A block plane
10/01/15 05:37
As the oldest boy in my family of origin, there were certain rites and rituals for which I was the pioneer. These were observed with the younger boys, but perhaps with less intensity and intentionality. One of these rituals was my first pocketknife. It was gift on my 6th birthday. It was presented with a lecture on responsibility, care of tools, and a set of warnings about what would happen if I didn’t follow the rules. That was followed by a session of cutting, peeling and sharpening willow sticks that were used to roast hot dogs over the fire. A couple of days later I spent an hour or so with my Uncle Ted who taught me to use a stone to sharpen my knife. Uncle Ted was a master at sharpening tools and he had a feel for angles that did not come naturally to me. There is something very nice about the feel of a pocket knife in the right front pocket of a pair of jeans. I still enjoy that feeling to this day, though I only carry small knifes with me these days.
About six months after i received the pocket knife, at Christmas, I received a complete work bench with tools. My father had made the bench and it had a backboard with holes for screw drivers, a drawer with room for a hammer and mallet, a hook to hang a crosscut saw and a small vice on the corner. The tools were all real, though the hammer and saw were a bit smaller than my father’s tools. The most fascinating of the tools was a small block plane. It was wrapped in heavy paper in the drawer of the tool bench tied up with string. The body of the plane was painted with shiny black paint. It was small, so it didn’t have a front knob, just a place to put one’s thumb or finger to add pressure. My father explained the parts of the plane. The cap on this plane didn’t have a lever, like the large planes in my father’s tool box. The adjustment screw was built into the bottom of the cap. The iron rested on the body and was shiny and silver, as was the sole of the plane.
The firs thing we did was to disassemble the plane. With a piece of fine sandpaper on a large piece of hardwood, we worked the sole of the plane until it was perfect. Then we sharpened the iron on a stone, always pulling the iron and lifting the end slightly with each stroke so that the cutting edge would have a slightly curved bevel. We tested the sharpness of the iron on a sheet of paper. When it cut the paper easily we reassembled the plane. There really wasn’t much adjustment to the mouth. The depth of the iron and its angle were controlled by the screw on the cap. I learned to adjust the iron so that it protruded a very small amount through the sole, perhaps 1/16 of an inch. Then, with a piece of 1” pine in the vice, I made my first strokes with the plane. The feel was smooth and sweet. The wood came off in lovely white curls.
Caring for and adjusting my plane was beyond my skill at the time. I couldn’t resist fiddling with the adjustment screw and I kept thinking that I could get by with the iron protruding farther through the sole. The result was that the plane would gouge the wood and hang up. Sharpening the iron and truing the stone were skills that had been taught, but weren’t mastered.
These days nothing except the finest automotive sandpaper is used to true the soles of my plane and I use spray adhesive to attach it to a piece of glass and windex to float away the metal as I work the sole. My irons are sharpened on a high quality whetstone and stopped with polishing compound. But it took me years to learn the art of getting tools really sharp.
The years passed and I grew up and I went into a profession that doesn’t require the same kind of tools that a carpenter uses. After a dozen or more years of widowhood, our mother decided to move out of the big house to a smaller house near to my sister’s home. As we cleaned out the house and prepared for the move, I came across the drawer in the basement that contained my father’s and grandfather’s planes. They had a few small rust spots, but otherwise were in excellent condition. It was then that I realized that none of my brothers had been taught how a plane works or how to care for it. I guess I had come along at just the right point in our grandfather’s life and in the life of Uncle Ted and in our father’s life to have these elders to teach me lessons that somehow got skipped when the younger brothers came along.
Along with the privilege of this first-son position I assumed the privilege of becoming owner of the planes. These are not the super expensive Lie Nielsen or Veritas planes, but rather basic Stanley tools that were sold in hardware stores before the world of electric planers and power sanders.
I am not a finish woodworker. I never gained the skils of a cabinet maker. But I do build boats as a hobby. My current project is a strip-planked kayak. I start with strips of cedar that are milled to 3/8 x 3/4. The strips were also milled with bead and cove edges so they will fit together and follow basic curves. But the boat has some rather complex curves and angles, so the strips need to be planed to fit. This is no job for one of the big planes. I have a tiny finish plane with a 1/2” iron from my Uncle Ted, a basic Stanley with a 1 3/8” iron and my little plane from my childhood workbench. The planes, a bevel gauge and a pencil are all I need at this point of the construction. Well, I also need patience and wood glue.
There is something particularly pleasing about making a cut with that little plane. The wood curls pile up on the garage floor and the planks slowly take the shape that I need. Cedar, of course also gives you the gift of the most wonderful aroma.
Now I have become an elder and a grandfather. My grandson is too young for sharp tools, but I am keeping my eye out for one who might be willing to learn how to care for cutting tools in a world where that skill might be lost if we don’t pass it on.