Wrong plane?

[Crimson0087]

Why won't this work?

[Jim Bress]

1. Fresh edge on plane iron

2. Plane sole flat and plane properly set up.

3. Clamping the plates as shown in picture can distort the plates. You can use a shooting board, or only clamp one corner of the plate to not introduce distortion during planing, or clamp between two bench dogs. Probably a few other ways.

[JacksonMaberry]

+1 to what Jim said. Any tool has got to be well set up to do it's job well. Then, your work-holding has to make sense for the task at hand. As Jim mentioned, a shoot board is a good way to do it. You can knock together a very simple one very quickly with some MDF and it will work well. Or you can clamp the plate simply in a way that will not tension the board - if the board is tensioned as it is in your image, it will distort such that, while it may be flat in the vise, it will not be flat when removed. 

Try making a little stop out of scrap wood that you can clamp or screw to the bench apron. One corner of the board will sit on the stop, the other will be clamped just firmly enough to stay put. 

The way I first learned to do this was to put one corner in a typical bench vise, with the other corner held up by a twin screw Jorgensen clamp resting on the bench top. I favor doing one half at a time. Sam Billings joints plates in about a minute per side holding one half plate in his left hand and a block plane in his right. There are a lot of ways to do this right and a lot more to do it wrong. Find what works for you and stick with it.

Good luck!

 

[Shelbow]

I  personally always found it difficult to do this kind of work with a metal jointer plane, I much prefer using a wooden plane like an Emmerich or something similar. I find them much easier to control.

+ 1 to shooting board

[JacksonMaberry]

34 minutes ago, Shelbow said:

I  personally always found it difficult to do this kind of work with a metal jointer plane, I much prefer using a wooden plane like an Emmerich or something similar. I find them much easier to control.

+ 1 to shooting board

Wooden planes can be so nice. At the end of the day, whatever works is the best choice! Those HNT Gordon wooden jointers are so gorgeous 

[Davide Sora]

1 hour ago, Crimson0087 said:

Why won't this work?

Try to plane one piece at a time by putting it in a vice avoiding that it gets distorted, and try using a smaller plane which is easier to tune-up and also to sharpen than larger planes, and it takes less time. I use a Stanley 9 1/2 block plane and the set-up you see in the photos. There is cork on both sides of the vise to create a single point of contact that is not too hard and avoid distortion, and the piece is supported at the end so that you don't have to tighten the vise too much to hold it in place during planing without it slipping down. I already know that many will disagree on the use of the small block plane, but I am so happy with it that I also use it for final strokes on cello joints.

[JacksonMaberry]

1 hour ago, Davide Sora said:

Try to plane one piece at a time by putting it in a vice avoiding that it gets distorted, and try using a smaller plane which is easier to tune-up and also to sharpen than larger planes, and it takes less time. I use a Stanley 9 1/2 block plane and the set-up you see in the photos. There is cork on both sides of the vise to create a single point of contact that is not too hard and avoid distortion, and the piece is supported at the end so that you don't have to tighten the vise too much to hold it in place during planing without it slipping down. I already know that many will disagree on the use of the small block plane, but I am so happy with it that I also use it for final strokes on cello joints.

Thanks Davide, your photos showed what I was suggesting. 

[Crimson0087]

Thanks everyone, always willing to help. I have a shorter plane I'll sharpen up and give a try....do those small jointer machines produce a clean joint in case I fail? I might have to break down and buy one

[Crimson0087]

Should I flatten the face of each half individually or joint them and then flatten the whole thing?

[JacksonMaberry]

24 minutes ago, Crimson0087 said:

Thanks everyone, always willing to help. I have a shorter plane I'll sharpen up and give a try....do those small jointer machines produce a clean joint in case I fail? I might have to break down and buy one

Some of the little jointers are better than others, but all of them will have to be setup carefully just like a plane. Don Noon has posted about all the stuff he went through to dial in his jointer. In general, the bigger machines out of China and Taiwan are more carefully and well built than the smaller ones. You can totally do this, though, with what you have. 

[JacksonMaberry]

20 minutes ago, Crimson0087 said:

Should I flatten the face of each half individually or joint them and then flatten the whole thing?

You're going to get a lot of different answers on this, probably

1) before

2) after

3) before and after

I fall into the number two camp

 

[David Rosales]

There was a long discussion on this last year:

 

 

[Davide Sora]

1 hour ago, Crimson0087 said:

Should I flatten the face of each half individually or joint them and then flatten the whole thing?

I prefer to flatten them first, because it allows you to better check that the joint is at 90° with the inside face, and also allows you to better see the wood and keep the grain parallel to the joint. I also plane the outer part parallel to the inside face, to reduce the thickness (to about 18/19 mm) and thus the width of the gluing surface. In this way I can clearly see the grain on the outside too, to make sure to keep them symmetrical with respect to the joint, i.e. I make sure that the joint is on the same grain of both sides, mainly for aesthetical reasons of grain simmetry.

[HoGo]

What I see in the OP is possibly result of less-then-perfectly sharp plane with too deep cut set and improper chipbreaker setting. Well sharpened plane will be able to take extremely thin shavings (you can read news through them) and (properly sharpened) chipbreaker set almost to the very cutting edge will prevent any tear-out even with somewhat heavier initial cuts but it will make the plane harder to push through the wood especially when jointing both halves at once.

I personally prefer clamping the plane to my bench, tuck long board (laminated MDF) against the sole and slide the half plate on the board against stationary plane in one smooth motion. Results in silky smooth surface. I can add another MDF board if I feel the blade is getting dull to lift the jointed plate one level higher to fresh unused part of the blade.

[FiddleDoug]

A shooting board/jig might be a good way to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnYczLJscYw

[Wood Butcher]

2 hours ago, David Rosales said:

There was a long discussion on this last year

There is almost every year.
If one uses the search function, a very similar discussion can be found, containing all the answers, for 25 years.

[Wood Butcher]

40 minutes ago, HoGo said:

What I see in the OP is possibly result of less-then-perfectly sharp plane with too deep cut set and improper chipbreaker setting. Well sharpened plane will be able to take extremely thin shavings (you can read news through them) and (properly sharpened) chipbreaker set almost to the very cutting edge will prevent any tear-out even with somewhat heavier initial cuts but it will make the plane harder to push through the wood especially when jointing both halves at once.

Though I have tried it, planing both halves together never ever worked for me. It gets them quite close, but is just not good enough. Might be OK for general joinery, but it's not the standard needed for acoustic instruments.
I always have found that planing each half separately gives the perfect result, and more control.

 

41 minutes ago, HoGo said:

I personally prefer clamping the plane to my bench, tuck long board (laminated MDF) against the sole and slide the half plate on the board against stationary plane in one smooth motion. Results in silky smooth surface. I can add another MDF board if I feel the blade is getting dull to lift the jointed plate one level higher to fresh unused part of the blade.

This is a good method, and can work well. I think it takes some skill to understand how to hold the wood, and where to push, to avoid tilting, and cut an even ribbon. The big advantage, is that it avoids the wood from warping, as it might, when clamped in a vice. Also, you can feed the wood in whichever direction cuts best.
If one were to try a shooting board, the problem of the underside of the plate not being flat can throw off the joint, and one can find one half is cutting against the grain on the edge, tearing out the flames.

[Wood Butcher]

7 hours ago, Crimson0087 said:

Why won't this work?

It's clear from your picture, that the underside sides of the plates, are not flat. Both of the edges have a clear gap, which is much worse on the left side. In the centre, they are crushed together by the force of the vice.
This means your pieces are bending as the vice closes, and when removed from the vice, the wood bends back to its original shape. You will never get them to fit this way, ever.

Planing both halves together, often means that one half is being cut against the grain. We can see this in your picture, where the edge nearest to the bench has a lot of tear out. If you plane this piece in the opposite direction, it should cut more cleanly.
I expect your plane is also not very sharp, or well set. You do not need the corrugated sole for this kind of work, but I imagine you already had this plane for other purposes. It looks quite a long plane, if you happen to have a number 5 plane, this might actually work better.

Please find some safer shoes to work in, too.

[Crimson0087]

Can't change the shoes lol...I have feet problems and these are literally the only shoes that don't hurt my feet "much" literally 5 podiatrist couldn't find out why.

[Crimson0087]

Ok I sharpened and resetup my planes the long one and my 9 inch...I will try again tomorrow after work by hand and if I can't get it I'll try building a shooting board and give that a shot...

[David Burgess]

I clamp my plane sole-up in the vise, and run each side of the plate, hand-held, over the plane. No distortion of the plate from clamping.
Got to be careful though, because clamping the plane in the wrong way, or clamping it too hard can also distort the plane.

[Crimson0087]

David doing it that way how do you make sure to get the joint square to the face?

[Muswell]

Lots of practice?

[HoGo]

50 minutes ago, Crimson0087 said:

David doing it that way how do you make sure to get the joint square to the face?

You can do the initial cuts  with jointer or with plane on shooting board to get it square and finish with few passes of finely setup perfectly sharp plane using whichever method you want, the cuts will pretty much follow the angle set on previous step, just finesse the surface and straightness...

[J.DiLisio]

Jointing is a tough skill to learn. My first back took me several days to get right. 
If you're new to using a hand plane in general, make sure your cuts are fine and try shifting pressure from the front of the plane at the beginning of the cut to the back handle by the end of the cut.  

Edit: Based on your shavings, you might want to try resharpening the blade.  Mirror finish both sides, no visible edge.