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Plane Truth
The Field Guide to Choosing, Tuning, and Mastering Hand Planes for Professional Woodworkers
by Rebecca Stern
Chapter 1: Why Your Plane Isn't Performing (And How to Fix It Forever)
Every woodworker has a moment like this. You’ve just sharpened the blade to a mirror finish on your finest stone. You’ve aligned the chip breaker so precisely that you can barely see the seam. You’ve checked the frog, tightened the lever cap, and adjusted the mouth to a hair’s breadth. You set the plane on a piece of figured maple, take a deep breath, and push.
Nothing. The plane skips. It chatters, or it digs in, or it leaves a surface that looks like corduroy made of fuzz and splinters. Or worse: it produces a single, beautiful, translucent shaving—and then, on the very next stroke, it tears out a chunk of grain like a child pulling a loose tooth.
You check the blade. Still sharp. You check the chip breaker. Still perfect. You repeat the entire ritual, slower this time, and get the same result. The plane sits on your bench, mocking you. You’ve done everything right—according to every video, every forum post, every well-intentioned uncle with a basement workshop. And still, the tool fails.
This is the moment when most woodworkers make a critical error. We assume the problem is in the last place we looked. We assume the blade is the culprit, so we sharpen it again. Or we assume the iron is bad, so we buy a fancy new one. Or we assume the plane itself is cheap junk, so we buy another—vintage, this