Thanks, Frank! Glad you're enjoying them!

Yeah, my dead-end road is full of neighbors who love tearing up and down in their big trucks! Makes for great recording! Ha!

Yes, gym membership savings is one of the underrated benefits of hand tools!

Yeah, we will put it on the list for someday. In the meantime, check out our instructional videos at mortiseandtenonmag.com. My "Apprenticeship: The Foundations" covers that.

Yeah, frogs can be moved. Not sure I'd use the word "simple" to describe that, though. If I was using metal-bodied planes, I'd be moving the frogs back to open the mouths.

@@mortisetenonmagazine The Bedrock line were the only ones I'd say had simple frog adjustments.

Re-squaring by grinding or filing might be necessary in that case. I do have a couple wooden planes whose irons are sharpened somewhat out of square, but I've become accustomed to tapping the iron over so the cutting edge is parallel in the mouth. The fact that the top of the iron is tilted to the side somewhat makes no difference in operation. I do think wooden planes allow for more of this "skewed" adjustment than metal-bodied planes do.

Sounds like your starting and ending pressure is more than in the middle. I would advise you to try to envision taking a deeper scoop out of the middle as you plane... because if you have a flat sole, you won't be able to. Instead it will be flat.

I was told heavy in front at the start (almost "lifting" the tote end), transitioning to even pressure in the middle. Finish with zero pressure on the front right as the plane reaches the end of the board.

Probably should elaborate that the purpose of this is only to ensure proper register of the part of the sole touching the wood. The previous advise is really good for preventing your plane from riding the hump up and down which can and will happen even with a 30" plane if you're not aware of the possibility and conciously feeling for it.

I'd be interested to know how long that plane is.

@@notesfromtheforest 560mm (22 in), made of European Beech

@@robertread8436 That is interesting! Must have been a workhorse.

Jointers usually have their totes a bit further back from the iron than fore planes do - sometimes inches more. Cutting one down would likely mess with the balance of the tool.

Robert Wearing talks about this in his book, "The Essential Woodworker." Basically, unless a hand plane is made with an extremely complex adjustable sole, it is impossible to plane a perfectly flat surface. However, we're just working wood - the tolerances are close enough to flat and planar. A longer hand plane leaves a surface closer to perfectly flat than a shorter one. And while your suggestion (move the iron back) might lead to an even higher degree of perfection, I imagine the balance of that theoretical tool would make it really uncomfortable to use.

Using a power jointer, you should be applying pressure to the lead end, and in fact transfer any weight you have on the trailing end forward of the cutter once you are about mid way through. Otherwise you can create some concavity where you want it flat, because the board can bend under your weight. Wooden and iron planes can flex too, which is partially why the totes and knobs are located where they are. Because you are supply weight at the front and the back there is no appreciable load over the blade. Normally you start a stroke with your weight toward the front, and then shift to the tote as you near the end of the board. I like my Stanley's though and many of us who like iron planes like them because of the weight. I've never had trouble with the mouth choking up when the iron, cap iron and frog position are properly set up.

It's theoretically impossible to create a perfectly flat surface with a hand plane - at best, we can establish an imperceptibly curved surface. But this is well within the tolerances needed for precision woodworking. Remember that a power plane/jointer is taking off a bunch more wood than we are per cut.

@@notesfromtheforest Thanks. I appreciate that you actually answered the question. :)

"Razee" is the American way of spelling it.

The purpose of jointing two boards at once is to eliminate error in your planing "roll angle" by making complementary angles on both edges so that they book fold to 180 degrees included angle. So, if you're off by 1 degree from square when planing, when measured, one will be 89 degrees and the other 91 degrees. Of course they MUST be book folded for this to work. But it works VERY well and can save a lot of time when you don't have to have perfectly square boards. But that's with a flat iron. A cambered iron brings extra error possibilities into the mix if you use this method. You essentially cut that camber angle into each board, then multiplied it by 2. So if you're camber was 1 degree and you were able to keep the iron centered, you have a full 2 degrees where the outside edges would by high and the center where the boards meet when planing would be low. Now open your book fold and eek! I suppose, if you are REALLY skilled, you could perform some amazing feats of wow by not book folding them and end for ending instead, keeping the peak of the camber perfectly at the center of the sandwiched boards, and getting half the cambers opposed to cancel each other out. But just the thought of that gives me a headache. Haha! I like my edge working plane irons flat. I round the corners slightly at the edges only.

@@mikemorgan5015 i am going to link you the video. I already know what you talked about. What i wanted to say is using two blades one with cambered and one flat. You are braver than me to write so much here, I am too lazy😅

@@mikemorgan5015 so the steps are, you aline the two boards one slightly higher , so in this way you are going to plane less. Than with a foreplane you plane both boards, in this way you have a small hollow in the middle. Than with a jointer you plane it. You start to have two shavings on the sides of the iron (we have an hollow in the center) and when you have a consistent shaving you're done. Seems more work but really it is not.

@@mikemorgan5015 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rJNxatecuKy5f4E.html I think it looks similar to the trick you do when you want to plane straight a board, you make a little hollow in the center than with your jointer you true it

@@enricociuppa7093 It's a fine line between brave and insane my friend.........haha! I'll find the video.

Not unused: sweep-up happens at the end of the day. This was a productive day's work.

So true.

You and I were both taught the same....but I've often been truly lined up on something like this...and been wrong. Paul Sellars, Charles Schultz and a good few others advocate for setting the handplane down on its sole, to avoid knocking the cutting iron out of adjustment. They have a very good argument and I've been doing it that way for a couple of years now....granted, I most often have the fore end of the plane resting on a pencil or piece of scrap -Veteran '66-68

Rest it on shavings. If you are sharpening to over1000 grit it’s worth it.

It's one of those rules the old 8th-grade or high-school shop teachers used to terrorize their students. I remember it well. My wood shop teacher was somewhere between 50 and 90 years old, and his right-hand index finger was bent on the end about 45 degrees--something about an accident with dynamite (or so he said). If he caught you placing a plane on its sole, he'd point that finger at you--which meant he was actually pointing at the guy next to you--and he'd say, "Young man!" and he'd launch into some cautionary tale that had nothing to do with hand planes (or wood working at all, for that matter).

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fbWcf7ml35m2c30.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iMmdhtyEtZPUlZc.html

This is a great point of debate among woodworkers. We might just do a video about it!

Andrew, you were taught that because you were a small boy at the time and the guy teaching you didn't want to have to sharpen the iron because some knucklehead set it down on a chisel. In working shops, no one ever set a plane on its side. That is the difference between school learning and shop learning. Just saying.

Lots of people on both sides of the debate on this point. Some say that it's best to put the plane sole-down (keeps you from catching a hand on the iron, and a wooden bench top won't harm the edge), while some say to tip the plane over. We might do a video on the debate, since Joshua and I have differing views on it!

On its side when you are working the bench alone, flat down if you share the bench. The biggest risk to the plane iron is other tools. The biggest risk to you is not know where things are