Guidelines Not Tramlines
Old thoughts may not be current
In many ways, in daily life generally, we unquestioningly adopt practices most of which make life run smoothly and efficiently. I suppose I’m talking about schedules, protocols and methods mostly. Part of the smooth flowing of life relies on interruptions. Those periodic stop signs, yield and give way signs interspersed throughout the day that disallow the passage of one to facilitate the crossflow of another.
Laying the plane on its side meant kids took an extra second or two to more thoughtfully place it, and of course it warranted some kind of physical punishment like a tweaked ear or a swatting if you didn’t obey the rule. Thankfully we’ve mobilised people to move on from there and we’ve adopted a more adult approach.
When you know your benchtop, where and how you want to place your tools ready for continued pick up and put down, you are in total control and there is no need for archaic practices any more.
There are of course exceptions to the rules. If I am fitting a door at someone’s house and the ground around my work area is concrete or gravel, I lay the plane on its side, naturally.
Rules are not meant to be broken as some smart Alecks say, just reconsidered and changed according to circumstances as and if necessary.
In teaching woodworkers to sharpen their tools it’s often the same, that people hone and grind bevels without really thinking through the reality of what they are doing. 25-degree grinding angles, 30-degree secondary or nowadays micro-bevel. Tosh! No, not really. If that’s a step to learning then it’s just fine, but then, often, we postpone mastery with tramlines that regulate rather than lead to new freedoms. I see how attitudes have permeated the woodworking world all the more and how unprepared people are to actually take risks with regards to sharpening practices. Take for instances the business of bevels to chisels and then plane irons too in some cases. In my world of hand tool woodworking I chop wood with a chisel using either a chisel hammer or a mallet. I might use them interchangeably. I also pare wood with only hand and arm pressure. Mostly I do both using the same chisel ground to the same angle. Now when I say ground I don’t mean on a grinding wheel but a coarse diamond plate.
In my garage workshop I may not use a plane for a week or two. I use on e or two triangular sticks to lift the planes off a surface where they are stowed. That way no damp gets between the sole and the surface to cause a rusting climate.
So we see that jigs for routers are merely the tramlines of rigid steerage with zero tolerance and mostly they are used to displace the need for skilled workmanship.
Reference the so called rule of laying your plane on its side. I purchased a Stanley No.4 (my first ever plane of any type) back in the mid eighties. It had the plastic tote and knob. The Stanley instruction manual that I still have has a bullet point list on page 8 headed “8. Proffessional Tips And Maintenance” and the 13th (out of 14) bullet points says “To protect the cutter, lay plane on side when not in use”. Seems that even Stanley at that time had adopted that ‘schoolboy’ rule. Until I came across Paul Sellers I admit I had adopted that procedure.
As regards rules in general I am reminded of a quote attributed to the famous and often (single minded) RAF fighter Ace Douglas Bader who was supposed to have said, “Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men”.
This blog is often less about woodworking than it is about rules for life! I love these little pearls of wisdom that land with sparkling regularity. More power to your elbow!
The great thing about Principles, as opposed to Rules, is that they apply everywhere, for everything, and every time.
“Treat your tools with care and respect”.
Rules, in contrast, require to be unique, detailed, specific, caveated and excepted.
Teach correct principles & let people govern themselves! in today’s world with ISO9000 & other standards the plane would have to be placed consistently on either its side or bottom. Any variation would result in violation of standards.
Thanks Paul for giving perspective to a unforgiving world.
My dad, a little older than you, griped about putting a plane face down on the wood. I explained your thoughts which helped. Also, how to we orient the plane when using it? It is blade down on wood and no one gets bend out of shape when using it that way. If good for removing wood that way, how can it really be bad just sitting there?
In a different hobby, I have seen similar dogma develop and fastidious attention to details that don’t matter. In that hobby, I started doing it in 1978 and didn’t go out to the internet and discover forums until 2008. I had a pretty good feel how to do things by that point and some of the stuff I saw was surprising and defied 30 years of practical experience I had. I think it is by those who like you aptly pointed out in one of your videos it’s people “who are using their heads about something rather than their hands.”
The good news is that with woodworking, I pretty much only listen to you as you have been doing it for 50+ years. I will take your lifetime of experience over just about anything else.
I really like tip of lifting them off the bench for long durations to avoid. I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you. I will likely use some of the various pencils I have laying about to elevate it.
The problem, as I see it, is that the wrong rules are espoused. The rule is not “Lay the plane on the side,” or, “Lay the plane on the front,” but “Protect the plane blade from unnecessary damage.” The effect of the real rule is that sometimes it is right to lay the plane on the side and sometimes it is right to lay it on its face.
This is the root of many disagreements and I believe if we take the time to understand people’s statements that we can discover the basic rule that must guide us.