The most important part
of any project is probably
the initial stock
preparation: without
proper preparation no other part
of the project can happen, it's as
simple as that. When it comes to
preparation you have three
options: buy PAR timber, which is
relatively expensive; buy rough
sawn timber and process it using
machines; or break out the hand
planes and do it yourself. My
preference is for the latter
because it's cheaper, safer and
quieter. It's also not as slow as you
might imagine, and when you've
had a bit of practice, it's not that
difficult either.
Tools for the job
It's not inconceivable that the
entire process of stock preparation
could be carried out using tools
that you've made yourself, and
there was a time when this would
have been the case. However, I use
a combination of homemade and
bought-in tools, which include a
selection of bench planes with
sharp irons. Generally, I use four
planes to take a board from rough
sawn to finished: a wooden scrub, a
22in-long jointer, a jack plane with
an adjustable mouth, and a wooden
smoother. I also have an old
wooden fore plane. I use a lot of
recycled wood, and the fore plane
is good for giving the boards a
quick clean up to remove any grit
or silica that might be embedded
in the surface before it has the
chance to destroy the sole of my
jointer or smoother. This is a lesson
I've learned the hard way. In my
opinion, the first three of these
planes are essential for stock
preparation, though there is a
certain amount of
interchangeability: depending on
the size of the workpiece and the
amount of effort that you're
prepared to expend, you could do
the whole job with the jack plane.
You'll also need a straight edge
and a pair of winding sticks. I tend
to cheat here, and use the body of
my jointer plane as a straight edge
or in combination with my jack
plane to form a pair of winding
sticks. This will only work if the
sides of your planes are straight
and at right-angles to their soles. If
yours aren't, then a pair of winding
sticks is easy and cheap to make
(Note to self: I really must do it one
day!) Alternatively, you can buy
machined winding sticks from Lee
Valley, but where's the fun in that?
The final ingredient is a sturdy
bench. It's important that the
bench surface is flat, of course, as
you'll be using it to prepare a
reference surface.
1: Back to basics:
the whole
process of stock
preparation can be
carried out using
hand tools.
2: Grit or silica embedded in the timber
will damage the sole of a plane
The aim of the exercise...
…is to end up with a piece of timber
that's flat and straight on six sides,
in length, width and diagonally,
whose faces are co-planar or
perpendicular to each other, and
which is of the required dimensions.
As you can imagine, it's a process
that needs to be tackled in a
methodical fashion if you're not to
introduce problems that will come
back to haunt you later.
To begin, then, you need to
prevent the workpiece from
rocking or flexing, so decide which
side of the board will be the
reference face, and place it face
down on the bench against a
planing stop. If the board is
cupped, it's easiest to have the
convex side face up to prevent it
from rocking as you work on it; it
also means removing less wood.
You now need to remove the high
spots from the board so that it no
longer rocks when placed face
down. This means looking at the
board, looking for light between it
and your straight edge, planing
away the high spots, and regularly
testing the board for stability.
If the board rocks when you turn
it over, try placing your fingers at
diagonally opposite corners and
moving them towards one another
while rocking the board. When the
board stops tipping, the high spot
will be between your fingers.
Another method is to rub the face
of the board on the bench top
which will burnish the high spots
and make them easier to see. There
is no shortcut to this
unfortunately; the board must be
made to lie still before moving on,
or we won't be able to make the
opposite side flat when we prepare
it as the face side, and it'll be no
use as a reference face.
When you're ready to start
preparing what will become the
face side, fix the board to the
bench top firmly enough to stop it
moving, but not so firmly that it's
deformed by clamping. There are
several ways to achieve this. I use a
planing stop and rely on the
downward force of the plane to
hold the board in place. Again, the
aim is to remove any bumps that
may be present, and the quickest
and easiest way to do this is with
the jack plane, usually skewed
across the grain to bring any high
spots down to a uniform level.
Alternatively, you could use a
scrub plane, though there's a
danger of removing too much wood
through over-enthusiastic
scrubbing. It's very easy to be
caught up in a scrubbing frenzy as
the chips fly past your face…
Once the worst of the bumps
have been removed, put the scrub
or jack plane aside and reach for
the jointer. The longer sole of this
plane won't follow the contours of
the board in the way that the jack
plane does, and so is more effective
at knocking off the high points.
One of the pleasures of this
process is listening to the plane
and hearing the change in sound
as the jointer starts to take longer
shavings as the board gets flatter.
When you're able to take fulllength
shavings with the jointer,
check that the board is flat. You
should be continually checking for
light under a straight edge when
held against the surface, both
across the board at various points
and along its length. This is why I
use my plane as a straight edge,
because moving from planing to
laying the plane on edge is easy to
do; there's no need to put the plane
down and hunt around under the
shavings for another tool.
3: With a planing stop, you can rely on the downward force of
the plane to hold the board in place
4: Check for twist with your winding sticks. If all's well, the top
edges of each stick will be parallel…
5: …unfortunately,
it's more likely
that the sticks will
indicate some
amount of twist
It's not as slow as
you imagine, nor
as difficult with a
bit of practice
Checking for wind
You also need to check for wind, or
twist, with your winding sticks by
laying them across the face parallel
to each other and perpendicular to
the board. If all's well, the top
edges of each stick will be parallel
to one another as you sight along
the board. Unfortunately, it's more
likely that the sticks will indicate
some amount of twist, which is
removed by planing diagonally
across the board from high corner
to high corner, checking all the
while that you don't remove too
much wood. Once all this is done,
the face will be flat in all axes. At
this point, you might like to take a
few final passes over the surface
with a fine-set smoother, though if
the board is an internal element in
a construction, this smoothing
might be a step too far. Either way,
you should now mark the surface
with a face mark to indicate that
it's a reference face.
6: Successful edging: I hold the front of the plane body with my left hand, curling my fingers under the sole of the plane to act as a fence.
7: You've heard it
before, but mark
prepared surfaces
to indicate that
they're reference
faces and edges
Edging the board
The next step is to prepare one
edge of the board so that it is flat
and straight and at right-angles to
the face side you've just prepared.
This will become our face edge,
another reference surface.
Again, start by fixing the board to
the bench. There are as many ways
of doing this as there are people
doing it, but I clamp the board in my
shoulder vice so that it is held firmly
to the front side of the bench. If it's
a particularly long board I will place
another batten under the
unclamped end to help support it.
The jointer plane is the tool for
preparing the edge, as its length
allows it to ride over any valleys in
the board's length. Some more
experienced practitioners advocate
preparing the edge of a board with
a curved iron. I might try it one day,
but for now I get perfectly good
results with a straight iron.
My approach is to check the
wood with a straight edge and
identify what the high spots are;
it's sometimes helpful to mark
them with a pencil. After taking a
couple of light passes over the edge
with the aim of removing the
pencil marks, I check the edge for
squareness with a small engineer's
square referencing off the face
edge. I do this at several points
along the length of the edge and
again mark any areas that need
attention with a pencil, though
usually they're glaringly obvious. I
continue to take light shavings
from the edge until the pencil
marks are gone and I can take a
full-width, full-length shaving,
constantly checking for squareness
and addressing any deviations as I
go.
The secret of successful
edging, I think, is partially
in the grip and partially in
keeping the plane body
horizontal. You can tell
whether it's horizontal by the
tote, which should be upright not
tilted. As for the grip, I hold the
front of the plane body itself with
my left hand, with the thumb on top
of the plane and central to the body,
usually just in front of the knob. I
curl my fingers under the sole of the
plane and keep them pressed to the
face of the wood so that I'm pinching
the plane sole and using them as a
fence to keep the plane straight.
Make sure your board is high
enough in the vice to avoid driving
your knuckles into it. That hurts.
The best way to check for
squareness of the edge to the face
side, meanwhile, is to press the
stock of a square tightly against
the edge you're working on and
look for light between the blade of
the square and the face side at
points along its length. There
should be none, and when this is
the case you can mark the edge as
your reference edge. Now that you
have two well-prepared reference
sides, you can use them to
accurately measure and mark off
the other four sides.
SHAVINGS & OFF-CUTS
Face side
Whatever the name implies, the face side that
becomes the reference face may not be a show
surface in the finished piece. Because it's a
reference face, it makes sense to locate it where it
will interact with other reference faces in a
construction, on the inside.
Winding sticks
If poor eyesight makes it difficult to focus on both
sticks at once, try making a small hole in a piece of
paper and looking through it; the hole acts as an
artificial iris and increases your depth of vision.
You now want to take the board
to its desired final width and true
up the second edge. With the fence
of a panel gauge running against
the reference edge you've just
prepared, mark off the required
width of the board. Because of the
care you've taken preparing the
reference edge, this line will be
both straight and parallel to the
other edge. If there is a large
amount of waste, saw it off,
otherwise it's easy to plane away a
small amount with a scrub plane.
This kind of wasting is the kind of
use for which the scrub plane was
originally intended.
You can square and true this
edge using the same methods you
used on the first edge, continuing
to take light shavings from the
edge until you've just shaved away
the gauged line.
When it comes to the ends of the
board, you'll need a square, a shute
board, and a plane. Now, there are
different types of plane that can be
used for this job; I tend to use my
low-angle jack set for a very fine
cut, and with its adjustable mouth
closed right down. Another plane
that could be used is the iron mitre
plane which is designed specifically
for this purpose. Whichever plane
you choose, the iron must be
fiendishly sharp; we're aiming to
create shavings here, not scrapings
and dust.
8: Use a scrub plane diagonally across the board to take down almost to the required thickness…
9: …leaving this distinctive scalloped surface
10: Flat. Square. And not a power tool in sight
11: A shute, or shooting board, and a fiendishly sharp plane iron…
12: … are essential for preparing the ends of a board
Secret of the shute
There is little secret to using a
shute board. If the reference edge
has been properly prepared and
the board itself is true, the ends
you'll produce will be flat, square
and at right-angles to the edges. It
can be no other way. So, dress one
end, then turn the board around
and mark the precise length
required with a square and sharp
knife. Saw away the waste and trim
to the line on the board, taking fine
shavings until the scribed line
evaporates in the last pass of the
plane. It might also be useful to
lightly chamfer the corner of the
board that you're planing into so as
to avoid break-out in the long grain
of the edge against the stop. The
alternative is to put a piece of scrap
wood in the shute and let that
break out instead, though there is
a risk that the scrap wood may
compromise the accuracy for
which you're striving.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Use tools wisely...
Use the right tool for the job in
cases where it makes a real
difference to the work. For
example, when planing, I work
through a series of stages
starting with rougher work, for
which I rely on the jack or scrub
planes, followed by the long
jointer. The smoothing plane is
reserved for giving the surface
the final polish. This approach
makes the work faster and
easier, both in terms of
achieving the required result
and the amount of effort that
you'll expend.
…and develop a feel
for them
You have to learn how these
tools feel when they're working
for you. This is a case of
building up muscle memory
through practice. I think that
the modern requirement for
instant gratification, for having
everything now, is partly to
blame for the prevalence of
machinery in small workshops,
as the machinery produces
usable results without the
requirement for us to commit
time investment in practicing
hand skills.
Don't make work for
yourself
This might seem an odd thing
to say given that I am talking
about preparing wood by hand,
but don't do unnecessary work.
Don't leave boards hugely
over-length thinking that you
can come back and cut them to
length later. The dimensioning
is part of the preparation.
Don't make waste
Don't waste time using the
scrub plane to reduce a board's
thickness by half. Break out a
frame saw or rip saw instead,
and resaw the board into two
pieces. Where once there were
six sides now you have 12. Just
think of all the hand tool
practice you can get while
making that flat and square!
Your board now has five finished
faces and is the correct width and
length. All that remains is to bring
the board to the final thickness
and dress the remaining surface,
which will most likely become the
show surface.
The required thickness of the
board is marked by pressing the
fence of a cutting gauge against the
face side and scribing a line around
all four edges. With the board
secured to the bench, waste away
wood until you've reduced the
thickness of the board almost to
the gauge mark. I prefer to use a
scrub plane for this as it's by far
the fastest method and because
the scrub plane satisfies my inner
hooligan. I plane diagonally across
the board in one direction and then
back the other way. This method
means that I am able to take a
heavy cut without causing tear-out;
the scalloped surface that the
scrub plane leaves is a kind of
controlled tear-out in itself. If the
board is tearing out, increasing the
angle of attack can help; some
boards may need to be approached
at up to 90° to the surface grain.
Just before reaching the
thickness mark, I swap to the
jointer plane and take the board
down as far as the marks around
the edges, checking periodically
with the edge of the plane that I'm
keeping the surface flat, and
stopping just as I reach the marks
on the edge. If you do this evenly
all around the board, you can be
confident that the two sides will be
parallel to each other, and that the
face itself is flat.
Now move on to the final step of
the process, which is to take very
fine overlapping passes across the
board with a smoothing plane.
With care, it's possible to achieve a
standard of finish with the
smoothing plane that can't be
bettered by sandpaper.
Arthur Whitnear
