Breaking through a plateau When you’re fairly new to hand tool woodworking, it seems like you make tremendous progress each week. Each successive day, the joints fit better, the surfaces become smoother, and the cuts are more accurate. Then, one day, you find that your joints aren’t fitting as well, your surfaces aren’t as smooth, and your cuts aren’t quite as accurate. A plateau has been reached. This phenomenon usually occurs just after you begin to feel comfortable with the tools and methods. Your skills haven’t yet become second nature, and you still need to pay attention to the tools to produce quality work, but for some reason it seems like you’re not making progress.
This is frustrating because you feel like you should be making better progress. Here’s the thing: A plateau almost always indicates that you need to start paying attention to the details. To break through a plateau, slow down. It’s as simple as that. If you have been cutting joints at a moderate pace, slow down and cut them half as fast. Pay attention to how the tools want to behave. If you are cutting with a chisel, pay attention to when it starts to dive or wants to skate across the wood. Maybe your downward pressure is not as even as you think it is, or maybe you’re putting too much pressure on one side of the chisel handle.
Cut a few joints (even on scrap) at half speed and inspect them closely after each cut. I almost guarantee you will see improvement. Here’s an exercise for you. Cut a rabbet for a shelf using a chisel. Take 10 strokes at half speed on a scrap board. Stop and examine the cut after each stroke. What has changed? Is the depth even? Is the surface torn out? Make adjustments as necessary and continue. I think you’ll find that you make improvements as you slow down and pay closer attention to the cut. Another cause of plateaus is that tool maintenance has slowly drifted just a bit, enough to make a difference.
Your plane may have cut beautifully a month ago, but now it’s leaving tracks. Perhaps the cap iron has moved a bit farther back from the edge of the blade than it was, or maybe a tiny nick has developed in the blade from grit that was inadvertently introduced into the plane. Take the plane apart, lap the sole (if it appears it needs it), clean the chipbreaker, and re-establish the proper distance between the chipbreaker and blade edge. Reassemble and plane some end grain. I’ll bet the plane cuts differently. Prevent drift by keeping your tools in top condition. Sometimes plateaus can be caused by doing the same thing over and over again, day in and day out. You’ve been working with eastern white pine for weeks, and suddenly you’re not improving.
Try switching to a different wood for a while; perhaps something a bit harder such as maple or cherry. The extra density will force you to pay closer attention to the angle of your blade and the rate of your cut. If you normally plane with the grain first, try planing against the grain first for a few days to get a feel for the difference in resistance. Performing small changes like these in your work can help you break a plateau. Sometimes it’s easy to just go through the motions, and your body will actually adjust and learn how to do tasks in its sleep.
Finally, keep a notebook, and write down one thing each day that you did differently or better. Go back and read through your notebook after a week or two and see if there are any patterns. Perhaps your cuts are better when you warm up a bit longer, or maybe you’re making better cuts at certain times of the day. Sometimes, breaking a plateau is just a matter of making your practice sessions more investigative and less routine. A plateau is really just a great opportunity to refine your skills a bit and make adjustments that you need.