ive shaped a few boards and i suck at using the planer. no matter how slow and careful i try, my cuts are un-even, different depths and just plane ugly. i have a good planer. the problem is me. i need help!! any and all advice helps. thank you very much
Master Shaper, Jim Phillips, has an instructional video out there. If you pick up on half of it, it will change your shaping life.
Where is your front hand? Are you feeling the surface of the
board when you cut? Are you using the front shoe as a guide
or the back shoe? do you feel the diff? Watch some of the vids
on youtube and try some of the techniques you will see there.
Everyone has a little bit different touch and method. I have been
shaping and watching other shapers for the past 30+ years had have
never seen the same technique twice start to finish. On a commercial
note, get the master shaper dvd and watch Jim shape. Do slo-mo and
replay it over and over until you understand what he is doing.
Use his technique as your guide!!!! You can't go wrong there....
Anyway, get some reject blanks or strip some thrashed boards down
to the foam and practice, practice, practice! We learned by shaping
old lb's down to 6' singles with flat bottoms! We glassed fins on broken
boards to get the filets right and then ground them off to do it again, and
again.... hope this helps!!!
Go down to the local shaper buy him lunch and give him a couple of hundred dollars just to watch him work. Then comeback the next day and do the same thing. Repeat until he gives you a job, like sweeping up.
1 - Get Jim's video, as previously noted. Be careful about the youtubes, some of them are so bad it's hilarious/painful to watch.
2 - Get a reject blank and plane on it 'til there's nothing left. Note how different angles and fore/aft (shoe/baseplate) pressure affect the cut. Learn to use the previous cut as ''guide'' for next when taking full passes.
3- Practice and be patient. Read everything you can on here from credible sources.
http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1018545
i suck with the planer too... this thread helped me to suck less than i previously did
Take small bites.
Practice! Check a few videos and pictures to determine the correct angle to hold the planer as you make your pass. The correct angle will help your planer feel the correct depth of cut as you make your pass. The base of the planer will be riding on the previous cut. Get use to opening and closing your planer as you proceed down the blank during your pass. Something similar to; close ---open----------close. I think guys pick up a bad habit when they make full passes in one direction only. If you get used to turning around at the end of the pass and making your next pass back the opposite direction you'll have a more effecient planing technique and you will be able to "eyeball" the blank from each end as you plane. There's a little "left brain" "right brain" stuff that goes on when you start back the other direction, but if you work on it you will over come that. Keep the planer the same angle in the opposite direction What I have described here is over simplified. It's really hard to explain in print, but very easy to see if you can watch someone else do it.
Hey groggylbc -
It took me awhile to finally figure out to start my cuts along the outer edge of the template and work my way towards the stringer step by step... literally. Hold the planer flat but swing the rear around so the bed is at an angle to the stringer. Make your first cut end to end with the front shoe against the blank and inboard about 2-3" from the edge. If you did it right there should be a fresh clean step about the width of your planer blade. On your next pass place the front shoe on the top of the step and repeat the end to end cut. By progressing in a series of steps with each cut having the front shoe repositioned on the edge of the step you end up cutting stepped rows until you have a consistent depth all the way across.
DON'T do what I did when I started out... just try to run the planer down the center of the blank? It doesn't work nearly as well as following the series of steps that you cut starting from the outer edge of the template.
Once you get your shape roughed out, then play with your zero depth setting to slowly clean it up.
Most of the pros avoid the very ends of the blank. Just use your surform and sanding blocks for that.
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On your next pass place the front shoe on the top of the step and repeat the end to end cut.
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When you do this, do you weight the planer on the front or the rear? I have been struggling with this method. I tried weighting the back on the clean cut surface, and made a big mess. The cuts just kept getting deeper and deeper until they were too deep. I thought that you needed to rest the back of the planer on the clean cut surface in order to get a consistent cut. I'm just not getting some important point here. Please ellaborate, so that I can get my mind around it.
Hi Swied -
I'm no expert but that one aspect of it made a big difference for me. The front shoe overlaps on to the step and the blade cuts into the edge of the step... Each pass will result in a cut a bit less than the width of your planer blade. The remaining step is still the same height but it has shifted in a couple of inches as the result of the cut. Each cut should be approx the same depth until the blank is skinned and reduced to the desired thickness.
Rail bands are a different story (See Bill Barnfield's thread) but it sounds like OP was hung up on step 1. I was sort of wondering if he did what I did initially... just try to mow down the center and find out everything was going tilt on me.
The old instruction book that came with the Skil 100 spells it out if you can find one of those.
You'll get it, with some practice. The weight (I prefer the term pressure, and it's not a lot of pressure) is on the baseplate for the subsequent cuts. JM described the first perimeter cut perfectly. It's a subtle dance of fore/aft pressure for different types of cuts. Keep in mind that it's possible to run the planer wide open down a finished blank and cut zero if all the pressure is on the baseplate.
I've got to go back to work for an evening session that will involve some of these techniques, I'll catch up later...
Alot of guys "poo-poo" cutting down the center first. But What I have done for many many years when I skin a blank is make a pass down the center on both the deck and bottom to level the stringer down flush with foam. Then I pull out the calipers and check my thickness to see what I have to work with and how close I am to my desired thickness at the center(ie. stringer). From there I begin to take my first cuts around the outside perimenter of the blank. Working my way toward the center of the blank from one side or the other toward the center cut.. If your cuts are clean you will eliminate the skin of the blank and get down to a close proximity of your desired thickness. Out of habit after shaping Clarks for many years I still tend to take most of the foam I want to get rid of off the bottom. Unlike alot of shapers I don't even cut my template until I have the bottom roughed and leveled. I find that I get a truer template and keep it accurate If I save cutting the template until this stage. John Mel reccomended I do this because I had difficulty keeping my templates true if the first thing I did was cut the outline template. I make full passes from tail to nose and back again. Resting the base of the planer on the previous pass or cut. The nose or shoe of the planer is at a slight angle to the blank and is resting on uncut foam that will be cut on the subsequent pass. If you have ever used a joiner you know how it works. Picture in you mind the same process. The stock rests on the desired depth, but the blades are higher as they have to take off the necessary stock to bring it down to where you want it. The adjustable or floating front shoe of an electric hand planer rests on the stock that you wish to reduce. The base rests on the stock you have just reduced. By adjusting the free floating front shoe(head) of your planer as you travel down the blank you will bring each new pass down to the depth of the previous pass. Like I said alot of guys do it differant by cuting their outline first before they even skin the blank. But I know quite a few guys who do it the same way I do. I'm a big guy and I tend to get down on those rails wnen I am cutting my bands and blending them. Waiting on the template is something I do to compensate for my tendencies with "Dragon Skin".