Knight planes are modern planes that have evolved and incorporated the strengths of other wooden & metal, European and Eastern planes.  Once you’ve purchased one of my planes, you will see and feel that difference.  The month/year of creation, the blade angle, and the order number will be found on your invoice and on most of the wooden planes.  Reference these numbers for future orders, or follow-up questions you might have with me.

To keep it at peak form, some effort is needed to care for a plane, to make it last through your, your child's, and your grandchild’s lifetimes.  The sections below will help you with the care, tuning and sharpening of your new plane, so familiarize yourself with these steps. A summary of this information is included with every plane I ship.

Receipt of a Plane

Your Knight plane comes with fluffy shavings.  It will have been tuned & tested at the Toolworks, proving its capability.  To reproduce that capability in your workshop:

Your wooden plane, like any other piece of wood, will need to acclimate to your shop, so resist the temptation to do any major tuning until a day or two have passed.  The plane has been finished and stabilized to minimize movement, but temperature extremes can affect iron fit and sole flatness.  Use the plane for a while before tuning to get used to the feel and the way it works.

To make your plane sole slicker and bring out the grain in the wood, you can lightly wax the outside of the plane and the sole.  Do not wax inside the plane mouth, or the wedge-these need to stay clean to keep their tuning.  For infill planes or marking knives, wax will help maintain the shine and minimize metal oxidation.  Any good woodworking wax will do.

In general, avoid setting your tuned plane down on its sole, to maintain the sharpness of the iron.  Place the plane on its side, or just put it across two pieces of wood.

Tuning

Tuning your plane lets all its components (Plane body, Plane Iron, Wedge, and the Mouthblock) work together to make fluffy shavings:

The iron fits bevel down into the plane body, followed by the wedge:

Some people fit the iron and the wedge with the plane body in their hands, so that the iron rests on their fingertips.  Some prefer to rest the plane body on a flat block of wood.

Either way, after inserting the iron, push the wedge snug.  The iron may come out slightly, so using a small (4 to 8 oz) hammer or mallet lightly hit the strike plate at the beveled rear of the plane.  This action retracts the iron.  Now tap the wedge firmly in place.  With my planes, you want the wedge very tight.

After tapping the wedge, you need to check how far the iron is out of the mouth of the plane.  My planes are set for a very light cut (except for the more aggressive scrub plane) so you only want a tiny bit of iron protruding. 

To lower the iron, you tap on the head of the iron itself, or the front of the plane.  To bring the iron out of the body, remember you tap the beveled strike plate, not the iron.

For the fine tuning at this point, tapping the head of the iron or tapping on the left or right side of the iron is the easiest way to set the light cuts.

If the iron is protruding too far, you need to go back and loosen the wedge, readjust the blade, and continue the process.  It is a juggle and takes a little practice.  This is one of the charms of a wooden plane.  Please be patient as you learn to adjust this plane.  With a little practice, it is easier than a metal plane.

The mouthblock is rarely moved, only to close the mouth of the plane for more control or to tweak the iron fit.  In a tuned plane, the bottom of the mouthblock is flush with the body.  The distance between a properly fitted iron and the mouthblock  is measured in a few 1000th’s of an inch.  Once you’ve used your plane a lot, the mouth may open further, giving thicker shavings and compare them vs. those I sent with your plane.

To close up the mouth again, loosen the two screws and lower the mouthblock very slightly.  Two very small surfaces will need to be sanded or filed.  Using a full piece of sandpaper secured to a flat surface, lap the whole length of the sole with the grain with 320 grit paper to get the mouthblock flat with the sole again.

The surface inside the plane at the bottom of the mouthblock, might need to be sanded or filed evenly and lightly to open the throat just enough that the iron doesn’t touch the mouthblock.   Be sure not to let the corners of the iron extend past the mouthblock.

Additional Techniques

The Wedge: Sometimes the wedge needs to be tweaked, like when iron has a tendency to be out more on one side than the other, it’s probably tighter on that side. When you put the wedge in and feel it catch on one side first, take a file or sandpaper or chisel and remove just a small amount from that side. Then check the wedge.  It should hit both cheeks of the plane body at the same time.

The Sole: With uneven planning or using the plane for chamfering or rounding over, the sole may need a bit of extra flattening. For the larger planes, temporarily attach some sandpaper on a flat surface, such as a table saw table or a large granite tile (found at home centers for about $5).For the smaller planes, either attach it or just hold it in place by hand. Retract the iron so that it is not out of the sole, but still firmly holding the wedge in place, so the plane stresses are about where they’d be during normal use. Now lap the plane on the sandpaper with firm and even pressure, checking for unplanned portions. It helps to mark the sole with a pen over it all, so that you can see how the flattening progresses. Start no lower than 180 grit if the sole really needs work, and you can probably stop around 320 grit.

If you’ve bought a plane with a Japanese blade, here’s another helpful tuning reference: http://www.hidatool.com/

There you are!  When you see the shavings you can achieve, the polished surface that is left, and the very fine work that is possible with these planes, you will appreciate the learning curve it took to tune your plane up.

Sharpening Basics

There are as  many ways to go about sharpening as there are folks that will do the sharpening, oilstones, waterstones, ceramic stones, carbide grit on glass (otherwise known as Scary Sharp™).  In all these variations, the basics are to keep the same bevel angle all the time. 

Continue on through the stones or grits until you are on the finest grit (like a Hard Arkansas, Fine Ceramic, 12000 waterstone or 600 grit sandpaper).  Flip the blade over and re-do the bevel long enough to remove the burr you’ve formed and the iron is sharp.

General Planning Approach and Hints

There are many other excellent books and articles that provide overall direction to this topic.  Here are just a few tips to get you started:

1. Before you start on your work, make sure your plane is tuned up and ready, testing on a piece of scrap.

2. Secure your work so that the only things moving are you and the plane.

3. Check the lumber’s grain direction.  To avoid tearout when you plane, make sure you are working with the general direction of the grain, not against it.  You may plane from both ends of the board if it’s a particularly curly piece of wood.

4. If you are flattening a rough glue-up or rough lumber, start with a scrub plane, using it 45 degrees to the grain direction, to hog off the most stock.

5. If you are starting with a cleaner piece of lumber, start with your jack plane.  Take long even strokes with the grain.

6. Cleanup is done with the smoother, once the major work has been done by the scrub and jack planes.

7. Use a smoother or small smoother for additional surfacing, like chamfering an edge.

8. Check the mouth of the plane and clear the shavings to make sure you are working the whole length of the bevel.

9. A light shining across the lumber will help you determine high and low spots.  Mark the high spots with a pencil to track progress of your work.

© Steve Knight of Knight Toolworks

Email:  Steve Knight