: Making a novice learn to sharpen and use a plane with instructions FROM A
: BOOK, BEFORE they can finish their stripper, is listed next to
: waterboarding as torture in the Geneva Convention.

: Lets get real here, is this craftsman's hazing or what?

: Most people who buy a plane think it's ready to use.

: And you think they are going to have fun when the stripper instructions say,
: "smooth your strips with a plane?

: What I'm hearing from the people using planes is that they enjoy using a
: plane.

: Great! No argument from me, I like it too.

: But sharpening a plane and learning to use it is a high learning curve to
: climb before you can build your boat.

: What I also hear, not quite as loudly is, "I don't like sanding."

: Ted Moores has gone out of his way to say planing is good, sanding is bad.

: Why? Because he doesn't understand sanding with a ROS.

: And if you listen to that, if you think, sanding is bad you will make it so.

: When I started to use a sander I pushed hard on the spots I wanted to remove
: and kinda passed over the rest a couple times and called it good. Only it
: sucked because I had low spots and flat spots. You learn fast if you press
: and edge of the sander on the spot you want to remove it will cut faster
: with 80 grit. If you have a belt sander you can wipe the smile off the
: Statue of Liberty with 120 grit. Most people love belt sanders because the
: heavy weight and high power is very aggressive.

: The problem is instead of removing spots you must use the ROS to create a
: uniform level surface.

: You create a uniform level surface by using the full ROS sanding disk to take
: the whole area down at once. And, you are not going to do this a with 80
: grit or above.

: A course grit will level the whole surface at once and quickly.

: This is where you need guidance on when to stop and move on. This is why
: understanding that the center of each strip represents a perfect fair
: surface is your reference mark to tell you when you have reached your
: goal.

: I also understand that people don't care for sanding because it is noisey and
: dusty. Yes, if you don't wear ear protectors and a dust mask and use a vac
: to remove dust from your tool it will be so.

: And many don't want to wear this stuff. That's fine if that's your choice.
: There are people who don't like to wear PFDs and drysuits too so they only
: paddle is fair weather, that's a choice too.

: But there is no way around the fact the building a stripper involves a lot of
: sanding. After you plane the surface you do what? Sand. So if you didn't
: know how to use the ROS to keep from making flat spots before you planed
: how are you going to keep from doing it after you plane?

: If you have high spots to take down you have stripping problems that need to
: be fixed before sanding or planing. How do you have high spots and an
: irregular surface if you're using bead and cove strips?

: All the books I've seen on stripping assume you're going to have problems
: stripping. You'll have gaps to fill and high spots to take down.

: Make stripping your #1 job and the result will be fair with little work to
: level.

: If you can't align your strip edges then you need to ask why.

: I think you can strip it right from the beginning and reduce you work on
: every following step.

: Rob Macks
: Laughing Loon Custom Canoes & Kayaks

: If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it's OK. But you've got to shoot
: for something. A lot of people don't even shoot.
: Confucius

Rob,

Geez, when you take a swing at a hornet's nest you really wind up don't you?

Good topic

Btw, the plane, ROS, long board sander and even cabinet scrapers are all tools, a craftsman knows how to use all the tools available and uses them all. The reason we have all these different tools for making a rough surface smooth is because there isn't one tool that does all these jobs better than all the others

Bill H.