The Ultimate Jack?

[Derek Cohen]

A year ago I received a selection of timbers from my Galootclaus. A length of Ebony went to infill the Brese small smoother kit (and there is sufficient over to infill a St James Bay Thumb Plane kit). There is a block of Padauk. And there was this piece of Mesquite ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/Jack%20Plane%20in%20Mesquite/Wood1.jpg

I have been waiting to build a jack plane around a blade I bought last year. It is 2" wide and 5/16" thick D2. This is very abrasion resistant and could make a super jack plane for use on Australian wood.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/Jack%20Plane%20in%20Mesquite/Bladewidth.jpg

This could be The Ultmate Jack!

The design is a mix of tradional vintage England with Malaysian influences. Mesquite body with Jarrah tote and wedge.

The razee body is 15 1/2" long, 2 3/4" wide, and 2" high at the mouth. This keep the centre of gravity low. The plane weighs 1.5 Kg (3.3 lbs).

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/Jack%20Plane%20in%20Mesquite/Sideprofile1.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/Jack%20Plane%20in%20Mesquite/Planefromrear1.jpg

The mouth is set wide for a thick shaving. The bevel has not yet been cambered. It will have a radius of 8".

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/Jack%20Plane%20in%20Mesquite/Mouth1.jpg

The blade does not use a cap iron, and the wedge design keeps the mouth free ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/Jack%20Plane%20in%20Mesquite/Front1.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/Jack%20Plane%20in%20Mesquite/BedWedgeBlade1.jpg

I should have a full tutorial on building the jack up on my website in a few days.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Koepke]

What? No shavings?

Looks nice though.

jim

[Sean Hughto]

Pretty! how is the tote attached? Is it reinforced?

[Derek Cohen]

Jim ... you'll have to wait for the weekend for shavings. As I mentioned, I have not yet cambered the blade. I built the plane this weekend and finished assembling it after work today.

Sean .. the tote is mortice and tenoned and epoxied in. The tenon is 1/2" wide about 1" long and 3/4" deep. I used a 1/2" OB mortice chisel. The tote is Jarrah. I have never broken one. This wood is very tough (the one thought I had was that as tough as Mesquite is, it is not as tough as the wood it will plane!).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Dave Anderson NH]

Beautifully done as usual Derek. I'm sure that it will become a great user and I'll stay tuned for an after action report. As for the "ultimate" part, I've always been wary of words like ultimate, universal, absolute, and others. I figure that the ultimate jack, or for that matter any other type of tool is going to be made out of unobtanium.:D

[Mark Koury]

Beautiful!
Now a dumb question:
Although understandable from an appearance point of view, why did you not set the straighter grain on the sides? It would seem that movement would be most harmful to the sole the way it is now. Did you feel the mouth would be stronger this way?

[Dominic Greco]

Beautiful!
Now a dumb question:
Although understandable from an appearance point of view, why did you not set the straighter grain on the sides? It would seem that movement would be most harmful to the sole the way it is now. Did you feel the mouth would be stronger this way?

I'm not Derek but I think I might be able to supply an answer here. Mesquite is one of the most stable woods I've ever come across. I've turned "wet" mesquite and not had it move any appreciable amount. And I'm assuming that the stuff Derek is working with is pretty dry. So it ain't going nowhere!

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Mark

It's a sensible question - pertinent to all ww. I arranged that the wood grain was quarter sawn (vertical at the ends). That is the most stable orientation -it will limit undesired movement and this way the plane should stay flat best.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Mark Koury]

So, if I can understand, the central block of the plane is quarter-sawn (sraight grain all sides) and the side slabs are decorative - obviously not quarter-sawn.
You thus don’t think the curved grain of the side slabes is thick enough to influence the sole/central piece. But, what about the mouth area where the sides seem to contribute a larger share of the stability of the surface that is the sole?

[Tim Put]

Quartersawn square stock is equally flatsawn, depending only on which sides you choose to call the faces and which the edges. If, calling the sole the face, the plane is quartersawn, then, calling the side the face, the plane will be flatsawn.

[Phillip Pattee]

Dereck,

What is the wood you used to reinforce the mouth? Is this harder than the mesquite?

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Phillip

The wood I used to reinforce the mouth is brass! :)

The plane is for rough work, so I wanted to make sure it holds up.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Danny Burns]

Anyone know where the blade can be purchased from?:confused:

[John Keeton]

I am sure the plane will function great, and it is certainly a beautiful piece!! Man, what a chunk of iron!! I'll bet getting the initial bevel on that took a while.

[Phillip Pattee]

Brass--that makes sense. LOL. I think I'm seeing the grain reflected from your bench top.

[Derek Cohen]

Man, what a chunk of iron!! I'll bet getting the initial bevel on that took a while.

John, you have no idea!

A few of us got together about a year ago to grind these blades. We had a few dry grinders between us, including one monster 10" machine that flew at a frightening speed and aged me several years in the space of hours.

D2 is not a kind steel. It is super abrasion resistant. I bought this one out of curiosity, having argued with the others that it was a silly idea. Especially silly to use it in a smoother where one would be expected to keep the blade sharp. There are many in Oz who are looking for more durable irons. The local timbers are not only hard but they can also be high in silica, which wears out steel very rapidly. HSS and D2 are getting looked at. From my side I prefer A2 - a better balance of durability and ease of honing. The trouble with some of these steels is that they will either require diamonds or take a long time to work ... which will put many off re-sharpening.

I think that the only way to prepare a D2 iron is to create a hollow grind so that you end up with a small secondary bevel. Unfortunately I do not think that D2 has the heat resistance of HSS so grinding to the edge of the steel is not an option.

Overall I would say that the hollow grind took about 3 hours to achieve. And it is not yet complete as I still have to grind a camber. It can wait for the weekend.

Regards from Perth

Derek