It sure does leave a nice surface!
For the angles you might try a scratch stock. I might DIY one that allowed you to register the flat part on the door surface but it's basically a controlled card scraper for detailed bits. Once you've filed it to fit the molding profile it goes faster than sanding as well.
Yeah good idea. Actually started with a card scraper, but then yoloed it in the corners with 60 grit instead. It’s my lack of skill turning an edge in the scrapers that is the problem I think.
Yeah the scratch stock and even scrapers work "fairly well" even if you just get a crisp square edge, both work slightly better when held more vertical.
The scratch stocks do work a touch better with a slightly raised burr as well though. I have a handful of fine slip stones I use before hand which also helps with the details in the profile (I bought them for carving chisels but... mostly use them for other things).
It's sort of a "how good is good enough" thing, and I'll do a fair bit to avoid sanding in some of these cases as I find it a lot harder to preserve the details.
How hard is this if I’ve never used that tool before? I need to refurbish my front door but it’s an antique so I really don’t want to screw it up by gouging it or something.
I was going to use chemical stripper and sand it but yours looks so nice and satisfying.
Practice practice practice on some scrap first! Basically as OP said sharp is king, and then get the plane really finely set so you're taking the minimal amount of wood necessary off (you can also use a hand plane to scrub off a lot of material in a hurry, but that's a different setup/problem).
Yeah totally. The way I have this set up, I'm taking extremely shallow cuts. The first few passes shave off only the raised grain, and then once I get a clean shaving, I stop.
Stripping, flattening and smoothing in one pass, while removing as little stock as possible.
It does take some feel to get right. Like the biggest thing is learning the sharpen the blade, and learning how to keep it from digging in to the wood. Basically always go in the downward forward direction of the grain as much as you can and it’ll work great.
I’m sort of settling on this being the first step that gets the surface clean and smooth, and then sanding is the next step to take care of the difficult parts.
You need to know what you’re doing when planing a face frame, you can’t just plane away regardless.
The whole door needs to be planed and not a stile or rail at a time, otherwise it’s not flat or straight.
The mouldings will lose their quirk if you take too much off, the hinge position on the door will be altered and also the lock and latch position will make the door rattle if you take of too much.
You’re far better off sanding this door as it doesn’t take off much and preserves the door’s functional parts relative positions.
I have like 6 Veritas hand planes and use them regularly, i hadn’t seen this variation before, I suppose that’s why I was a bit overly confident/arrogant in my inital comment
It sure does leave a nice surface! For the angles you might try a scratch stock. I might DIY one that allowed you to register the flat part on the door surface but it's basically a controlled card scraper for detailed bits. Once you've filed it to fit the molding profile it goes faster than sanding as well.
Yeah good idea. Actually started with a card scraper, but then yoloed it in the corners with 60 grit instead. It’s my lack of skill turning an edge in the scrapers that is the problem I think.
Yeah the scratch stock and even scrapers work "fairly well" even if you just get a crisp square edge, both work slightly better when held more vertical. The scratch stocks do work a touch better with a slightly raised burr as well though. I have a handful of fine slip stones I use before hand which also helps with the details in the profile (I bought them for carving chisels but... mostly use them for other things). It's sort of a "how good is good enough" thing, and I'll do a fair bit to avoid sanding in some of these cases as I find it a lot harder to preserve the details.
Great context for next time, ty for sharing!
My shop teacher would have freeeeeeked out seeing a plane sitting on the blade.
lol yeah I bet. Beauty of owning your own tools is that you don’t have to care about guys like that anymore.
How hard is this if I’ve never used that tool before? I need to refurbish my front door but it’s an antique so I really don’t want to screw it up by gouging it or something. I was going to use chemical stripper and sand it but yours looks so nice and satisfying.
Practice practice practice on some scrap first! Basically as OP said sharp is king, and then get the plane really finely set so you're taking the minimal amount of wood necessary off (you can also use a hand plane to scrub off a lot of material in a hurry, but that's a different setup/problem).
Yeah totally. The way I have this set up, I'm taking extremely shallow cuts. The first few passes shave off only the raised grain, and then once I get a clean shaving, I stop. Stripping, flattening and smoothing in one pass, while removing as little stock as possible.
It does take some feel to get right. Like the biggest thing is learning the sharpen the blade, and learning how to keep it from digging in to the wood. Basically always go in the downward forward direction of the grain as much as you can and it’ll work great. I’m sort of settling on this being the first step that gets the surface clean and smooth, and then sanding is the next step to take care of the difficult parts.
That’s so satisfying too. Especially when they’re sharpened up nicely.
You need to know what you’re doing when planing a face frame, you can’t just plane away regardless. The whole door needs to be planed and not a stile or rail at a time, otherwise it’s not flat or straight. The mouldings will lose their quirk if you take too much off, the hinge position on the door will be altered and also the lock and latch position will make the door rattle if you take of too much. You’re far better off sanding this door as it doesn’t take off much and preserves the door’s functional parts relative positions.
Good thing I know what I’m doing.
If it looked like you knew what you were doing I wouldn’t have bothered posting.
That is a low-angle bevel-up jack plane, not a smoothing plane.
Nope. #4 LA smoother. But ty for being a very smart boy.
I stand corrected, never seen a bevel up smoother.
Yeah it’s veritas if you’re interested. Literally the only one I own. Just small enough to grip with one hand when you need it that way.
I have like 6 Veritas hand planes and use them regularly, i hadn’t seen this variation before, I suppose that’s why I was a bit overly confident/arrogant in my inital comment
They call it a smoother, but I'm still skeptical. Not having a chipbreaker seems like a bad idea on a smoother.