394 THE YOUNG FAKMER'S MANUAL. 



of plane ridges, it must be done by taking a very thin shaving. 

 When a board is very rough, and covered with a mat of fine 

 slivers, resembling wool more than wood, which is often the case 

 with baswood and other soft woods when the boards have been 

 sawed with a dull saw, the jack-plane iron must be very sharp or 

 it will not cut these fine slivers when planing lengthways of the 

 timber. When such is the case, it will be well to try planing 

 crossways of the grain until the board is jacked off. Sometimes 

 one can cut a very thick shaving with a jack-plane, and thus take 

 off all the fine slivers at one planing much better than to cut only 

 a thin shaving. In planing hard wood, if the boards are not pretty 

 true it is best to plane crossways with the jack-plane until the 

 short-jointer or smoothing-plane can be used to plane lengthways. 

 If a board is warped, or is winding, it can usually be made 

 true more easily by planing it crossways first, and then planing 

 lengthways. In planing crossways of a board, the tyro must be 

 careful to turn up his plane or make the shaving run out just be 

 fore the cutting edge of the iron arrives at the opposite side 

 of the board; otherwise, instead of cutting a smooth shaving 

 entirely across the board, it will split a sliver from the opposite 

 corner, and mar the face of the board at the corner. In plan 

 ing off long boards, if they are a very little winding they mar 

 be dressed out winding; but when a workman intends mukimr ;;, 

 bee-hive, or chest, or nice box, the side boards and end boards must 

 not be winding. If they are dressed out winding, the whole b<-x 

 is liable to be winding, unless the boards of two opposite sides 

 wind equally towards each other, or from each other, when they 

 are placed side by side. The tyro will perhaps find it much 

 more difficult to plane a board true and smooth that is but one 

 foot long than to plane one that is two or three feet in length ; 

 because beginners at planing usually cut a thicker shaving at each 

 end of the board, in consequence of not keeping their plane level 

 on the board. When the iron begins to cut at the end of the 

 board, the forward end of the plane must be held down firmly un 

 til, it arrives at the other end of the board, when the hindmost end 

 of the plane must be kept down until the plane iron is beyond the 



