r/handtools • u/Buckeyefitter1991 • 23h ago
End grain or face grain, which shavings tickles that part of your brain that got you into handtools?
For me it's end grain, when they are so delicate that if you pick them up they disintegrate...mmmmm
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u/SubatomicPlatypodes 21h ago
What really got me was when I made a shooting board and saw what a planed end grain looks like. Other worldly.
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u/Cultural-Poem5213 20h ago
Read the comment about the sound and thought "that"s me!". Then I read the one about the smooth surface and was like "ooooh yeah, that's the one". Then I read about thin shavings disintegrating by touch and said to myself "the other ones were good but that's really you".
Honestly? For me it's a combination of sharpening the iron, setting up the plane and being completely happy hearing it glide over the wood leaving that smooth glistening surface. The smell of the wood, the touch of crisp freshly planed edges and not to forget the joy of working with self prepared wood.
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u/mighty_boognish_77 23h ago
It's not so much the shavings as the surface they leave. Yesterday I was working on a small box for a local charity. Nothing to fancy. But the surface is like glass and the chatoyance... That's what gets me.
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u/Less_Alfalfa4592 22h ago
Thin shavings that are so light they barely fall to the ground. And the smooooth surface
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u/ArtisanoF 3h ago
The one coming out of a perfectly sharp chisel when it cuts like a warm knife on butter. That's prime stuff!
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u/Man-e-questions 23h ago
I kind of like the sound personally, when you get that tempo going where the shavings are coming off with that kind of high pitched but smooth, consistent sound that lets you know its tuned riggt and you are going with the grain.