Hand Plane Chatter

[John Delacour]

At 15:41 -0500 20/2/08, Farrell wrote:

>Any thinner and I'm planing air. Light pressure, heavy pressure, 
>same difference.

If I wanted to do what you're doing, I would use a scrub plane with a 
convex blade cutting _across_ the grain and not down into it, at a 
right angle to the direction you are working.  One of the basic rules 
of planing and chiseling is wherever possible to work with the grain 
going uphill ahead of the tool.

Ever since my first woodworking lessons at school, my planes are 
never far from a great lump of beeswax, which is rubbed on the sole 
of the plane, and sometimes also on the workpiece, to ease the work 
and reduce diffiulties to a minimum on pieces that are not naturally 
slippery.

JD