SE-76 and skewed Plane Iron

[Rob]

That's common practice for advanced plane users to avoid the witness marks left by the corners when smoothing.  So yes, by all means go for it, many Tormek users do just that.

[Ken S]

Kenny,

The amount of camber (curve) on a plane blade depends on the function of the particular plane.  Look at the blade on a roughing plane; it has a substantial radius.  Instead of wispy long micro thin shavings, it is designed to make quick work of the initial rough planing with deep but not wide scooplike shavings.

If a jack plane is used for the initial planing of a board, it will often have a radius of about 1/16" (just under 2mm for those of you like Rob who don't use English measurements anymore )

A jointer plane will often have about a .006" (.1mm) camber.  There are different schools of thought on this issue, all defended with religious conviction.

A smoother will often have just s wisp of camber.

The amount of curve is more determined by function rather than plane size.  A jack can function for all of these jobs.  It helps to have different blades to interchange.

Fortunately for rough work, the shape of the camber need not be precise.  The blade may not look pristine, but, if sharp, will make quick work of the rough parts.

Do a google on "chris schwarz" and you will find much more on this.

By the way, you posted a good question.

Ken

[Rob]

The measurement issue is very amusing.  Because Britain made the gargantuan mistake of going metric in the 70's we've been attempting to convert ever since.  I'm personally a complete and utter hybrid myself.  With large chunks of wood it's 4x2 or 6x2 (we put the 4 before the 2, you guys say 2 by 4....but they're all inches).  With sheet goods is 8x4.

But if I'm thinknessing 3/4" stock downwards I might take it to 15 or 14mm.  If I'm raising my router bit, it's by 1.5mm.  I drive miles in my car and don't even ask me what weighs 1 Kilo!!  If I catch a trout, I can tell you it's weight by eye and feel to within 1 oz every time.

So I've integrated the finer granularities of metric into my world but retain imperial for the bigger things because that's how I think.  I don't think in 16th's or 32nd's.  Too cumbersome for me.

Here are some universal measures though:

A hair
That's one thump of the hammer from fitting
Just a gnats tadger and she'll be right
just a whisper more
gimme a thou and you're done
You could drive a double decker bus through that gap!
Just hit it....it'll go in!
Hit it harder!

[Ken S]

Rob, I visited Britain in 1969.  The quid and bob were quint.  What I really liked were your pints!

Ken

[Rob]

ah well you arrived when we were still civilised you see Ken :-)  Decimalisation arrived in 1971 as I recall.

But cf my previous post...we still have pints in pubs, we still use the slang quid (equivalent to your buck) and we still have road signs in miles.  It seems the older men were the most intransigent with respect to accepting change (drivers and drinkers).....imagine that :-)

[Herman Trivilino]

The measurement issue is very amusing.  Because Britain made the gargantuan mistake of going metric in the 70's we've been attempting to convert ever since. 

Not sure of the exact date, sometime in the 1870's I think it was, Britain, the United States, and I think eighteen other countries, signed the Treaty of the Meter.  That treaty established the metric system as the international standard, and we have lived in metric countries ever since.  In 1960 the name was changed to SI.  Member nations are allowed to use non-SI units provided they are defined in terms of SI units.  So the inch is 0.0254 m, and the pound is 0.453 592 37 kg, on both sides of the pond.

I visited England several times between 2005 and 2011.  Enjoyed the country side because it's well kept, very green, and lacks those awful looking billboards that litter the landscape here in the US.  I was very surprised to see beer sold by the pint and road signs stating distances in miles and yards.  In the US schools we teach our students that the US is the only country left in the world that has not gone metric.  Utter nonsense!

Speaking of pints, here a pint is a bit less than half a liter, but in the British pubs a pint is larger than a half liter.  And it tastes better, too.   

Here are some universal measures though:

A hair

I wonder if the RCH is a standard unit of measure amongst the carpenters in the UK?   

[Rob]

 

[RobinW]

A few years ago whilst working on a project for the USA Navy, with all drawings and calculations done in Imperial units, my American counterpart came up with:-

"Yes, we are inching ourselves towards metrication."

In Scotland we have another unit of measurement - the "baw hair".

For example, "It's a baw hair out".

This is very useful when measuring how much out the bevel is skewed when trying to get it straight on the Tormek.