Tag: woodworking

World’s Longest Yard Sale: US127 Corridor

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools19 Comments

My wife and I just returned from a five-day excursion on the The World’s Longest Yard Sale down US 127. The yard sale runs every year during the first weekend of August from Michigan down to Alabama. Last Wednesday, my wife Anita rented a Ford F-250 cargo van and we headed down to Chattanooga TN to spend the night. We picked up 127 around the Kentucky Tennessee border stopping at multiple yard sales running all the way to our hotel in Chattanooga. The next day we started heading up 127 back home.

Anita was looking for old furniture to fix up as well as things she could sell in her booth. I was looking for antique tools. We traveled over 1200 miles in five days traveling from Chattanooga, TN to Castine, OH and had an absolute blast. Nothing more fun than the thrill of the hunt. We ran into a little trouble at the top of Tennessee though. It was around 7:00 pm and we didn’t have a hotel booked. We drove all the way to Danville, KY hoping that a hotel on US 127 would have a room but they were all booked. We ended up driving all the way to Lexington, KY to find a room. The next day we got up and had a nice breakfast in neat little restaurant and headed back to Danville, KY to continue up US 127.

I picked up mostly a bunch of planes, some of them needing major cleaning, with a few miter boxes near the end of the trip. What’s amazing about my finds is that most of the planes I had bought had corrugated bottoms. I wasn’t specifically looking for corrugated planes but when I turned over a plane I was interested in, its bottom was corrugated. Twelve of the fifteen planes were that way. Amazing since corrugated planes are not as common as flat bottom planes in the market.

This is the shot of the bottoms of the planes with nearly all of them being corrugated. It’ll take a while but every one of these planes will be cleaned up and ready to be put back to use.

Near Danville, KY I ran into a guy selling a trailer full of cherry hardwood. I couldn’t buy the whole trailer but I did manage to pick up one of his slabs. This piece is 2″ x 16″ x 100″ and the offer was too good for me to pass up. Does anybody want to guess what I paid for this slab of cherry? Post a comment and I’ll let you know.

A Day at the Auction

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools5 Comments

My wife and I went to an auction today in Germantown, OH. I saw the auction listed on Auctionzip.com last night and noticed they had some tools listed. They also had a few pieces of furniture that my wife was interested in so we headed out in the morning. This is what I won, but I didn’t want most of this junk.

When we got there, I bid on a couple of boxes of auger bits. I won each lot paying $5.00 for one and $12.00 for the other one, so I was happy with that. They’re both complete but I’m not too sure that some of the augers are original but I do have some extras.

A few minutes later I won a measuring wheel. I’ve seen Roy Underhill use one of these on The Woodwright’s Shop one time and thought it was neat enough to buy. I believe these were mainly used by blacksmiths for measuring. They had a lot of blacksmith tools for sale there so I figured it went with all the other stuff.

As the auction moved down the tables, I had my eye on a Spear & Jackson back saw. It looked in pretty good shape with split saw nuts and a small bend in the blade which is typical for old saws. I waited patiently for about 45 minutes as the auctioneer was approaching the saw. When he got to the table his helper was moving items toward him. Once he got to the saw, the helper grabbed a bunch of other junk and pushed it to the auctioneer. I got pissed because I just wanted to bid on the saw and not have to compete against other bidders for the stuff he put with it.

Luckily no one else really wanted the saw or the crap that went with it as I won the lot for $15.00. After I won, my wife grabbed a box and threw everything in it and I took it to the truck. Walking to the truck I peaked in the box out of curiosity to see what else I won.

As I said, most of it was junk. I won an old hammer, a sickle of some sort, an assortment of hog ringers, oil can, saws, wire brush, an old blue tool box, pruners, an axe, and a cigar box. I’ll throw the hog ringers in the tool box and sell them on eBay as one lot. As far as the rest, I may just throw them in the garbage with the exception of the axe and wire brush.

When I looked in the cigar box, it was filled with old cut nails which was a pleasant surprise. While I have never used cut nails in the past, it’s nice to know that I now have them in case I plan to make a proper antique reproduction. I thought about selling them on eBay but they only go for about $10/lb, so screw it, I’ll keep them.

As far as my wife and her bids on furniture, she got skunked as everything she was remotely interested in went too high. I too got skunked on the planes that were at the auction. Most of them went for more than I was willing to pay but that is how the game is played.

Early Taylor Bar Clamps

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools19 Comments

Every 4th of July I travel to Adams County, OH to attend an antique tool auction held by the Amish. It’s been something I’ve been doing for the past fifteen years and it has become a tradition for me as something I always looked forward to all year. Every year I would come home with a ton of tools I picked up at a bargain hoping to make a little cash selling them on eBay. It started to decline the past couple of years and I was afraid it might end as the tools weren’t much to choose from and the quality of them were lacking. Well with the economy in the tank and $4 gas hitting the streets, the auction didn’t happen this year.

Bummed out, my wife asked if I wanted to go to an antique mall on the other side of Cincinnati and look around. We go there from time to time as she looks for things to sell in her booth. I rarely if ever find tools so I wasn’t too optimistic finding anything.

After we arrived, I spotted these clamps on the floor of a booth. They intrigued me because while I’ve seen old clamps before, I’ve never seen a clamping action like these. They worked off a cam action from the handle. As you pull the handle up, the shell shaped curve pushes the pad out. I debated getting them because old bar clamps are not very collectible and I really didn’t need them. Plus they were $22.00 a piece. But my wife said if I wanted them I should get them because the next time we were here, they’d be gone. So I used my wife’s 10% vendor discount and picked them up.

These are clamps after I dipped them in citric acid/water mix and cleaned the rust off with steel wool. The clamping range is about 20″. I thought it was a little odd that they weren’t designed to hold 24″ between center but I guess the inventor had his reasons.

Here’s the detail of the handle. You can see how the pad gets pushed out as the handle is raised. It’s simplicity is what makes the design so beautiful.

You can clearly see “The Taylor” on the face. I googled “taylor clamp co” and came up with www.jamesltaylor.com a manufacturer of mass production clamping and gluing machines. After I cleaned the rust off the bar I could faintly see the “The Taylor Manufacturing Co, Poughkeepsie, NY” so these clamps are obviously there’s. However, I was left with a big question.

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On the jaw there was a patent date of Jan 2, 1900. On the Taylor website they claim that the company was founded in 1911. How were these clamps patented in 1900 while James Taylor didn’t start his company until 1911? obviously John Taylor must have been a sole proprietorship for a few years tinkering around with designs before developing the typical design used today. Are these clamps some sort of prototypes or first edition models?

You can faintly see the logo “The Taylor” in an oval logo very similar to the Taylor logo used today. John must have simplified his logo when he incorporated in 1911. I looked all over their website the to see if they mention these style of clamps with no luck. I even tried searching the US Patent office on the internet for more information but came up empty.

James L. Taylor Manufacturing Co. Inc logo used today.

While the origins of these clamps remains a mystery, the real question is how do they perform? The answer is amazingly well. While they may not provide as much torque as typical bar clamps, they are extremely quick and easy to use. Where they excel is in gluing up cabinetry where you need speed on your side. Simply put the clamp around the stock and pull the handle up. I clamped a piece of wood to my workbench and tried moving it with no luck. They hold rock solid.

Another advantage with these clamps is they would appeal with people with arthritis. Often the screw handle on regular clamps can be tough to tighten with people who suffer from arthritis. With these clamp, they can easily tighten them up. There may be a real market for these clamps being manufactured and sold today as woodworkers are getting older every year. Hmmm….

Modern Moxen Vise

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn WorkshopLeave a comment

A few months ago I wrote about how I attached a Micro Fence to my Bosch Colt plunge router. The link is below:

http://wp.me/p1gfza-cD

The tool works great but I wished I had some sort of guide system to make routing tenons even easier. Then one day as I was cleaning up my shop, I came across a Popular Woodworking magazine I had stashed away. The issue was from Oct, 2012 and in it was an article about making an improved Moxon vise the writer called Gizmozilla. When I saw it I thought to myself “oh yeah, I forgot about that thing”. I stashed it away because I was planning on making it some day and since that I had the Colt plunge router, now would be a perfect time.

The writer of the article, Kenneth Speed, used maple to laminate a beam that was 3 1/2″ square by 4 feet long. I knew that was a little too big for me since I was using a small trim router instead of a big plunge router, so I milled a 4×4 to 2 1/2″ x 3″ x 3′ long.

I then built the trough system that would guide my Micro Fence fence. This was the most difficult part of the project because I needed to make sure that the trough of my fence was loose enough for my router to move freely, but not too loose that it would create slack completely defeating the purpose of using the Micro Fence. After a couple of attempts, I had the right thickness to make it work.

I then had to route a couple of grooves in the beam to accept T-tracks that I bought from Rockler. Those things didn’t come cheap as I paid nearly $20 a piece for them but I wanted to have adjustable stop blocks the same way Kenneth had. I also attached feet to the ends by laminating a couple of 3/4″ scrap plywood together. I have a couple of holes drilled through my workbench about four feet apart so I can hold the fixture to my bench with a couple of hold fasts.

Kenneth used store-bought knobs to hold the stops tight to the fixture but, I wanted to try to make my own so I grabbed some scrap maple, a 1 1/4″ hole saw, and drilled out six plugs to create little knobs.

Once the plugs were cut, I traced around a 1/4″ nut with a pencil and gently carved out the inside with a 1/4″ chisel.

After the area was all carved out, I inserted a nut and shaved three sides of the circle on my disc sander to create a soft triangular-shaped knob. Once all six knobs were made, I used some five-minute epoxy and glued the nut inside the knob so it wouldn’t slip out during use. The bolts that they are threaded to are nothing more than 1/4″ carriage bolts with modified squared off heads to pass through the T-track.

Kenneth used Jorgensen hold-down clamps and a fancy caul system to hold the wood to the fixture however, I wanted to keep the fixture as simple (and cheap) as possible so I simply use a couple of Jorgensen F-style clamps to hold the wood to the fixture.

Everything looks good but I needed to see how well it worked. I took a couple of pieces of scrap wood and placed a loose tenon over the joint and marked where I wanted the tenon.

I transferred those marks around the edges of the wood so I could then gauge where the router needed to cut. I also marked the “face” on each piece so I knew in which direction the piece needed to be place on the fixture so that the face of the boards would line up evenly.

I set the stop blocks where they needed to be and made a test cut while placing the face of the work piece on the inside of the fixture. Everything looked good on both pieces and fitted together nicely. This joint was super fast and easy to create!

The beautiful thing about using the Micro Fence is that if I do need a thicker tenon, I simply use the brass stops on the sliding bar of the fence to limit the travel of the router on the Y axis.

I now have accurate three-dimensional cutting availabilty using this fixture. The fence stops act as the X axis, the Micro Fence guide rails act as the Y axis, and the plunge router base acts as the Z axis.

Much like Kenneth’s Gizmozilla, the fixture can be used as a regular Moxon vise for cutting dovetails by hand or with a power router when I use my Keller Dovetail System.

This was a super simple fixture to make and it has already been very useful in my shop building a couple of outdoor benches. I’m sure it will be the most valuable jig/fixture I have ever made.

Is Wood Magazine Going Shabby Chic?

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture2 Comments

I received the latest issue of Wood magazine yesterday and noticed a project on the cover that I had seen before but with a different twist. They showed an entry bench made from an oak door. I recognized the project because I’ve seen it done a few times before but only with an old door that was repainted.

The style is called shabby chic and is very popular among women. The idea is to take old items, commonly referred to as “junk”, and repurpose them into modern hip accessories or furniture for your home. There are thousands of websites and blogs as well as a number of magazines that focus on the shabby chic style. There are even a couple of TV shows where the hosts’ buy old items and use them as design elements around the home. Below are some old shabby chic doors repurposed into benches.

 

 

This one is very similar to Wood magazine’s cover photo.

I know all about the shabby chic style from wife Anita. She has a business called Bella Chic Decor where she finds old pieces of furniture and paints them with chalk paint to give them an old worn look. Sometimes she’ll ask me to repurpose an item she bought into something more useful. In fact, I wrote a blog about repurposing an old door into a headboard a few months ago.

https://mvflaim.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/turning-a-headboard-into-a-bed/

I don’t have any problem with shabby chic stuff even though it’s really not my cup of tea as it tends to be very femine. You may not be crazy about it either, but chances are your wife, sister, or daughter probably likes it. It’s all the rage these days and offers a cheap alternative from buying mass-produced laminated press board crap that you’ll find in retail stores. Often old antique furniture is solidly built, but just needs to be updated a little bit to fit with the modern decor of homes.

When my wife saw the cover of the magazine she asked, “why didn’t they just use an old door”? That’s a good question. The editors at Wood magazine estimated the cost of building the bench at $375. One could buy an old door on Craigslist for about $20.00, use poplar hardwood and birch plywood to build the sides, paint everything a neutral color, and end up spending about $100 for nearly the same look.

I can imagine the editors of Wood magazine sitting around in a meeting room asking each other if they should just use an old door and paint it. They probably realized that woodworkers love wood grain and consider painted furniture sacrilege. In fact in the first paragraph of the article, they mention that one could make this project using an old door from a salvage yard. It’s just a shame that they didn’t show a picture of a bench made from an old door to give the reader an idea of how it looks.

Restoring a molding plane

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools12 Comments

I’m constantly buying old molding planes at local auctions. I can usually pick them up for a song since they really don’t attract much interest from tool collectors. They come in various forms and sizes but the most common in the marketplace are hollows & rounds and beading planes. This plane is a cove and bead. A sweet little plane that is useful for adding little detail moldings on cabinets.

This plane is overall in good shape, just a little dirty and neglected. But a little elbow grease and a citric acid bath, it will tune up in no time.

The blade has some surface rust but no serious pitting. I dipped it in a citric acid solution which contained a tablespoon of citric acid with five cups of warm water. My trough is nothing more than a scrap piece of plastic gutter with an end cap glued to each end. It works well and hasn’t leaked in the past three years.

After the blade sat in the solution for a few hours, I scrubbed it clean with a piece of steel wool and washed it off in the sink. I then sharpened the back by lapping it on some water stones.

As far as the body, I didn’t do too much. I simply wiped it with 00 and 000 steel wool then applied a couple of coats of mineral-oil/orange-oil/beeswax solution to the body and wedge. I didn’t rub steel wool on it too much as I didn’t want the plane to look new. Since it’s over a hundred years old, it should look like it’s that old but in working order.

The biggest obstacle that you’ll face tuning up a molding plane is matching the blade to the soul’s profile. After decades of the wood expanding and contracting, losing moisture and drying up, it’s not unusual for the soul to change. This plane’s blade doesn’t match up perfectly to the soul. ideally the blade should protrude equally along the soul. Since it doesn’t I have two options. One is to reshape the blade to match the plane’s soul. Or two, reshape the soul a little bit to match the blade. The first option is the best since you don’t want to weaken the soul by removing wood away but in this case, so little wood needs to be removed, that option two would be much quicker.

I needed to remove a little bit of wood by the end of the bead so I took a bastard file and shaved it down. I periodically checked the blade in the plane to make sure I had a constant protrusion along the soul. Once it did, I was done.

Next I needed to see how the plane performed. I grabbed a piece of straight grain poplar and started planing. The plane shaved off perfect shavings with no clogs.

This is how the molding would look when installed. You can see how the shadows bring out the curves of the molding. A nice little detail that adds a touch of class to cabinetry.

The plane looks nice too. It still has a nice warm dark color and plenty of patina to show off its age. I could have bought a router bit to do the same thing, but where’s the fun in that?

Adding a Micro Fence to a Bosch Colt plunge router base

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop3 Comments

After the last month of cleaning and selling a bunch of antique tools on eBay I bought last fall, I was finally able to get back in the shop. For months I’ve always had a Festool Domino on my wish list but for the nearly $1000.00 for one, I never pulled the trigger. So after cleaning out my router cabinet one day, I came across the Micro Fence I bought about ten years ago collecting dust. I bought it for my Porter Cable laminate trimmer and had intended to use it for inlay work. Needless to say I never used the damn thing as I don’t do inlay work. So I got the idea of using it with a Colt plunge router base for routing mortises for loose tenon joinery.

The first thing I had to do was retro fit the jig to work with the plunge router base. I had to custom make the bar that attached the base to the jig so I used a piece of scrap maple I had lying around. I went to Lowe’s and bought 7/16″ round bar stock and fitted them into the sliding section of base.

Next I threaded the rod and reamed the holes with a 7/16″ 14 TPI tap and die set. Took me a while to get that done because everywhere I looked, didn’t carry both the tap and die. I ended up buying the die at Menards and the tap at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts. A big pain in the ass.

After the base had the bar installed, I lined up the Micro Fence to the base, marked where the holes went and threaded those holes with a 5/16″ tap.

The finished piece was tight and clean with the Micro Fence able to come into full contact with the plunge router base.

I got lucky as the handle from the base was able to extend all the way down without touching any part of the Micro Fence. The distance between the handle and the brass screw is about 1/32″.

Once I got the fence to work, I quickly realized that the center hole on the base was too big to work with plunging mortises into end grain as the work piece would literally fall through the hole. So I had to buy a piece of 1/4″ acrylic plastic and make a zero clearance insert for the base.

The base worked well but the only caveat is that when routing, there is no place for the chips to escape the hole. I have to plunge a little bit, then vacuum or pry out the shavings from the hole, then deepen the cut. Not a big deal to me as I always turn off the router in between depth settings anyway.

The Micro Fence works well but thought it would be nice to add a little light so I could see what I was doing better. I stumbled upon this little book light at Half Price Books for $5.00 and hoped I could get it to work on the router.

I snapped off the piece that slides in a book, grabbed some double stick turners tape and stuck the light on the back of the router. The thing works perfectly. Like it was made for the tool. It has an easy touch on, touch off switch which makes it slick to use.

Now I just needed to put the tool to work to see how it performs.

After cutting a couple of loose tenons, I laid out where I wanted them on the piece to be mortised.

A couple of reference marks and some quick passes with the router, I got a perfect fit. I think this will quickly become one of my favorite tools. Not as slick as a Festool Domino but for the price of the plunge router base at $100 and an unused Micro Fence, I think it’s a really good bargain.

When it’s Time to Say Goodbye

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools3 Comments

When I was thirteen my Grandpa gave me this Stanley No 77 dowel making machine. I was just getting into woodworking at the time and the machine sitting on top of a cabinet in his shop caught my eye. When I asked what it did, he told me it makes dowels out of any wood you shove into the cutter. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. A few months later he ended up giving it to me and I have kept it to this day as something I would never sell.

After being diagnosed with NMO/Devic’s Disease earlier this week, I started to put things into perspective. With treatment, I should be okay but the vision loss in my left eye and the tightness in my legs and groin may never get better. Nevertheless, I realize what is truly important in life.  I think of all the tools I own and the tools I’d like to buy if I’d just had the money.

I have wanted a Apollo HVLP sprayer for the past few years but they’re about $800-1200. Not the kind of cash I have just lying around. So I keep looking at some of the tools I own but never use to help pay for the sprayer. The dowel making machine is on top of the list.

I’ve kept the dowel machine for sentimental reasons along with its cool factor. The only problem, is that I never use it. I’ve owned it for over twenty-five years, probably longer than my Grandpa, and have only played with it a few times. I really don’t think my Grandpa used it either. My Grandpa was more of a mechanic than a woodworker restoring old Model T’s when he was alive. The only time he got involved with woodworking was when he repaired the spoked wheels on the cars. I never saw dowels lying around his shop where he was cranking them out with his Stanley No 77. So why did he own it? I have no idea. Maybe he picked it up at a yard sale thinking it would come in handy someday.

It may be the very reason he gave it to me. Since he never used it, he thought with my budding woodworking aspirations that maybe I would. But I never have. I don’t use dowels all that much, and when I do, I go to the store and buy some. Even if I needed a dowel out of a certain hardwood, I could simply turn it on the lathe. Not only that, but the only cutter I have for the dowel machine is 3/8″ so I’m screwed if I need a different size. Forget about buying additional cutters for it. They run about $100 a pop and a $100 will buy a whole bunch of dowels.

Screw it, I’m done. I’m selling the machine and using the money toward a HVLP sprayer. Something that I’ll actually use. I don’t think my Grandpa would care.

Oh Boy, I Did It Again

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools2 Comments

Well I went to another antique tool auction yesterday. This one was in Jeffersonville, OH about half way between Cincy and Columbus and good deals were to be had as you can see in the photo.

I only picked up a few Stanley bench planes. After the auction I went to in Indy a couple of weeks ago, I have enough Stanley planes to last me awhile.

I’m a sucker for molding planes and these were too good of a deal to pass up. Several of them I snagged for under $10.00 each.

All the profiles of the molding planes I bought. I realize that you can make nearly every molding profile with a good set of hollow and rounds which I already have, but I can’t resist the opportunity to buy some complex molders. Some of these I’ll keep for myself, the rest I’ll sell.

I also picked up a few hand saws as well for under $5.00 a piece. Three of them were Disston thumb hole saws that are gaining popularity on eBay lately. I’ll clean them up and throw them on eBay to see what they bring.

Here’s a neat pair of shears I picked up for $6.00. I really don’t know anything about old shears and have no idea what they’re worth but my wife will stick it in her booth for sale.

A couple of sash molding planes a froe. I had a nice sash molding plane before and sold it only to regret it later so I’ll probably keep one of them. I’m definitely keeping the froe. Working green wood has always been an ambition of mine and this froe will come in handy. It looks like it was made from old leaf spring from a car.

The two scores I got were a Stanley No 141 with the fillister bed and blade and a Stanley No 603C corrugated bench plane. I may hold onto the 141 until I find some regular blades for it and then sell it.

All I know is that I’m going to be very busy for a while cleaning all the tools I bought this past month.

The Nicest Plane You’ll (Probably) Never Buy

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools23 Comments

If you’re in the market for a smooth plane, chances are you’ll probably consider one of two options. Buy a new one from a top tool-maker like Lie-Nielsen or Veritas which can set you back $200-350, or buy an old Stanley and fix it up. However there should be a third option on your list.

The Millers Falls No 9 smooth plane is one of the nicest production smooth planes you can buy for the money. In most cases, you can buy one for a lot less than a comparable Stanley No 4 plane and get the same quality of plane.

The differences between a Stanley No 4 and a Millers Falls No 9 are minimal. Both planes use 2″ wide blades. Both are about 9″ long and weigh about 4 lbs. They both have a frog adjustment screw in the back (some older Stanley’s don’t have this feature). In fact, the only main difference between the two is that the Millers Falls uses a two piece hinged lever cap that supposedly holds more pressure on the blade and chip breaker reducing blade chatter.

Both planes are about 9″ long with the Millers Falls being 1/8″ longer. If the bed is pitted a little bit it’s not a big deal as the pits won’t affect the plane’s performance. Consider them micro corrugations.

These two planes both have a frog adjustment screw in the back making it easier to adjust the opening of the mouth for the blade. Stanley’s made before 1907 don’t have this feature but I don’t think it’s a really big deal since once you set the opening of the mouth, you rarely reset it.

The handles on Millers Falls are made of beech hardwood with some older ones being made from cherry. In my experience, these are actually better than the rosewood Stanley used. Although prettier than the stained beech, a lot of Stanley’s with rosewood handles tend to break at the tip since the rosewood is more brittle than beech or cherry.

The nicest difference the Millers Falls No 9 has over the Stanley No 4 is the price you can pick one up for. Basically nobody really wants these things because all the collectors want Stanley’s. Even woodworkers when buying old tools typically gravitate toward Stanley’s more than their competitors since there are far more Stanley’s in the market place. However, if you keep a keen eye out, you can buy an old Millers Falls for about $10.00. I know because I just picked up a few Millers Falls No 9’s for $10.00 each a few weeks ago at antique shows.

As far as the price of Stanley No 4’s expect to pay $40.00 or more for a nice one since dealers will want top dollar for them. I’ve seen some mint Stanley No 4’s go for $150 on eBay.

Getting the Millers Falls No 9 cleaned up and ready to use is no different from an old Stanley. If rusty, dip the parts in citric acid for a few hours and then polish the metal to a shine with steel wool. If necessary, fettle the bed flat with 220 – 400 grit sand paper then sharpen the blade. The results will be stunning for a $10.00 plane as I was able to achieve a plane shaving of .003″ by only sharpening the blade. So thin in fact, that you can literally see through the wood shaving.

As a final note, if you’re the type of person who likes to use several smooth planes with a different cut setting, (hence the reason you don’t need to reset the blade with the frog adjustment screw), a good idea is to have a Stanley No 4 set to a medium-cut and a Millers Falls No 9 set to a fine-cut so it’s easy to determine which plane has the proper cut set to it.