Problem 5: Your smoothing plane leaves tracks on a board’s surface. Cause The blade isn’t level, or its corners are too square. Solution First, make sure the tracks you see aren’t ridges caused by a nick in

the blade. If the tracks look like shallow steps (drawing, below), one

side of the blade is cutting deeper than the other. Raking light or

chalk used flat-side down clearly reveals these tracks. You’ll have more success avoiding track marks and leveling your blade

if you round it (photo, below). This prevents the corners from digging

in. Rounding a smoothing blade’s profile one way or another is an old

tradition. Here’s how I go about it. First, I round over the blade’s

corners on the grinder. I do the rest of the rounding work when I hone,

by rocking the honing jig to one side or the other on the pull stroke

(photo, above right). This creates a cambered edge and a transition to

the rounded corner. If you’re new to planes, I recommend you camber the blade’s full

width. The amount of curvature to aim for is very small. To check it, I

hold the blade upright and lay the fat side of a small square on the

blade’s edge. The blade’s center should be higher than the edges by

about the thickness of one or two pieces of paper. If you’re more experienced with a smoothing plane, it’s better to

leave the majority of the edge straight across, and only camber the

outer edges; that is, round 1/8 to 1/4 in. of each side. This will

create a flatter surface than the previous method, but the blade will be

more difficult to level. To level your blade, make a narrow shaving using the outer 1/2 in. of

the blade’s left side. Make another shaving using the right side

(photo, below. Compare the thickness of the two shavings. Adjust the

lateral lever until the shavings are equally thick. Back off the blade,

re-adjust its depth of cut, and you’re good to go.

Round a blade’s profile by rolling the jig sideways as you hone.

Favor the right side, then the left side on alternate pull strokes to

produce a curved profile. Level your blade by comparing shavings made with each side. Hang the

plane off the edge of a board and make a narrow shaving using only the

blade’s left side. Turn the plane around and make another narrow shaving

using the blade’s right side. Adjust the lateral lever until these

shavings are equally thick. Shallow steps are caused by a plane blade that’s not set perfectly

level. One corner is digging in. A commonly used method to minimize

this problem is to round the blade’s corners, and maybe its entire

profile. This produces a surface with extremely shallow valleys, which

are leveled by scraping or sanding. Round a smoothing plane blade to avoid making steps on a board’s

surface. The corners of this blade are rounded off, and the area in

between is cambered (that is, very slightly curved), or left straight.