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.
I figured that a shoulder plane and shooting board would be two disparate tools, but for my own knowledge, I haven’t figured out why exactly a shoulder plane with a shooting board doesn’t work. Is it because a shoulder plane tends to be short?
The captain is referring to the fact that if your guide, or shooting board is riding under the sole of the plane, the plane will damage the shooting board because the blade goes from edge to edge, unlike a typical plane which has small pieces of the sole on both sides of the blade that prevent it from cutting too deeply into the shooting board. With a rabbet plane you run any guide on the side to prevent the guide’s destruction. The Captain is correct that a traditional shooting board does not work as well with a traditional shooting board setup, however even this can be ameliorate by simply skewing your plane at a 25° angle to your forward motion, and the sole will then be partially out of line with the blade, and act as the small pieces of sole on either side of the blade to limit the depth of cut.
Oh, I see. So a shoulder plane’s blade actually has exposure on three sides, and can cut the bottom and the sides simultaneously?
No, a shoulder plane has a single cutting edge. If a normal bench plane is a chisel wearing a pair of steel toed boots, a shoulder plane is a chisel wearing strappy wedge heeled sandals.
A normal bench plane has a sole with a hole most of the way across it for the iron(blade) to emerge through. So there’s a little bit of sole on either side of the blade. When using a shooting board, the iron will actually cut the shooting board at first until that little edge of the sole makes contact, and that prevents it from cutting any farther.
A shoulder plane has a block behind the iron and a block in front, attached above/through the iron, and the iron extends the entire width of the sole That lets it cut right into the corners of rabbets or tenons, but it also means that, if you tried to use it with a shooting board, it would just keep cutting the shooting board eventually ruining it.
This made me laugh, but was also effective at explaining the difference, as did some more image results that specifically show the iron of each plane.
Somewhat, but primarily it cuts on the bottom. The most special thing about a rabbet plane is that the blade cuts just as wide as the body, whereas a normal plane will be at least 1/8" from whatever the side might be riding on. The blade is a slight bit wider than the body, and depending on how you set the blade, can protrude enough to slightly scrape the side. My Lie-Nielson rabbet block plane actually has little spurs on both sides that you can put down to make a clean cut, say on the shoulder of a tenon, or the bottom of a routed v-groove that is full of fuzz. The ability to cut precisely into corners is what gives the rabbet plane it’s versatility, and that whacky shape of the #92 is what makes it my favorite. It seems that no matter the position, there is some comfortable way to grip that body. It really has an amazing feel to the hand. It is very evident when you pick it up that it was meant for the human hand to create with. I’ve been building doors, entry systems, free floating curved staircases, and anything and everything else that can be made of wood for most of my life at this point, so that’s the base for my advice. I don’t sell tools, I use em, and I love to be able to share some of the things I’ve learned in the thousands of hours I’ve spent working wood. It is a dying art; there aren’t a lot of people who know anything of mortise and tenon, or cope and stick, and knowledge of how to build and accommodate to wood movement is practically nonexistent. This knowledge that has served humanity for millenia is down to a handful of folks, most aging out, dying, and that valuable skill die with em. There’s nothing else that compares to working wood, and to me at least, there’s not much better than making a piece that you know will last several lifetimes, if not indefinitely when cared for.