Planing Wood
10/03/12 04:56
I grew up in a family that respected tools. When I was a very young boy, my father made a workbench for me as a Christmas gift. With the bench, I received a vise, a handsaw, a claw hammer, two screwdrivers (1 slotted, one Phillips) an assortment of scraps of wood, screws and nails and a small Stanley trimming plane. I had some familiarity with most of the tools, but the little block plane was a fascination for me. I new that my father and my grandfather had larger block planes. I also knew that those tools were not to be used by children. I had been allowed to use a crosscut saw and a claw hammer. I had been allowed to try my hand with screwdrivers. But the planes were off limits for me until the day I received my own.
My dad set the blade for me and clamped a short piece of 2 x 4 in the vise. He had me start by peeling off the corner of the block. Each swipe brought a slightly larger curl of wood than the one before. I worked the corner until I was able to cut a piece of about a half-inch then turned the block and worked on another corner. The throat off the plane was about and inch wide, but I didn’t have the strength to push it on a thicker surface. My little plane and I were not up to trimming a door yet.
The plane soon became dull and I couldn’t get the smooth curls of wood that had made my initial use of the tool so much fun. I began to realize that there was a lot more that needed to be learned. The workbench was a Christmas gift. The next summer, for my birthday, I received my first pocketknife. There was another gift that birthday, from my Uncle Ted. It didn’t look like much, really. It was a flat piece of Missouri soapstone. And with the sharpening stone began my lessons from Uncle Ted on sharpening and honing blades.
I still don’t own any fancy sharpening tools. I don’t have a honing guide. I hold my blades at their angles by hand. I don’t have a fancy stone holder. My stone is in a simple cedar box. But I can put a razor edge on a blade when I need one.
Over the years I have collected the planes of my elders. I have My father’s Stanley #2 block plane and I have a couple of larger planes from my grandfather. I have one plane that belonged to Susan’s grandfather. I still have the little plane from my childhood and it is a good trimming plane. But there is one plane that I have purchased. It is a small bullnose rabbet plane. The body of the plane is cast in such a way that the blade is exposed on the right and left sides so you can cut a square edge when taking the corner off of a board. It is a tricky blade to sharpen, because in addition to the precise 25-degree angle, you have to keep the corners just right. When everything is honed properly, it cuts sweetly with even, paper-thin curls.
Last evening, I had a few minutes to work on my rowboat project. It doesn’t look like anything yet. Since this project is using plywood instead of dimension lumber, I haven’t even generated my usual amount of sawdust. But I have the planks glued up and there is a stack of them on the worktable. The boat will be lapstrake which means that the planks overlap each other. Where they lap, there is a rabbet, a small place on the edge of the plywood where some wood is cut away for the next plank to fit. The rabbets on one edge of the board can be cut with a router as they run the entire length of the plank. On the other side, at the bow, each plank needs a gain to be cut. The gain is like a small ramp. On this boat the gains are 10” long. This isn’t thick plywood, so the ramp starts at the surface of the board and is 1/8 inch deep at the end. I’m working with fancy okume (and expensive) marine plywood with really thin plies, so I cut through about four plies in that 1/8-inch.
Plywood is hard to work with a plane because each layer has a different grain direction. To cut a gain, you have to work with multiple plies of the wood with each swipe. Firm pressure is required to keep the blade from skipping on the cross grain layers. Last night I carefully honed the blade of my rabbet plane. Then I took some 150 grit black paper and set it on the saw table and carefully polished the foot of the plane so it was perfectly true. I put the blade in the plane and adjusted the cut for a very thin slice. I tested it on a scrap piece of plywood and it worked beautifully.
8 to 10 slices with the plane each a bit longer than the previous one left the gains cut just the way I wanted them. I paused between each slice to carefully clean the curls out of the plane. With the clamping and measuring it took me a couple of hours to cut the gains on ten planks. It is very satisfying work. It doesn’t look like much, but it will make a big difference in the final appearance of the boat.
As I worked I thought about the work I do with people. People are sort of like plywood, with many layers and different appearances at different levels. Sometimes you need to get beneath the surface to know the real person. Scripture is definitely a layered study. The truth can be on the surface, but a surface reading rarely produces the deep truth. Studying the same passage over and over across the span of a life continues to reveal new depth and meaning. As my teacher Ross Snyder once wrote, it reveals “depth on depth of Spirit’s birth.”
When you bring people and scripture together, it takes carefully honed skills to open the depths and reveal the truth. To stay on top of the craft, you have to continually hone your skills. For me, working with wood keeps my hands engaged while my mind works with the layers of people and text that I need to bring together each week.
We have been taught that Jesus’ father was a carpenter. I like to think that the boy learned techniques and tools in his father’s workshop. Maybe sometimes, at the end of a long week, he would take up a blade and work a piece of wood. When the curl of wood that you slice off is as pretty as the cut that you have made you know you are making progress. I like to think that time spent in the garage with my tools adds value to my sermons. It is a theory that I can’t prove, just a hunch that I hold.
My dad set the blade for me and clamped a short piece of 2 x 4 in the vise. He had me start by peeling off the corner of the block. Each swipe brought a slightly larger curl of wood than the one before. I worked the corner until I was able to cut a piece of about a half-inch then turned the block and worked on another corner. The throat off the plane was about and inch wide, but I didn’t have the strength to push it on a thicker surface. My little plane and I were not up to trimming a door yet.
The plane soon became dull and I couldn’t get the smooth curls of wood that had made my initial use of the tool so much fun. I began to realize that there was a lot more that needed to be learned. The workbench was a Christmas gift. The next summer, for my birthday, I received my first pocketknife. There was another gift that birthday, from my Uncle Ted. It didn’t look like much, really. It was a flat piece of Missouri soapstone. And with the sharpening stone began my lessons from Uncle Ted on sharpening and honing blades.
I still don’t own any fancy sharpening tools. I don’t have a honing guide. I hold my blades at their angles by hand. I don’t have a fancy stone holder. My stone is in a simple cedar box. But I can put a razor edge on a blade when I need one.
Last evening, I had a few minutes to work on my rowboat project. It doesn’t look like anything yet. Since this project is using plywood instead of dimension lumber, I haven’t even generated my usual amount of sawdust. But I have the planks glued up and there is a stack of them on the worktable. The boat will be lapstrake which means that the planks overlap each other. Where they lap, there is a rabbet, a small place on the edge of the plywood where some wood is cut away for the next plank to fit. The rabbets on one edge of the board can be cut with a router as they run the entire length of the plank. On the other side, at the bow, each plank needs a gain to be cut. The gain is like a small ramp. On this boat the gains are 10” long. This isn’t thick plywood, so the ramp starts at the surface of the board and is 1/8 inch deep at the end. I’m working with fancy okume (and expensive) marine plywood with really thin plies, so I cut through about four plies in that 1/8-inch.
8 to 10 slices with the plane each a bit longer than the previous one left the gains cut just the way I wanted them. I paused between each slice to carefully clean the curls out of the plane. With the clamping and measuring it took me a couple of hours to cut the gains on ten planks. It is very satisfying work. It doesn’t look like much, but it will make a big difference in the final appearance of the boat.
When you bring people and scripture together, it takes carefully honed skills to open the depths and reveal the truth. To stay on top of the craft, you have to continually hone your skills. For me, working with wood keeps my hands engaged while my mind works with the layers of people and text that I need to bring together each week.
We have been taught that Jesus’ father was a carpenter. I like to think that the boy learned techniques and tools in his father’s workshop. Maybe sometimes, at the end of a long week, he would take up a blade and work a piece of wood. When the curl of wood that you slice off is as pretty as the cut that you have made you know you are making progress. I like to think that time spent in the garage with my tools adds value to my sermons. It is a theory that I can’t prove, just a hunch that I hold.