How To Adjust A Hand Wood Planer

Passion for wood furniture requires the right tool in making one like a hand wood planer. How can you easily make a smooth surface and adjust the wood’s thickness if you don’t have this, right? That is why it is essential to have this and to know how to adjust a hand wood planer. If you already have this, keep browsing to know how to adjust it.

What Are Hand Wood Planer For?

When it comes to woodworking, hand wood planer is one of the most important tools. If you can’t imagine how try to think of cooking without salt. Yes, food can be cooked without the use of salt, but the taste would be different. Hand wood planer helps us get a smoother surface in our workpiece by scraping the rough parts. It can also help if flattening a wood to reduce its thickness based on what you need. With a simple push and pull on the surface, the attached cutting blade will help you do the work! They are ideal to use in our DIY projects like your customized table, chair, cases, cabinet, in making treehouse, or anything that requires shaping in woods. They are versatile and useful that is why we need them. But the question is how to adjust a hand wood planer? Let us learn the different types of hand wood planers and how to adjust them.

How to Adjust a Hand Wood Planer

Different Types of Hand Wood Planer

The first thing you need to know on how to adjust a wooden hand plane is the types of hand wood planer. They may look similar to the other, don’t get confused because they are made for a specific purpose. Adjusting them requires the same process. But to help you understand the difference of each, here is the simple comparison below:

a. Joiner Plane

This type of hand wood planer is commonly used by traditional woodworkers. It will help you achieve a flat and straight longboard. In terms of appearance, you can easily identify it because it has a distinctive curved cutting edge and looks like an open mouth. It generally measures 18 to 24 –inches long.

b. Jack Plane

This type of hand wood planer is the commonly used type in the world of carpentry or furniture making. It is ideal for board edges and the majority in planning. In terms of size, it is usually 12 to 15-inches long.

c. Smooth Plane

This type of hand wood planer is similar to the function of the Jack Plane. Remember that their only difference is the size. If jack plane measures 12 to 15-inches long, a smooth plane is smaller for it only measures 7 to 10-inches long.

Turn It Upside Down

The next step on how to adjust a hand wood plane is by turning it upside down. This position will help you see if the blade or plane iron is leveled. If not, this means you need to do the next step to straighten or level it properly.

Time to Work with Your Hammer

Feel and see if the blade is properly leveled, that’s how to adjust a hand wood planer. You can do this by slighting hammering it to the side where it is off. Don’t insert too much force, gentle tapping with your hammer will help you level the iron.

Try It

After tapping it with your hammer, you can see if it is effective by trying it. Get a scrap wood and use it. This will help you decide with the type of shaving that you need for your workpiece. So how to adjust a hand wood planer? Try it first!

Set it

The last and most important process on how to adjust a hand wood planer is your choice of depth cut. This time you need to adjust it based on your need. Like, should it be finer or deeper in cut? Hit the front of the plane gently with a hammer or mallet, if the blade goes out a little that means you’re ready to get finer shaves. If you need a deeper cut, just tap it again gently to adjust the blade. Remember, the more visible the blade, the deeper it will cut. If you’re done with that, check if the blade is leveled correctly. If not, adjust it by tapping on the side again. Then try it and see the difference.

Conclusion 

In working, we different types of tools to make precise cut, details, to make a plausible finish. Wood doesn’t come in equal sizes, that is why we need tools like hand planer to help us adjust their size to our liking and need. Cutting with precision and instant smooth surface is what we can get with a hand planer.

That is why they are essential. It is not enough for us to know how to operate it but also how to adjust a hand wood planer. Knowing how to adjust it will help you create a more meaningful pieces and express your thoughts through woodworking. Now that you learned how, you can work faster and avoid the guesswork. Have fun creating and celebrate your work of art every day!

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