewarded with a shockingly sharp iron --
so sharp, in fact, that it effortlessly shaved the hair on the back
of my hand.
After I performed countless other tweaks to the body of the
plane, I put it to wood. It performed well, slicing wood with a
satisfying whish. The time spent on the tune-up was well worth it.
Woodworkers have many choices today when it comes to handplanes.
The finest ones work well right out of the box. But all require
maintenance eventually. Whether you have some older, lesser quality
tools in need of a tune-up or simply want to get the most out of
quality handplanes, the articles in this book, taken from the pages
of Fine Woodworking magazine, will ensure your success. Soon
you will realize why handplanes are among the most pleasing of all
woodworking tools to use.
-- Anatole Burkin, Editor of Fine Woodworking
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1. Bench Planes
Making Music with a
Plane
Straight Talk About
Planes
Four Planes That
Earn Their Keep
Three Bench Planes
Users Guide to Block
Planes
2. Planing
Techniques
Flattening Wide
Panels by Hand
Planing Difficult
Grain
Planing Corner
Joints
Chamfers
Shooting Board Aims
for Accuracy
Shooting Boards Aim
for Tight Joints
3. Specialty
Planes
Rabbet Planes Are
Real Shop Workhorses
Compass Planes
The Stanley No. 55:
King of Combination
Planes
Japanese Planes
Demystified
4. Spokeshaves
The Spokeshave
Soup Up Your
Spokeshave
5. Scrapers
The Scraper Can
Replace a Stack of
Sandpaper
Cabinet Scrapers
The Buckhorn Scraper
Making Small
Scrapers
6. Making Planes
and Scratch Stocks
Wooden Planes
Wooden Chisel Plane
Simple Tools Can
Reproduce Most
Moldings
Scratch Stocks
Make a Wooden
Scraper
Credits
Index
Soft-cover, 8-1/2 x 10-7/8 in., 160 pages
with color photos and drawings
Published 2005
ISBN: 978-1-56158-748-3
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