Hi! I’ve only posted here maybe once, but I’m looking to change that and have been working to improve my joinery.
Specifically, I recently had the geometric realization that adjusting the horizontal angle on my miter saw is one of the least precise adjustments I can make, when trying to make two cuts that add up to 90 degrees. So instead, I now set the angle for the smaller angle, make the first cut, then set the workpiece for the second piece using a square against the fence. Basically, I’m rotating the piece so it’s 90 degrees to the saw fence, and that lets me cut the complementary angle without realigning the saw angle.
The new problem is that because I’m still using slightly-warped and slightly-twisty stock, the surfaces aren’t terribly great for gluing up. In one case, I glued up one end of a diagonal brace but the other end was lifting up, off-plane. Hand sanding with a block helps, but more often than not, I end up rounding off the edges and glue leaks out. So I’m now seeking recommendations for a small hand plane, so that I can have better, flatter surfaces to glue together.
Is this the right approach? If I’m mostly working with narrow stock like 1x4-inch, is there a correct-sized hand plane to smooth out an end-grain on that small of stock? Apologies in advance for not really knowing all the right wood terminology. I’m still learning.
Ideally, I’d like to buy something that will be versatile and serviceable for a long time. So cost isn’t too important, but ideally it’d be proportional to my (few) other tools. If I know what to look for, I’ll keep my eye out for such a specimen while at the thrift store.
EDIT: To clarify, a use-case would be if I’m gluing a diagonal brace at mid-height of a post. If i had a plane, I could work the post so that it has a flat face, so that the brace won’t deviate left/right. For the diagonal brace itself, I can mostly trust my miter saw to cut the angle reasonably plumb.
EDIT 2: Might I actually want a card scraper instead?
EDIT 3: y’all are awesome and I now have a fair number of suggestions to consider. I guess there goes all my disposable money for September, once I go visit the nearby woodworking shop.
This person has it right. I’d still recommend this for your use case, as typical planes cannot work on joint adjustment or endgrain very well. The #92 is not going to be the best plane for flattening or trueing stock, a larger plane would do that more easily and quickly. The #92 can do a lot of things better than others, and it has a few tricks normal planes connot do, like cutting all the way into the corner of a joint, or evening out the profiles of two joined pieces (like a joint in crown mould). The body of the plane is square to the sole, making 90° easily achievable by riding the side of the plane on an adjacent 90° surface. As a huge help on the learning curve of woodwork, the small blade, at only 3/4" wide will be much easier for a beginner to sharpen than a two inch wide blade. Sharpening a plane well is the only way to have it work well for you, less effort, less tearout, and of course, the wonderfully unique and not often seen finish produced by a sharp plane cutting the grain as opposed to sanding breaking that same wood grain. I have about a dozen handplanes, including a couple Lie-Nielson (their 1-1/4" rabbet block plane is my second favorite), but the #92 gets more use and has more functions than the rest combined. I could talk about my sweetheart for days, but what you probably want to do is scoot down to Woodcraft and get some planes in your hands. What works and feels best for me may be, or may not be for you. I can say confidently that if you get to use the #92, you won’t be disappointed.
Thank you for the detailed clarification!
In review, it sounds like a shoulder plane would prove its worth for very small, fiddly work that a general-purpose plane couldn’t reach, but it would be slower for flattening the poor stock that I often use. Would this mean a shoulder plane plus a machine planer be a reasonable combination, with the latter introduced later to enable larger-scale flattening?
This might be the feature which sways my decision, since I think it means I can devise a simple jig for any size of stock by clamping to a known flat surface (or even just a surface that’s more flat than the stock) and guide the shoulder plane that way, to prepare for joining. I didn’t mention in my original post, but I also occasionally do “coarse metalworking” where all the stock I use is already nice and straight and flat, which would make good guiding surfaces for a shoulder plane (on wood lol).
Yes. A machine planer will not remove warp, twist, or bow from wood, it just takes the wood to a very certain thickness repeating whatever shape the wood riding on the bed has. You need a machine called a jointer to quickly straighten and square stock before it is run through a machine planer. A jointer is a machine with a steeper learning curve than a planer, but it will not be as steep as learning to eyeball and flatten stock with a handplane.
Yeah, you are on the right track thinking about riding the side of the plane on a guide. This is typically called a shooting block, and is not limited to 90°. You can make a guide of any angle and those wide sides make it really easy to maintain consistency.