What level of skill and maintenance does a power planer require?

[Deleted member 174758]

I still wouldn't choose to use them on a daily basis, though!

Looks like I may have to eat my words, then

 

[^woody^]

So one specific job I have lined up is removing all the paint on an old church pew

How about an old Stanley Box Scaper?

Stanley Box Scraper | eBay

 

[Deleted member 174758]

How about an old Stanley Box Scaper?

Hmmm. Guess you don't know about those - the sole of those is actually slightly curved side to side, as should be the blade. They are not really a sctraper, more a sort of pull spoke shave and were actually designed to make a scalloped cut in wooden crates. This was so that you could remove the painted or branded names off the sides of wooden crates so that you could re-use them. So ideal for cleaning up furniture unless you like that rustic, hand-hewed look. With the big move from wooden crates to cardboard boxes in the 50s and 60s they became obsolete.

A better bet might be something like a Linbide floor scraper (which I think I mentioned above)

These are available through decorating centres, although SFX and TS probably do cheap Chinese knock-off copies. The alternative ios the natty Sandvik 665 carbide scraper:

which isn't cheap (and again there are cheaper copies) but allows you to exert a lot of pressure. These two designs have replaceable blades available.

For tight corners Sandvik also do the 625 Pocket Edge Scraper:

which again takes replaceable carbide tips, and again isn't cheap, but has the advantage of having with a variety of shaped carbide tips (triangular, drop, pear and round) available for it which are really good for cleaning up moudings without the need for a heat gun

 

[^woody^]

Every day's a school day.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Did I ever say that some of what I do is refurb on listeds? That's why I have just bought a half set of rounds and hollows (to replace the "harlequin" half set I already have)

 

[MisterBoy]

Interesting tools @JobAndKnock - so just how heavy duty are we talking? I wouldn't actually say the tools seem that expensive, but the replacement blades are half the price of the tool which does seem pricey. Any idea how much use you can get out of a blade?

 

[opps]

Metabo make a "planer" specifically designed for removing paint. (It isn't a planer in the strictest sense of the word.

It is the Metabo LF724.

https://www.dm-tools.co.uk/product.php/site/metabo/sn/METLF724S

It has been around for years but after watching the above video I think I might purchase one in the new year it is only £220. Naturally I would still expect to sand the bare wood with a Rotex after.

 

[MisterBoy]

Metabo make a "planer" specifically designed for removing paint. (It isn't a planer in the strictest sense of the word.

It is the Metabo LF724.

https://www.dm-tools.co.uk/product.php/site/metabo/sn/METLF724S

It has been around for years but after watching the above video I think I might purchase one in the new year it is only £220. Naturally I would still expect to sand the bare wood with a Rotex after.

Good Lord. It looks like it's almost like a router on a very small depth setting? If did this sort of job regularly I think that would be a godsend.

 

[opps]

Good Lord. It looks like it's almost like a router on a very small depth setting? If did this sort of job regularly I think that would be a godsend.

To be honest, I have no idea how much it damages the surface. I have a similar Festool product that is designed for removing paint from concrete and plaster.

 

[^woody^]

I want to give up my job and plane doors for a living.

It uses a rotating square blade, like a grinder with a plane blade, so may well leave a relatively smooth surface

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Any idea how much use you can get out of a blade?

Quite a lot - the replaceable tips are solid carbide, so they are durable. I've had a Linbide for a few years and I'm still only on my 2nd blade. The little Sandvik I havevis still on the original blade (there are 3 edges - now on the last one). But I am gendrally only using them when I need to clean up an old door or old mouldings prior to repairs

It is the Metabo LF724.

https://www.dm-tools.co.uk/product.php/site/metabo/sn/METLF724S

It has been around for years but after watching the above video I think I might purchase one in the new year it is only £220. Naturally I would still expect to sand the bare wood with a Rotex after.

About the only people I've seen using them are boat builders. They slso have those wierd Virutex planers whhere you can swap the cutter block for a sanding drum - not cheap, however

 

[Munroast]

on the subject of hand planes - what blade angle do you go for with a standard 45° plane ? I have always done the same as chisels (25/30)sometimes used a tiny bit of back bevel but never been impressed

 

[Deleted member 174758]

...what blade angle do you go for with a standard 45° plane ?

25° (sharpen)/30° (hone) for general use - that 30° is only a millimetre or two of back bevel and is really only the strengthen the cutting edge. If I'm having problems with a hardwood like oak I might resharpen a blade to give me 35°/30° degrees (mainly to make a stronger cutting edge) or possibly put a few degrees of back bevel on, but that really requires a replacement iron as it is be a lot of work to take that back bevel out afterwards (not to mention wasteful of steel).

I bought a bevel-up jack about 20 years ago (L-N #62) with a 12° bed angle, mainly to deal with end grain planing on solid wood kitchen worktops, and for that I had a couple of spare irons ground at 30°/35° and 35°/40°. The three blades give me 42° effective pitch (with the standard 25°/30° grind blade), 47° (30°/35° grind) which is between Common Pitch (45°) and York Pitch (50°) and is slightly better on oak and similar woods than the standard blade, and 52° (35°/40° grind) which is between York Pitch (50°) and Middle Pitch (55°), respectively. TBH whilst the 30°/35° sometimes gets used on oak, the high pitch iron was frankly a waste of money because even on oak, Common Pitch (45° or 25°/30° grind) generally suffices providing the iron is razor sharp. Same goes for standard Bailey-pattern bench planes.

If you ever get really difficult stuff like curly maple or burr walnut you can be better off planing to approximate surface then using a toothing plane and scrapers (like a #80) to get a good surface. Being mainly on commercial work, though, I rarely need to adopt such an approach.

If you want to experiment, get a low angle block plane, buy a second iron and regrind it to different angles and try that - that will help you gauge what you need for a given job

BTW I am not saying a bevel up plane is the universal panacea, it isn't, but it is handy from time to time. And this thread seems to have "made a left" somewhere along the line...

 

[^woody^]

TBH I just sharpen plane and chisel blades to somewhere between 25 and 35°. As long as they are sharp they're ok

 

[Deleted member 174758]

It doesn't always work, though @^woody^ . That's why they came up with the different pitches as far back as the 17th century. In fact like a lot of guys I sharpen at about 25° and hone at about 30° with a standard Bailey-type plane and it works for a 95%+ of what I do. But what happens when you find that is not working for you? Then you have to start looking at the alternatives such as skewing the plane (which reduces the effective cutting angle) or adding a back bevel (which increases it, although not a technique I'm a fan of) or moving the frog to reduce the mouth opening or alternatively moving the cap iron closer to the edge of the blade (both of which control tear-out to an extent at the price of having to reduce cutter extension - and taking more thinner passes makes for a slow job). Notice that I say "about" for the angle - because a few degrees either way seem to make little difference with perhaps the exception of mortise chisels where a single bevel and an angle of 35° means the edge will last longer (not that you see many people using pig stickers or sash mortise chisels these days)