I remember even earlier, when Kato and kawai was first published – I disagreed with you assertions about double irons on the forums. You called me out for a misreading of the paper (which still embarrasses me to this day) and sent me to the lab to play with double irons for myself. Changed my mind.
But for another four or five years, the only two people I knew who really USED double irons day-to-day were you and Brian Boggs. I’m still a little uncertain just why K&K gathered so much steam five years later, but yes – times have certainly changed in the past couple of years. Immensely.
I don’t remember suggesting you forget it, though. Maybe I suggested you were pushing a rock up a hill trying to convince others to try it, but I certainly would never have suggested you give up on what works for you. Obviously I was wrong about the public’s appetite for in-depth techniques and understanding though. That’s a lesson I haven’t forgotten. So thanks.
I remember even earlier, when Kato and kawai was first published – I disagreed with you assertions about double irons on the forums. You called me out for a misreading of the paper (which still embarrasses me to this day) and sent me to the lab to play with double irons for myself. Changed my mind.
But for another four or five years, the only two people I knew who really USED double irons day-to-day were you and Brian Boggs. I’m still a little uncertain just why K&K gathered so much steam five years later, but yes – times have certainly changed in the past couple of years. Immensely.
I don’t remember suggesting you forget it, though. Maybe I suggested you were pushing a rock up a hill trying to convince others to try it, but I certainly would never have suggested you give up on what works for you. Obviously I was wrong about the public’s appetite for in-depth techniques and understanding though. That’s a lesson I haven’t forgotten. So thanks.
double irons have there place but i cant help but love the pure simplicity or a good old single iron and its not even a question i alwayd go with the tight mouth but everything has an exeption to the rule and i have not often but have every once in a blue moon come apon a moment or two that another mil or so would have been helpfull and high angle is like most things it all just depends on what you plan on doing with it that day
I like what Warren likes. I remember when I said something to Warren about liking double irons on Wood Central, you said there was only one other person who you ran into who used one 🙂
I did later find a couple of Finnish guys on a UK forum who talked about their use of the cap iron and then said – defensively of course – I don’t want to argue about it, they work. I guess before 2012, it was just a way to get derided everywhere.
Sure solved the mystery of making a wooden plane work well and with much better economy (and less risk) for dimensioning.
I can understand if some people don’t want to fiddle with it, but just last night, I busted out a new to me Norris #2 and set it up. Out of curiosity, I used it on a stick of beech that came off of the top of a plane billet. Tearout. let some of the depth out so that it’s only cutting a very thin shaving, and it will slowly get rid of the tearout.
Then try the same thing with the cap set close (after intentionally recreating the tearout on the surface). One heavy shaving and the tearout is gone.
Even for someone who likes a thickness planer – one heavy shaving and planer chatter plus enough depth to remove bruised wood below the chatter is gone.
High angle and thin shaving works, but it’s clear why the double irons wiped out the single iron planes quickly. I don’t think anyone using single irons could compete economically.
I like what Warren likes. I remember when I said something to Warren about liking double irons on Wood Central, you said there was only one other person who you ran into who used one 🙂
I did later find a couple of Finnish guys on a UK forum who talked about their use of the cap iron and then said – defensively of course – I don’t want to argue about it, they work. I guess before 2012, it was just a way to get derided everywhere.
Sure solved the mystery of making a wooden plane work well and with much better economy (and less risk) for dimensioning.
I can understand if some people don’t want to fiddle with it, but just last night, I busted out a new to me Norris #2 and set it up. Out of curiosity, I used it on a stick of beech that came off of the top of a plane billet. Tearout. let some of the depth out so that it’s only cutting a very thin shaving, and it will slowly get rid of the tearout.
Then try the same thing with the cap set close (after intentionally recreating the tearout on the surface). One heavy shaving and the tearout is gone.
Even for someone who likes a thickness planer – one heavy shaving and planer chatter plus enough depth to remove bruised wood below the chatter is gone.
High angle and thin shaving works, but it’s clear why the double irons wiped out the single iron planes quickly. I don’t think anyone using single irons could compete economically.
By the way, with the intention of building some infills again – maybe in better taste this time now that I have a better eye – I went to google to find your page (of course to eyeball pictures for my mental library). Google’s suggestion is Obituary or Dead when typing in Raney Nelson. I know I have never searched those words in a string, so it appears that’s what is offered up when someone searches your name these days.
By the way, with the intention of building some infills again – maybe in better taste this time now that I have a better eye – I went to google to find your page (of course to eyeball pictures for my mental library). Google’s suggestion is Obituary or Dead when typing in Raney Nelson. I know I have never searched those words in a string, so it appears that’s what is offered up when someone searches your name these days.
Sorry — I just found these comments languishing in my ‘spam’ zone; not sure what happened, but apparently the auto-filter disliked something about your email or comment.
That, and I haven’t checked it in months.
Two things – first: the obituary thing is a joke that went awry. Chris Schwarz wrote a joke obituary of me a number of years ago. After some comments (which bordered on actual hysteria) about the ‘dangers’ of using high-moisture-content wood for work benches, Chris wrote an Onion-style obituary of me.
The cause of death? My workbench exploded because of excessive wood movement.
I still cannot read it without cracking up – the premise is so ludicrous. But unfortunately, it went a tad viral. And a lot of people took it seriously. A shocking number, really, given how incredibly ludicrous the premise was.
It was so widely disseminated that to this day – at least 5 years later – it’s still what google’s algorithm suggests first when typing my name. And to this day, I get emails from people I haven’t seen in (literally) decades checking to see if I am, indeed, dead.
I find it super amusing. Many people did not.
Second – I’d disagree with your last paragraph on a couple points, but honestly I’m sick of talking about it. I have been sick of talking about it since 2008. I can think of about a dozen different ways to deal with tearout in any given situation.
What works best? In pretty much any situation what works best is whatever the woodworker had the most experience using. Period.
So if you look at discussions, basically all you see is everyone claiming their preferred method is best, and other methods are either inferior, impractical, or voodoo. And then there’s a lot of arguing about who is, indeed, an idiot. And a lot of “I’ve been woodworking since the Hoover administration, so I’m right” and on and on.
I just don’t care. And I just don’t believe in ‘right’. What I can tell you is that I make planes, and use them more than most people. And I can’t think of any situation where I couldn’t use any number of approaches and do just fine.
Near as I can tell, though, the internet just loves a good argument. And who wins that argument? Google ad words, usually.
Of course, all of the methods work. The difference is, the cap iron works faster than any of the other methods.
I can’t remember what I wrote in the post above, but the speed issue with the cap iron (that you can remove a volume of wood faster with it – i.e., less energy, but without compromising quality) is likely what extinctified the single iron planes for a while, at least the bench planes.
If a given individual is using a machine planer and jointer, it really doesn’t matter much (speed). If the same individual is not using power tools, they owe it to themselves to learn to use the cap iron. I think learning to saw, file, plane, etc….even with rough work, is worthwhile because it all builds the same skill set (or more importantly, it builds the brain and how the brain works with the hands), but most of the internet brain doesn’t agree with that.
There is a big division between people who use planes a lot and the dollars weighted to the heads of purchasers. Dollars are not proportional to use, that is. They’re, perhaps, inversely proportional to it. If you’re going to make planes, you have to make them for the dollars (at least I would), which is one of the reasons I never took to selling my wooden double iron planes.
If someone does like to use scrapers and high angles, more power to them. If they’re taking off planer chatter and trimming joints, it’ll never make a difference. From rough, though? The difference is huge.
Saying that, I don’t know what has made the double iron talk quite as popular as it has become, because I don’t suspect that most people are actually doing much planing beyond smoothing and trimming joints. I also don’t suspect that the fact that a double iron plane has a wider range of use is more than a comfortable fact – because nobody who says “what one plane would you have if…” actually limits themselves to that. Worrying about whether one smoothing plane can handle softwoods through purpleheart endgrain doesn’t make much sense if you have 14 smoothing planes.
Sorry — I just found these comments languishing in my ‘spam’ zone; not sure what happened, but apparently the auto-filter disliked something about your email or comment.
That, and I haven’t checked it in months.
Two things – first: the obituary thing is a joke that went awry. Chris Schwarz wrote a joke obituary of me a number of years ago. After some comments (which bordered on actual hysteria) about the ‘dangers’ of using high-moisture-content wood for work benches, Chris wrote an Onion-style obituary of me.
The cause of death? My workbench exploded because of excessive wood movement.
I still cannot read it without cracking up – the premise is so ludicrous. But unfortunately, it went a tad viral. And a lot of people took it seriously. A shocking number, really, given how incredibly ludicrous the premise was.
It was so widely disseminated that to this day – at least 5 years later – it’s still what google’s algorithm suggests first when typing my name. And to this day, I get emails from people I haven’t seen in (literally) decades checking to see if I am, indeed, dead.
I find it super amusing. Many people did not.
Second – I’d disagree with your last paragraph on a couple points, but honestly I’m sick of talking about it. I have been sick of talking about it since 2008. I can think of about a dozen different ways to deal with tearout in any given situation.
What works best? In pretty much any situation what works best is whatever the woodworker had the most experience using. Period.
So if you look at discussions, basically all you see is everyone claiming their preferred method is best, and other methods are either inferior, impractical, or voodoo. And then there’s a lot of arguing about who is, indeed, an idiot. And a lot of “I’ve been woodworking since the Hoover administration, so I’m right” and on and on.
I just don’t care. And I just don’t believe in ‘right’. What I can tell you is that I make planes, and use them more than most people. And I can’t think of any situation where I couldn’t use any number of approaches and do just fine.
Near as I can tell, though, the internet just loves a good argument. And who wins that argument? Google ad words, usually.
Of course, all of the methods work. The difference is, the cap iron works faster than any of the other methods.
I can’t remember what I wrote in the post above, but the speed issue with the cap iron (that you can remove a volume of wood faster with it – i.e., less energy, but without compromising quality) is likely what extinctified the single iron planes for a while, at least the bench planes.
If a given individual is using a machine planer and jointer, it really doesn’t matter much (speed). If the same individual is not using power tools, they owe it to themselves to learn to use the cap iron. I think learning to saw, file, plane, etc….even with rough work, is worthwhile because it all builds the same skill set (or more importantly, it builds the brain and how the brain works with the hands), but most of the internet brain doesn’t agree with that.
There is a big division between people who use planes a lot and the dollars weighted to the heads of purchasers. Dollars are not proportional to use, that is. They’re, perhaps, inversely proportional to it. If you’re going to make planes, you have to make them for the dollars (at least I would), which is one of the reasons I never took to selling my wooden double iron planes.
If someone does like to use scrapers and high angles, more power to them. If they’re taking off planer chatter and trimming joints, it’ll never make a difference. From rough, though? The difference is huge.
Saying that, I don’t know what has made the double iron talk quite as popular as it has become, because I don’t suspect that most people are actually doing much planing beyond smoothing and trimming joints. I also don’t suspect that the fact that a double iron plane has a wider range of use is more than a comfortable fact – because nobody who says “what one plane would you have if…” actually limits themselves to that. Worrying about whether one smoothing plane can handle softwoods through purpleheart endgrain doesn’t make much sense if you have 14 smoothing planes.
I firmly believe that the optimal tool for any task is the one that the individual (a) gets the best results from (b) with the least effort, and (c) has on hand.
That applies to plane designs, sharpening techniques, musical instruments, computer languages… The fact that multiple answers are well established and still in use is sufficient evidence that none of them are perfect yet.
Or as was written in the program notes for a PDQ Bach concert many years ago: “Professor Schickle plays whatever piano is available, exclusively.”
Kevin Edwardes says
No to cap irons, yes to tight mouths and high pitched planes.
With the hard Aussie woods high pitches rule.
Lee Laird says
Raney,
I personally prefer a cap-iron, of the choices and all things being equal. But like many things in life, exceptions for exceptional situations.
Cheers
Lee Laird
Lee Laird says
Raney,
I personally prefer a cap-iron, of the choices and all things being equal. But like many things in life, exceptions for exceptional situations.
Cheers
Lee Laird
konrad says
mouths and pitches.
konrad says
mouths and pitches.
Niels says
B*tches get pitches. You best keep your mouth tight, lest I put a cap-iron in yo A$$.
(hahaha)
Someone’s been lurking in the forums….
Niels says
B*tches get pitches. You best keep your mouth tight, lest I put a cap-iron in yo A$$.
(hahaha)
Someone’s been lurking in the forums….
Warren Mickley says
Raney, I remember in 2009 you took me aside and said, “You know you’re the only one who uses the double iron. Maybe you should just forget about it.”
How times have changed.
Warren Mickley
[email protected] says
Hi Warren,
I remember even earlier, when Kato and kawai was first published – I disagreed with you assertions about double irons on the forums. You called me out for a misreading of the paper (which still embarrasses me to this day) and sent me to the lab to play with double irons for myself. Changed my mind.
But for another four or five years, the only two people I knew who really USED double irons day-to-day were you and Brian Boggs. I’m still a little uncertain just why K&K gathered so much steam five years later, but yes – times have certainly changed in the past couple of years. Immensely.
I don’t remember suggesting you forget it, though. Maybe I suggested you were pushing a rock up a hill trying to convince others to try it, but I certainly would never have suggested you give up on what works for you. Obviously I was wrong about the public’s appetite for in-depth techniques and understanding though. That’s a lesson I haven’t forgotten. So thanks.
Warren Mickley says
Raney, I remember in 2009 you took me aside and said, “You know you’re the only one who uses the double iron. Maybe you should just forget about it.”
How times have changed.
Warren Mickley
[email protected] says
Hi Warren,
I remember even earlier, when Kato and kawai was first published – I disagreed with you assertions about double irons on the forums. You called me out for a misreading of the paper (which still embarrasses me to this day) and sent me to the lab to play with double irons for myself. Changed my mind.
But for another four or five years, the only two people I knew who really USED double irons day-to-day were you and Brian Boggs. I’m still a little uncertain just why K&K gathered so much steam five years later, but yes – times have certainly changed in the past couple of years. Immensely.
I don’t remember suggesting you forget it, though. Maybe I suggested you were pushing a rock up a hill trying to convince others to try it, but I certainly would never have suggested you give up on what works for you. Obviously I was wrong about the public’s appetite for in-depth techniques and understanding though. That’s a lesson I haven’t forgotten. So thanks.
dan karma says
double irons have there place but i cant help but love the pure simplicity or a good old single iron and its not even a question i alwayd go with the tight mouth but everything has an exeption to the rule and i have not often but have every once in a blue moon come apon a moment or two that another mil or so would have been helpfull and high angle is like most things it all just depends on what you plan on doing with it that day
David Weaver says
Little late.
I like what Warren likes. I remember when I said something to Warren about liking double irons on Wood Central, you said there was only one other person who you ran into who used one 🙂
I did later find a couple of Finnish guys on a UK forum who talked about their use of the cap iron and then said – defensively of course – I don’t want to argue about it, they work. I guess before 2012, it was just a way to get derided everywhere.
Sure solved the mystery of making a wooden plane work well and with much better economy (and less risk) for dimensioning.
I can understand if some people don’t want to fiddle with it, but just last night, I busted out a new to me Norris #2 and set it up. Out of curiosity, I used it on a stick of beech that came off of the top of a plane billet. Tearout. let some of the depth out so that it’s only cutting a very thin shaving, and it will slowly get rid of the tearout.
Then try the same thing with the cap set close (after intentionally recreating the tearout on the surface). One heavy shaving and the tearout is gone.
Even for someone who likes a thickness planer – one heavy shaving and planer chatter plus enough depth to remove bruised wood below the chatter is gone.
High angle and thin shaving works, but it’s clear why the double irons wiped out the single iron planes quickly. I don’t think anyone using single irons could compete economically.
David Weaver says
Little late.
I like what Warren likes. I remember when I said something to Warren about liking double irons on Wood Central, you said there was only one other person who you ran into who used one 🙂
I did later find a couple of Finnish guys on a UK forum who talked about their use of the cap iron and then said – defensively of course – I don’t want to argue about it, they work. I guess before 2012, it was just a way to get derided everywhere.
Sure solved the mystery of making a wooden plane work well and with much better economy (and less risk) for dimensioning.
I can understand if some people don’t want to fiddle with it, but just last night, I busted out a new to me Norris #2 and set it up. Out of curiosity, I used it on a stick of beech that came off of the top of a plane billet. Tearout. let some of the depth out so that it’s only cutting a very thin shaving, and it will slowly get rid of the tearout.
Then try the same thing with the cap set close (after intentionally recreating the tearout on the surface). One heavy shaving and the tearout is gone.
Even for someone who likes a thickness planer – one heavy shaving and planer chatter plus enough depth to remove bruised wood below the chatter is gone.
High angle and thin shaving works, but it’s clear why the double irons wiped out the single iron planes quickly. I don’t think anyone using single irons could compete economically.
David Weaver says
By the way, with the intention of building some infills again – maybe in better taste this time now that I have a better eye – I went to google to find your page (of course to eyeball pictures for my mental library). Google’s suggestion is Obituary or Dead when typing in Raney Nelson. I know I have never searched those words in a string, so it appears that’s what is offered up when someone searches your name these days.
Nice.
David Weaver says
By the way, with the intention of building some infills again – maybe in better taste this time now that I have a better eye – I went to google to find your page (of course to eyeball pictures for my mental library). Google’s suggestion is Obituary or Dead when typing in Raney Nelson. I know I have never searched those words in a string, so it appears that’s what is offered up when someone searches your name these days.
Nice.
[email protected] says
David –
Sorry — I just found these comments languishing in my ‘spam’ zone; not sure what happened, but apparently the auto-filter disliked something about your email or comment.
That, and I haven’t checked it in months.
Two things – first: the obituary thing is a joke that went awry. Chris Schwarz wrote a joke obituary of me a number of years ago. After some comments (which bordered on actual hysteria) about the ‘dangers’ of using high-moisture-content wood for work benches, Chris wrote an Onion-style obituary of me.
The cause of death? My workbench exploded because of excessive wood movement.
I still cannot read it without cracking up – the premise is so ludicrous. But unfortunately, it went a tad viral. And a lot of people took it seriously. A shocking number, really, given how incredibly ludicrous the premise was.
It was so widely disseminated that to this day – at least 5 years later – it’s still what google’s algorithm suggests first when typing my name. And to this day, I get emails from people I haven’t seen in (literally) decades checking to see if I am, indeed, dead.
I find it super amusing. Many people did not.
Second – I’d disagree with your last paragraph on a couple points, but honestly I’m sick of talking about it. I have been sick of talking about it since 2008. I can think of about a dozen different ways to deal with tearout in any given situation.
What works best? In pretty much any situation what works best is whatever the woodworker had the most experience using. Period.
So if you look at discussions, basically all you see is everyone claiming their preferred method is best, and other methods are either inferior, impractical, or voodoo. And then there’s a lot of arguing about who is, indeed, an idiot. And a lot of “I’ve been woodworking since the Hoover administration, so I’m right” and on and on.
I just don’t care. And I just don’t believe in ‘right’. What I can tell you is that I make planes, and use them more than most people. And I can’t think of any situation where I couldn’t use any number of approaches and do just fine.
Near as I can tell, though, the internet just loves a good argument. And who wins that argument? Google ad words, usually.
David Weaver says
Goodness, I only missed this for about …7 months.
Of course, all of the methods work. The difference is, the cap iron works faster than any of the other methods.
I can’t remember what I wrote in the post above, but the speed issue with the cap iron (that you can remove a volume of wood faster with it – i.e., less energy, but without compromising quality) is likely what extinctified the single iron planes for a while, at least the bench planes.
If a given individual is using a machine planer and jointer, it really doesn’t matter much (speed). If the same individual is not using power tools, they owe it to themselves to learn to use the cap iron. I think learning to saw, file, plane, etc….even with rough work, is worthwhile because it all builds the same skill set (or more importantly, it builds the brain and how the brain works with the hands), but most of the internet brain doesn’t agree with that.
There is a big division between people who use planes a lot and the dollars weighted to the heads of purchasers. Dollars are not proportional to use, that is. They’re, perhaps, inversely proportional to it. If you’re going to make planes, you have to make them for the dollars (at least I would), which is one of the reasons I never took to selling my wooden double iron planes.
If someone does like to use scrapers and high angles, more power to them. If they’re taking off planer chatter and trimming joints, it’ll never make a difference. From rough, though? The difference is huge.
Saying that, I don’t know what has made the double iron talk quite as popular as it has become, because I don’t suspect that most people are actually doing much planing beyond smoothing and trimming joints. I also don’t suspect that the fact that a double iron plane has a wider range of use is more than a comfortable fact – because nobody who says “what one plane would you have if…” actually limits themselves to that. Worrying about whether one smoothing plane can handle softwoods through purpleheart endgrain doesn’t make much sense if you have 14 smoothing planes.
[email protected] says
David –
Sorry — I just found these comments languishing in my ‘spam’ zone; not sure what happened, but apparently the auto-filter disliked something about your email or comment.
That, and I haven’t checked it in months.
Two things – first: the obituary thing is a joke that went awry. Chris Schwarz wrote a joke obituary of me a number of years ago. After some comments (which bordered on actual hysteria) about the ‘dangers’ of using high-moisture-content wood for work benches, Chris wrote an Onion-style obituary of me.
The cause of death? My workbench exploded because of excessive wood movement.
I still cannot read it without cracking up – the premise is so ludicrous. But unfortunately, it went a tad viral. And a lot of people took it seriously. A shocking number, really, given how incredibly ludicrous the premise was.
It was so widely disseminated that to this day – at least 5 years later – it’s still what google’s algorithm suggests first when typing my name. And to this day, I get emails from people I haven’t seen in (literally) decades checking to see if I am, indeed, dead.
I find it super amusing. Many people did not.
Second – I’d disagree with your last paragraph on a couple points, but honestly I’m sick of talking about it. I have been sick of talking about it since 2008. I can think of about a dozen different ways to deal with tearout in any given situation.
What works best? In pretty much any situation what works best is whatever the woodworker had the most experience using. Period.
So if you look at discussions, basically all you see is everyone claiming their preferred method is best, and other methods are either inferior, impractical, or voodoo. And then there’s a lot of arguing about who is, indeed, an idiot. And a lot of “I’ve been woodworking since the Hoover administration, so I’m right” and on and on.
I just don’t care. And I just don’t believe in ‘right’. What I can tell you is that I make planes, and use them more than most people. And I can’t think of any situation where I couldn’t use any number of approaches and do just fine.
Near as I can tell, though, the internet just loves a good argument. And who wins that argument? Google ad words, usually.
David Weaver says
Goodness, I only missed this for about …7 months.
Of course, all of the methods work. The difference is, the cap iron works faster than any of the other methods.
I can’t remember what I wrote in the post above, but the speed issue with the cap iron (that you can remove a volume of wood faster with it – i.e., less energy, but without compromising quality) is likely what extinctified the single iron planes for a while, at least the bench planes.
If a given individual is using a machine planer and jointer, it really doesn’t matter much (speed). If the same individual is not using power tools, they owe it to themselves to learn to use the cap iron. I think learning to saw, file, plane, etc….even with rough work, is worthwhile because it all builds the same skill set (or more importantly, it builds the brain and how the brain works with the hands), but most of the internet brain doesn’t agree with that.
There is a big division between people who use planes a lot and the dollars weighted to the heads of purchasers. Dollars are not proportional to use, that is. They’re, perhaps, inversely proportional to it. If you’re going to make planes, you have to make them for the dollars (at least I would), which is one of the reasons I never took to selling my wooden double iron planes.
If someone does like to use scrapers and high angles, more power to them. If they’re taking off planer chatter and trimming joints, it’ll never make a difference. From rough, though? The difference is huge.
Saying that, I don’t know what has made the double iron talk quite as popular as it has become, because I don’t suspect that most people are actually doing much planing beyond smoothing and trimming joints. I also don’t suspect that the fact that a double iron plane has a wider range of use is more than a comfortable fact – because nobody who says “what one plane would you have if…” actually limits themselves to that. Worrying about whether one smoothing plane can handle softwoods through purpleheart endgrain doesn’t make much sense if you have 14 smoothing planes.
Loxmyth says
I firmly believe that the optimal tool for any task is the one that the individual (a) gets the best results from (b) with the least effort, and (c) has on hand.
That applies to plane designs, sharpening techniques, musical instruments, computer languages… The fact that multiple answers are well established and still in use is sufficient evidence that none of them are perfect yet.
Or as was written in the program notes for a PDQ Bach concert many years ago: “Professor Schickle plays whatever piano is available, exclusively.”