(power tool sounds) – Now look, any power tool
that makes a loud noise, spits out copious amounts of sawdust, and has a razor-sharp
cutting blade that spins at a terrifying 10 to
16,000 revs per minute can be a little scary for the novice or beginner woodworker or handyman. And rightfully so because
if not used correctly they can be very dangerous
and inflict a nasty injury, which is the last thing that we want. Good day folks, Uncle Knackers here and in today's confidence
building beginner's tutorial, we'll be looking at one of the
handiest tools in the shop, the electric planer. Now, before we plough ahead
and start using a planer I think a quick anatomy
lesson might be in order. Now, basically the planer
is a very simple tool. All we have, if we turn it over is the cutting head down here. There's the blades and this
spins around very rapidly. So make sure you keep your
fingers away from that.
And for the record, I'm not plugged in. Now, this section here
is called the front shoe, which is adjustable and this is the rear shoe which is fixed. And this little thing
here is called a foot and that prevents the blades from coming in contact with the surface after you've finished your cut as you can see here, and that
just protects your blades and also the surface from
any unnecessary damage. Now, the knob that you see on top of your planer is used to
adjust the depth of your cut. If you turn it clockwise like that, your cut will be deeper. If you turn it anti-clockwise that will reduce the depth of your cut. Now, most planers have
this little black knob on the front here, and that's used to secure in place an edge fence, which is this thing here. So the edge fence just goes into that hole or slot on the side. And then you simply tighten
up the little black knob to secure in place. Now the edge fence that's
used for doing step cuts like rabbets, rebates, ship
lapping, and stuff like that.
Now you'll also see that
on a lot of edge fences they'll come with extra holes. Now, the reason for them is so
you can secure a longer piece of wood to that for a more controlled cut. Now, if we just quickly turn
the machine over, you'll notice that on that front shoe,
there's a V shaped cut into the base. Now that's for doing a chamfering type cut and I'll show you how to do that a bit later on in the video.
And finally on the handle, we have the switch that
turns the machine on or off. Now, you'll also noticed
this little black button here which is a safety switch,
and that pushes in and out. Now, if that button isn't pushed in, the trigger won't operate, push the button in and suddenly you're good to go. Now as with using any power
tools, safety is very important. So do yourself a favour
and wear some hearing and some eye protection. Good stuff. Now, before you start planing if you have any loose clothing, like my floppy old shirt
make sure it's all tucked in. Even if it shows off your big fat gut, don't be too self-conscious.
It's just that power
tools and loose clothing are not a good idea. Next up, get yourself nice and balanced. Stand in front of the piece
that you're working on with your feet apart. Not all the way back here that's bad. Stand in front so that you
feel comfortable and relaxed throughout the entire pass. Now, the first thing we need to do is to secure the piece
that we're about to plane either by placing it into
a vise like I have here or by clamping it down
by some other method. And I've got a couple of really
cool tips on how to do that which I'll demonstrate a
bit later on in the video. So make sure you stay tuned for that. Now, the reason for clamping
this piece down is that you don't want that to move
during the planing process.
Now with all those preliminaries sorted it's time to start planing. And all you need to do is to
place that front shoe flat on the piece that you're wanting to plane, making sure that the cutting
head with all those blades doesn't come in contact with the work. And also letting you know
that I'm not plugged in as this is just going to be an initial unpowered demonstration run. So with the front shoe
sitting nice and flat and having those blades clear of the work start the planer up.
Wait until it reaches full speed and then ease the plane
into contact with the work and push it steadily forward. Now, one good thing to remember is that as the planer
enters the work piece, it's a great idea to have more
pressure on the front handle than the back handle. And the reason for that is that as the planer hits the work piece, if you have more pressure
on that back handle, there's nothing under here to support it.
So what happens is the planer comes up and it tends to tilt and it does this. (knocking sound) – And that creates a big gouge there, which is never very nice. Now with that base plate
almost fully supported it's okay to go ahead and apply even pressure to both handles. Now just ease your way along the piece until you get close to the end and then you apply more
pressure to the back handle than the front handle.
And the reason for that is
that if you're applying too much pressure to the front handle, as the planer goes over
the end, it tilts down causing a gouge, also known as a snipe. So what you really need to do is as you're approaching the end, it's almost like a plane taking off, get close, and then just slightly lift. Too easy. Beautiful. Now just very quickly as
you probably already know, a planer is generally used by a carpenter.
And since we're talking about carpenters, world's worst segue. What did the duck say to the carpenter? Quack quack. Because, well, it's a duck. That's what ducks do. Don't speak English as far as I know. So yeah. Got work on those jokes. They're getting worse! – Now, one of the big
secrets when it comes to a successful planing job is to do it in small increments. Say for instance, we want to cut from the
top of this piece of wood down to that black line. Do that in five or six passes
rather than one big hit. And you'll finish up
with a more controlled and precise finish. Now earlier on in the video, we talked about this front shoe and how it had that V shape cut into it. That's for doing a chamfering type cut. Now, if you give me a couple of seconds, I'll show you how to use it.
Now, the purpose for the chamfer also known as an arris cut is to put an angle on the piece of wood that you're working on, like a fence post or veranda post. And all you need to do is to place that V on the base plate onto the edge of the piece of wood. That locks the planer in place. And then just simply tilt the
planer to your desired angle. And then away you go. – And as you can see here we've achieved a couple
of different profiles just by altering the tilt
or the angle of the planer. Now, like I said earlier it's really important when
you're planing on a piece of wood to have it nice and secure, by placing it in a vise like I have here, but what if you don't have a vise? Well, I've got three really cool tips that you might want to try.
Make yourself a jig like I have here out of an old piece of wood, which you just simply clamp
down to the work bench. Now, if you want to make one of these I'll leave a link to a
PDF, which you can download down below. – Once your jig is clamped down and secure all you need to do is to
get your piece of wood place it inside that V it's locked in and you're good to go. The next two tips involve
the use of a pipe clamp. And all this is, is a couple of fittings placed on the end of a length of pipe. They are unbelievably
simple and fantastic to use. And you're only limited by the
length of pipe that you have.
Now the first cool thing we're going to do with our pipe clamp is to
make our own homemade vise. So all I've done is I've attached a length of wood or timber to the
top of the workbench, and then down below I've attached it to the leg of the workbench. And then I've gone ahead and made a duplicate copy of that piece there. Now you don't need to
use any fancy material scrap woods fine. Then I drilled a hole,
the same size as the pipe through both pieces at exactly the same height. Now, when you drill your hole just make sure that you give enough room beneath the bench for the clamp to fit. And then all you need to do
is just simply place the pipe through those two holes. And then around the back,
we need to attach our clamp. Now, this is a bit tricky because
I can't see what I'm doing without getting in the way of the camera. But we'll give it a go. There we go. Now we're going to slide
that pipe through like that.
Then we just side on our
front clamp, just like that. And we're good to go. And then all you need to do is to place your length of timber in the vise. You'll also need a second piece the same thicknesses as that just to even out the pressure,
so we'll put him down there. And then we can tighten the
vise as tight as you like, it doesn't matter. Look at this, this is amazing. Tighten that up. And there we have this
is as solid as a rock. Love it. Now the second pipe clamp
method is just as cool.
And all you need to do is to drill a hole into your work bench, slide the pipe in and then beneath we'll
attach the other fitting. And then all you need do is to place the piece you're
working on under that clamp, tighten it up and check this out. That is unbelievably strong. How good is that? Now just in case you're
possibly interested in buying a set of pipe clamp fittings. I'll leave a link to some down below so you can check them out there.
Now, word of warning,
don't buy cheap ones. They are rubbish. Now just a couple of quick
tips regarding planer blades. And that is tip number one,
planar blades and nails aren't good friends. Now, if you're like me, I work with a lot of reclaimed wood or timber,
which means lots of nails. Now what I use is one of
these rare earth magnets. They're incredibly strong magnets and I use these to detect nails for me. So if you push it along
the wood or the timber… (click) Bang, it's found a nail. Now that one was visible, so that's quite easy but this one here has been
broken off and punched down. So watch this come along… Bang it's found that nail. That why I can dig that out and then plane to my heart's content without worry of damaging the blades.
Now, when your blade does get a bit dull and they do over time, you'll find that most
blades are double sided which means that once this side wears out you can simply turn the blade
around and use that side. Now I reckon that deserves
a "great tip Knackers!" Now, if you want to see more videos like the one you just watched, make sure you check out
my favourite power tool tutorial playlist. Which should be popping up
over there anytime soon. Hope to see you there shortly.
I'm off for a cup of tea, cheers..