One of the things that we do when we go to the lumberyard and we're picking our wood we try to pick boards that are flat straight and that's not going to really be very possible mostly especially if you're buying rough boards like this where it's been bandsawn or circular sawn and usually but we want to buy the extra width this is this board is one and 1/8 thick so I've got to plane this down if I want to board one inch, I might even have to buy thicker stock because when I eyeball along this length here this has a very visible bow along the length and when I sight it this way I can't quite tell whether it's twisted but it's got some cup in it which means it's going to be hollow let me show you with this board what I mean a cup would be like this now that has to be eliminated because if 1/16 on this side a cup then it has a hollow on the other side that's 1/16 so that means I'm going to reduce the thickness of that board by 1/8 now along the length this would be a bow or a crook along the length so this would be flexed or bent that way and this is a characteristic that occurs in different woods for different reasons on the other hand I could have a twist which is like this, now the twist is very very important that we've got to eliminate this twist so those are the three key areas there may be others knots and undulation in grain and things like that but generally those have to come out this one has all of those characteristics it's got a bow along its length oh and it's got a cup in the middle let me see if I can highlight some of this for you there's my cup let me give a little extra light in there so you can see what we're talking about right inside there and now if I flip this board over this is all part of the drying process it's not a floor with the kiln it's not a flaw with the saw that milled it so here you can see both sides I've got the the belly of this board upwards so that has to go now using a long plane will help with some of this if it's not straight but I go to a small plane first and then there used to be a plane that you could buy and you can still actually buy them today they've started manufacturing them again but if you're not into spending too much money you can take a basic number four plane, this is my smoothing plane and on this edge I don't know if we can show you there the blade goes pretty much straight across all the way I have another number four plane and the reason I bought these planes is because I can have each plane dedicated to tasks so when I put this one here I think you can see that I've got a convex edge going along the edge of the plane I've also set the frog fairly far back so I have a wide opening for the shavings to go through and I've also set the cap iron away from the edge and I can show you about two so it's quite a distance away from this edge here so you can see a little bit an eighth of an inch could be more that way when I come to planing this surface I've got a slight hollow and this is perfect for removing a lot of stock very quickly so I'll show you how we do that first of all I'm going to try and take some of the rise out of this board so I've got it dogged in my vise here like this nice and solid you can go along the bench top there may be different ways that you could attack this and so what I do is make sure it's nice and solid seated on the bed I'm going to take this plane here now one thing I didn't show you on here let me show you before we go this is kind of hard to show but we'll show you as we go down there I've got that centered on the board and that's showing quite a remarkable amount of twists in there this is very typical when your wood is drying so this can happen to anybody it depends on what part of the tree it comes from very often so we're going to plane not with the grain here we're going to go across this gray this way so and I'll lift this up in a minute so you can see what we're doing so I'm going to take a little bit more off and what this will create is a series of small ridges going across the grain but instead of going with the grain which might be hard on me I'm going across the grain because this plane will cut very nicely across here so I'm taking off the hump that's in the middle all the way along this board from one end to the other just to get the board flat across so I'm taking out the rise here so I look in here still have a very big hump in the middle and I work back along the board like this slight tangent to the grain now this has more hump where you are then here this is quite a bit less hump here I keep going across like this and I'm planing in to end grain here I'll show you what the result is you see if I can show you what this does here I've got undulation in there but that's going to come out in a heartbeat with a smoothing plane or a jack plane, here is planing fine when I get to this edge I'm going into this end grain so at some point I'll turn this around to get that down I could do it now to that level what tells me here if I'm planing this way when I was planing across this way coming this direction I was planing with the grain if I go this way now can you see this is tearing this end grain that means the grain is rising up with a belly from either end so this one really has to be planed in this direction so you can plane this way going across the grain 30 degrees all the way across and then when you get to the rise here this is like a topographical map if I look at this, this rises up to the peak not sure if you can understand what I want to show you but this is the peak of the hill and this is coming, these are the height rings that you get on the topo map so like this so this means I'm planing into the end grain here I'm planning into the end grain here makes it quite difficult but that's the main advantage to planing across the grain to start with just to get it down and we can tackle that opposing grain when we get to those lower levels but the first time all we're doing right now is getting this flat across here now I don't let the plane follow this curve like this I'm taking off the hump in the middle I'm getting pretty close the longer the stroke now the flats of this wood is getting but I might try my winding sticks fairly soon in case I need to start adjusting here and here before I actually get any lower you see this point here is very high which means this one is very high so what I would do instead of taking anymore off here I would work this area here start getting this down first like this now I'm focusing on this side here if I take my plane now I think you can see maybe you can I still have some heights to take off the belly but not as much can you see in there yes, get my breath back this is quite an upper body exercise here so my strokes are now getting much longer as you can see this makes a very fine scrub plane you can get them, 'course, let's put these on see if we're doing any corrective work here oh yeah we still have more which is great because this is where visibly I need to take it off anyway as soon as I've got some of the twists out I'll start focusing on long grain planing I'm almost across the full width of the board here apart from the undulations from the crown on the way I'm pretty close oh one more visual check you can actually feel a lot through the plane little bit more I'm going to check along my length as well here to see what's happening in the belly got a hollow quite a hollow in this midsection so that means I still have to take a lot off this end here so you have to feel after where you feel the best position for your planing is going to be I'm still planing into the end grain but I don't need to worry yet, this is working great in a little while I'll be going to a longer plane just check yourself as you go, hm, wrong plane flat, that's definitely flat enough for me, my main focus now will be the twist actually I would say this is twice the width of this I remember that what I can see is actually twice as much twist as there really is so I might focus more on here now I've got down here and also on the length of the board it still got quite a cup in there now I'm going to take advantage I'm planing into the end grain here across the grain like this and actually planing into the end grain that this level is not a negative thing it's not a negative thing because it's pulling my plane down into the surface so I'm taking advantage of that just to get myself down on this very, very high spot so soon I'm going to turn this around to plane out the rough area, sat down here sat down here we're getting there so I'm going to try my winding sticks from one end to the other this time remember that little dot goes in the middle that centers your winding sticks on the board if you're overhanging here you can see this tilts to one side or here it could tilt half that distance not too bad high here and here a little bit more work here, oops, I've got plenty of width on here actually this is way out of square, I'd have to take about 3/16 off this top edge here, you can turn around work with the grain like this I'm nearly ready for my longer plane now I don't have one ounce of twist in this board the only thing I want to do actually even along its length it's not bad at all but it's really quite good just check your plane make sure it's not set too deeply this is the longer plane so this is going to, you can hear this riding over the high spots listen so it's hitting a very high spot here that's hitting the end grain again so I really did pick as bad board to demonstrate this on in the sense that it's harder but we're going to get this down and you can still even with this long plane set to a normal setting you don't have to plane with the grain like this in fact I would suggest you do exactly the same as you did with the short plane but take longer strokes this way much sweeter like this, and that way we're getting the middle of the board see if I can put my light on for you just so you can see how much difference we've made to this board here can you see in there good I think that's important for you to understand what we're aiming for so this is definitely going into the end grain can I show you how I'm reading this grain I think I can if I start down here this annual ring this growth ring typical of oak has the fast spring early summer growth here the later growth here this is underneath this is underneath this is underneath this all the way through to this pinnacle here in the middle so this is underneath now this one is over the top of this over the top of this over the top of this so these are sometimes we call these cathedrals because they seem like they're the inside of a cathedral they could also be called a nave like they do on a boat because if you imagine this is like an elongated boat so sometimes it's called the nave in the wood so we're looking for that that's reading the grain so I've got this end fairly smooth now I'm turning around so I can go along grain with my plane again here now I'm going across the grain that's a tangent like this and I'm going from this high point on the board here I'm going right from this high spot let me see if I can so I'm going from here because all of this is rising up here and this is rising up here so I'm going across those end grain fibers see so much fun really so across here you can hear the difference it's not tearing now so I work towards this end and that rough grain that I had from planing into the end grain is disappearing with each stroke this is wonderful exercise okay now I start to elongate my strokes from this center point here reading the grain I work along the grain then it's going to hit those high spots so I've taken quite a bit less off now don't forget this fellow here wonderful piece of equipment, this totally transforms the plane a little bit more now so I'm taking any ridges left from planing till I get that swoosh sound as a continuous shaving this is feeling like silk already now, one splinter, a little bit more set so you might go adjusting this plane the whole time till you get this wonderful sound the swoosh swoosh now this is hard work it's not easy work but it's very rewarding so I am silky smooth I've got no tear out I have to check for twist I have no twist there, perfect right along its length and I'm going to sight along here I've got a very slight bow but very very slight so little that I don't need to take anymore out so now I have to run a gauge to get this other side up but I'm going to do my two edges first before I get to the other side I've got my board trued dead flat I have to make that face mark on here I don't know whether a face mark as I think I said it before but just to show you is the letter the cursive letter F meaning facie but we take off this bottom part so when we make the mark on here we're prove we prove that this face is flat we're approving here we're making the mark on here now we've got it so now we work on the adjacent face as you can see these two edges one is square cut the other one is with bandsaw cut at a very bad angle for some reason so I'm choosing this edge now this edge is not straight at all it's got a belly in here and then it's hollow here I have to get that out so I'm going to put that in the vise but this is much easier than this edge so I'm going to get this in the vise plane this edge I'm going to rip it down to five and a half inches for one of my projects so I start here I look along this edge I already sighted it I know there's a big belly in here I could choose one plane or the other this is entirely up to me I could use a smoother and focus on the hump like this now this just feels so nice so I can focus on this hump and I can move with longer strokes from the center hill either side these shavings just pop right out like this and I can take the bulk of this off take it from the vise eyeball it and I am I've got rid of the hump here now I have a hollow here and this is why we usually rely on a longer plane I like the weight of this lightweight plane this is a bit like a thoroughbred horse instead of a draft horse it's lightweight so it lends itself to me so I take off this high spot and it's still spanning because I've trued the sole of this plane still spanning this hollow and everybody will tell you that a short plane just follows the undulation but that's not really true it will if you don't know how to handle your plane so I've taken a full length shaving and I don't know if you can see along there this is actually pretty straight and you know casting your eye along a board is really quite an accurate way of doing this next I have to check it for square so I do this just well look at that I'm dead square so this is how you train your body to work the wood so I'm already where I need to be now then here's what I'm going to do I'm going to introduce one more plane here this long one that I was using before for this purpose this is what this plane really benefits from is from its longer solr so I set this with a fairly shallow setting the important thing when you're doing this is the plane has to be sharp it's worth sharpening the plane up just for this so you can see or you can hear I'm getting a high spot here nothing here and very little there, listen and I'm getting a full-width shaving where I started my plane but on this outer edge where I'm exiting the cut it's going narrow which means the board is slightly twisted on the edge so I stay on this edge here can you see where my hand is my hand is tracing either side of the board I don't have to use the handle I'm relying on the sole if I do this and this I can actually bend the sole of this plane and any other plane so I'm just letting my plane just float across this top edge the fingers of my right hand are tracing the edge of the board now this is oak this isn't, so I go all the way to the end nice full with shavings now nothing special about this plane this is an ordinary plane I'm going to check myself for square, I'm dead square I'm going to check myself along the length and I'm dead straight so I'm going to take one more one or two more shavings see what I do now I don't know if you can see this but I'm getting full width full length shavings with my plane but it's still fairly thick so what I do now is I back my iron off a little bit these are full length shavings all the way from one end to the other so I back my iron off now just a hair so I'm taking less off this helps me to finalize my stroke from this one thing I do now is I take this just the oil that will reduce all the friction that it's going to make this so nice to take this last shaving or two, my thumb is pressing down on the fore part of the plane that's my last shaving, I know that I'm dead straight I know that I'm square and it's a pristine perfect corner I was book matching this or if I was edge jointing this to another edge when I look down here I can actually see the camera in the surface of this wood that's how smooth and slick this is, now I have to cut this to width and for this I might set a gauge if my gauge is long enough to go to the five and a half inches this one is so I'm going to set my gauge to five and a half which is there and I'm going to run a parallel line along my board here as a cut line all the way down like this to the far end I'm going to flip my board over because this edge is now square and I'm going to run a gauge line along this edge here so now I've got the registration line remember what we do here now we did the face mark on here now we have to do the edge mark because that's the edge from here on where the square and the marking gauge will work from in everything we do so I've got these two registration phases now I'm going to rip this down by hand using a rip saw like this one here that's a crosscut this is a fairly small tooth saw, I'm going to saw, I'm going to stay away from the line by 1/16 of an inch I just flip the end for end so now I just have to plane down to my gauge lines again this one's going to be a little bit easier than the last one again I'm going to go for my smoothing plane just to take off any high spots left from the hand saw you know when you hand sowing these surfaces it's not quite like a bandsaw it's not quite like a table saw not exactly but they're really not far off and the room isn't contaminated with too much dust I got my gauge lines gone to my longer jack again got my gauge lines still where so here not very much taking off that again, remember this is oak but look at it look at this it just glides like a swan on a lake, it's not bulldogging this plane down don't get into that it's not bulldogging it to the surface you can use the side of your hand like this thumb on the fore part you can use the handle this way the tilt work back from one end to the other and then when you get those you hear that listen there's some vibration there people are calling that chatter but it's not chatter it's scudding it's very different all you need is a little bit of oil on the sole of your plane and this will eliminate 99.9% of chatter is caused by friction on the sole of the plane so here listen oh so nice I feel so good got my exercise, feel pretty good and that was a continuous shaving from one end to the other and I'm happy I've got that done now I've got to do this other surface this is where we have this cut in the board now as a result of drying so on the other side we took out the belly which was cuped this way now we have to take this out from this side so just cinch it up in the vise I'll show you what we're looking at from this side we put the plane on here and I think that you should be able to see inside there this bright light coming through the middle so I have to take off this side and this side and I think this goes usually much faster than the other side because you take enough two small areas instead of one large central area so I go back to my pseudo scrub plane and I go on the high spots which of these outside edges one thing I haven't done now I've got to do this first is I've got to run a gauge line to my thickness so my finished thickness I wanted one inch I've got to see if I can get one inch if I can I think the way I can tell is because this was cupped in the middle here I usually go on this end here and I can see I think you may be able to see as well but that gauge line is almost right on the edge which means I probably will be able to get a good one inch board from this so I'm going to run a gauge line down here this is really a guide so I can see how much I have to take off here and here less on this side more on that one I go along this length here quite a big belly in the middle here if you remember from the other side it was hollow so we've got 1/8 here a sixteenth of an inch there but this will make the whole board parallel, that's my gauge line I go on to this end now because this is no longer twisted here I didn't cut this to length on the chop saw so you still got chainsaw marks in here onto this face so this looks like oh I've got to take a lot off here I've got a full 1/8 of an inch on this side but it's a 1 it's one eighth of an inch diminishing to almost nothing in the middle so I'm not feared as they say in Texas all right cause I'm not afeared so I take off these bulky areas with this plane and you can see here I think is going like this so I literally just keep going until that stopped and I almost can see a continuous shaving occurring across the middle here it'll take a little bit more off, so this goes fairly fast now I can't really go this way all the way 'cause is gonna break this edge so here and here just to get me down towards that midsection now once I'm flat which I must be fairly flat here look which I am, towards the middle and I keep going pushing myself exercising my body like this, this also keeps your blood sugar low so flip end for end you see already this is feeling pretty good now then, a little bit deeper setting but first it feels like you're taking nothing off but is those high spots get reduced and leveled you'll feel it more and more like you're getting a workout now here I'm going in the end grain as we saw before so I can turn around and pull this way look for your lines I don't have to check for twists now because I'm just planing down to my gauge line like this I'm going against the grain there and I could turn around but as I said before going into the end grain when you're roughing down to size sometimes is to your advantage so I'm here again into that end grain using it to my advantage then turning round and leveling, it does look as though I'm only just going to get a full thickness board actually I'm gonna get it is 'cause that's slightly bellied so I keep working on this midsection here like this, and that's just surfaced, that board if you ever want an undulated surface to look like an old tabletop this plane does it so I'm going to go with this one now smoother like rain, come with the grain here but every time I get to this spot we're starting to go into the end grain so I have to work from that end now down the length towards a camera nice and smooth a little bit of oil if you're worried about contamination for spraying lacquers and so on don't because by the time you've planed this all the oil will be gone and you still have to scrape and sand this surface probably so all the stages before you get to that level and fisheye is a rarity not the norm so don't worry about fisheye on the surface by using the oil oh and I am done that's my board perfectly true, smooth and ready for an apron in a table, a tabletop whatever I want to make you
