Old Blade questions - want to build a plane

[John Keeton]

Watching all you plane builders got me wanting to try it, and while at the WIA conference, I picked up this old plane blade for $15. I am curious if anyone is familiar with the maker, and whether it is worth the effort to build on this blade.

It is heavy, 2.5" wide, a bit over 7" long, with parallel sides, but tapered in thickness. There is a lamination that is about 1.5" long that shows on the face, but the pic from the side is a bit blurry.

And, of course, the blade has been forged with the hammer marks still present.

So, what are your thoughts?

[Cliff McNeill]

I found this quote in another thread.....

"The best edge retention and the ease of sharpening I have found on old chisels was a W. Butcher. Unfortunately it was stolen. I keep my eye peeled for those." ... Harlan Barnhart

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=118784

[Bob Haverstock]

John,

What have you to lose? The blade is either good on not so good. Go ahead, build a plane. Go for an angle that you don't have in your plane stable. With that blade you can make a long inverted jointer, complete with a fence!

I'm working on a woody with a 60 degree angle, if I flip the blade over if have a very steep angle. In a pinch, I can scrape with it.

I had always wondered why the wedges in David Finck's planes were angled forward. Aftyer building a couple of planes, I found out. It allows you to use a shorter iron and still have access to tap it for adjustment.

Bob

[John Keeton]

Google is truly a wonderful toy! Since posting this morning, I have been searching around a bit, and found that William Butcher (1791 - 1870) produced irons such as this in the 1820s - 1830s!! This sucker apparently has some age to it!

Still don't know much else about the quality, but Cliff's comment, and the post from Harlan, is encouraging.

All comments and info appreciated.

[John Keeton]

Bob, some good comments. I guess my hesitancy is that if I build to this blade, with a tapered wedge, and the steel doesn't pan out, then I would have been better off finding a better blade with which to start.

I am usually only good for one of anything. So if I do this build, and it doesn't pan out, I may not be able to muster up the urge to do another one:o OTOH, building planes could be just another slope;) And, I am getting pretty good at sliding down those!!

[Mike Henderson]

I've used old blades and generally found them to be good. But you never know until you use it. They're plain carbon steel but if well heat treated they will work well.

Mike

[Bob Haverstock]

I guess my hesitancy is that if I build to this blade, with a tapered wedge, and the steel doesn't pan out, then I would have been better off finding a better blade with which to start. (Quote)

John,

I noticed in Finck's planes the pin for wedge retention floats and is flat where it maked contact with the wedge. If you build in this style, if you had another 2.5 inch iron you could swap them out. Ihe floating pin will conpensate for the the taper of the plane iron.

I use a 1/2 inch diameter wegde pin with a flat surface between the cheeks of the pin. After everything works and I have enough clearence for shaving to eject from the plane I glue the pin in place under tension.

Bob

[David Keller NC]

John - W. Butcher blades are primarily found over here (though it was a British firm). It seems that their primary focus was on the export market.

Un-cut (i.e., not slotted for a cap iron) blades like the one you have from W. Butcher are worth considerably more than $15 on the antique tool market because they are a correct replacement for an old American bench plane.

Cut irons are common - uncut ones are not. My guess is that you're going to find that the steel is either too soft or too hard in that blade, which explains its existence in such good condition. Our ancestors did not let a blade set idle, particularly from almost 200 years ago from well before the advent of the Bessemer process and inexpensive steel.

That said, if you want to use it in a traditional-style plane for the charm of making a reproduction, you could take the blade to a local blacksmith and have it evaluated and re-hardened/tempered if necessary.

Personally, I would not put it in a Krenov-style plane. You can buy Hock blades specifically made for that style, and that will have known (and excellent) working characteristics.

[John Keeton]

David, that begs the question - worth how much more? Wonder if it is feasible to put this blade in the Classifieds as a trade item, or some other method of getting another blade. While this plane building interests me, I don't want to put much money in it at this point.

The other possibility is that George Wilson might be agreeable to heat treating this blade for me??

Hey George, are you out there!!???

BTW, the guy from whom I got this had a bunch of them of various configurations, not all Butcher, some "cut" and some not. This was the largest uncut iron in the box, in the best shape. This one does not appear to have ever been fully sharpened or used much, if any.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

A nice thick blade like Ron Hock offers is good for a lot of reasons including chatter resistance.
It's also easier to manage a thick blade in a wood plane than it is a thin blade. The thin blades would be naturally reinforced in a metal plane body and frog assembly having the stiffness of the metal plane imparting rigidity to the blade. Wood won't have that same rigidity.

[David Keller NC]

David, that begs the question - worth how much more? Wonder if it is feasible to put this blade in the Classifieds as a trade item, or some other method of getting another blade. While this plane building interests me, I don't want to put much money in it at this point.

It's impossible for me to say how much more. It's definitely worth more on the tool collector's market, and there are several outlets for that - probably one of the bigger auctions like Martin J Donnely's Live Free or Die, or possibly with Clarence Blanchard at Fine Tool Journal.

My thought is that this is one of the rare cases where selling something on SMC's classifieds or EBay may not be what you want to do. Most folks on SMC are looking for user stuff, and EBay's market is really depressed right now in the area of collector's stuff.

In any event, I think a blade of that length won't be all that suitable for a Krenov style plane, which is low-slung and unhandled. A better house for it is a traditional, mortised plane like an antique British or American configuration.

[Phillip Pattee]

Here is some intersting background reading on W. (William) Butcher. He specialized in crucible steel for edge tools. http://www.tilthammer.com/bio/butch.html

I think David Keller was looking for a tapered blade like the one you have, John. In the first picture, the blade looks as if it has some pitting in the lower left corner near the edge which might give you some trouble sharpening.

If you decide to make a plane, and the blade doesn't work out, you can probably get a 2 3/8" LV blade to replace it. You would have 1/16" more room on either side of the blade in the mouth area than you would need. The LV blade has no taper, so you would need to make a different wedge to fit the blade.

[Pam Niedermayer]

Bob, some good comments. I guess my hesitancy is that if I build to this blade, with a tapered wedge, and the steel doesn't pan out, then I would have been better off finding a better blade with which to start....

What wedge isn't tapered? And what's a wedge doing traveling with a blade?

Worst case you can try sharpening the blade to see how sharp it will get, should give you some hint.

Pam

[george wilson]

John,I am here now. Here is what to do: Take a Nicholson smooth cut file that is in real good condition-no shiny teeth.At least no shiny teeth where you will use them to test the iron. Even a triangular fine cut file will work. A fine cut file cuts harder steel than a coarse cut file.

Try filing the cutting edge of the blade on the bevel side. If it BARELY files,the iron is best. I always found that an old iron that barely will file stays sharpest longer.

That iron is for a cooper's jointer,as wide as it is. I've made a few of them for our cooper's shop.

The French made a cool plane for box makers.It was an upside down jointer about 3' long,that was horizontal to the floor,and had 4 legs that were tapered bigger towards the floor. They'd just slide wood over it as if it was a modern power jointer to trim up the edges of wood for boxes. That blade would make a nice one.

The rusty corner needs to be ground out,and that means grinding the whole steel bit.

That is a fairly early blade. The 18th.C. ones were round on top. Then,they got lazy,and started cutting the corners at 45 degrees like yours in the early 19th.C.. As time went on,the bevel got longer until the long bevels we have today were reached.

Post how it files up.

With the bevel on that plane,it practically guarantees that the blade will warp across its width if it is rehardened,because there is a different amount of surface area on each side. I always hardened plane irons with the edge square,before it was beveled.

The best way to get rid of the rusty corner might be to just grind the beveled edge off. Then,re bevel it. There is plenty of steel left on the blade. No one likes to do this,but to make the iron useful,it might be necessary. You might foul up the even taper trying to grind the surface of the steel down,and since the steel tapers out to nothing at the top,you might just shorten it about as much anyway,by trying to grind the surface down.

[Dominic Greco]

Watching all you plane builders got me wanting to try it, and while at the WIA conference, I picked up this old plane blade for $15. I am curious if anyone is familiar with the maker, and whether it is worth the effort to build on this blade.

It is heavy, 2.5" wide, a bit over 7" long, with parallel sides, but tapered in thickness. There is a lamination that is about 1.5" long that shows on the face, but the pic from the side is a bit blurry.

And, of course, the blade has been forged with the hammer marks still present.

So, what are your thoughts?

John,
That iron looks PERFECT! And it's funny you should mention your idea of building a plane around it. Because that's pretty much what I'm doing.

I'm in the process of designing a high angle smoother around an old tapered and laminated Sorby iron. I picked it up at a flea market for $5 and it was just laying around the shop. So I decided that it needed a plane to fit in.

I had decided to make a traditionally shaped coffin smoother but with a Krenov style pin arrangement. THEN I found a PDF version of Hayward's "How to Make Wood Work Tools" on Toolemera (http://toolemera.com/bkpdf/haywardhowtobk.pdf). On page 17 there was this cool design for a toted smoother that just inspired me. So I sat down and drew up the plane and then adjusted the measurements to fit my hands as well as the Sorby Iron.

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z287/DominicGreco/HASmootherV5.jpg

I need to make a mock up first to make sure the shape feels as good as I think it should. But once I do, I intend to make the body from some bubinga and I may even add a brass sole to the plane. The way I figure it, that'll give it some of the heft of an infill.

[John Keeton]

George, thanks for coming in on this! I have decided on a win/win. The blade is being sold to David Keller in hopes that someone who actually knows what he is doing, can build a nice early style plane on it. I win because I don't have to climb the apparently steeper than originally thought, learning curve of plane building!!

Dominic, now that looks like a plane I may be interested in building! I need to avoid anything that requires a mortise chisel, as I have sold my Ray Isles chisels! Let me know if that style can be built up from the resaw/glue up method.

[Dominic Greco]

Dominic, now that looks like a plane I may be interested in building! I need to avoid anything that requires a mortise chisel, as I have sold my Ray Isles chisels! Let me know if that style can be built up from the resaw/glue up method.

John,
This plane was designed to be constructed in the "Krenov method". Which means it's made from getting a solid blank and resawing it so you end up with (2) cheeks. I pretty much follow the method David Finck outlines in his outstanding book, "Making and Mastering Wooden Planes"

To be honest, I would probably screw up the plane if I tried to use a mortise chisel (ala the traditional way).:D:D

Once I get my current project finished up (holders for my saws in my tool cabinet) I will start on this project. I plan on documenting the process of building this plane and posting updates along the way. I'll keep you posted.

[James Scheffler]

John,
This plane was designed to be constructed in the "Krenov method". Which means it's made from getting a solid blank and resawing it so you end up with (2) cheeks. I pretty much follow the method David Finck outlines in his outstanding book, "Making and Mastering Wooden Planes"

To be honest, I would probably screw up the plane if I tried to use a mortise chisel (ala the traditional way).:D:D

Once I get my current project finished up (holders for my saws in my tool cabinet) I will start on this project. I plan on documenting the process of building this plane and posting updates along the way. I'll keep you posted.

The way it's drawn up it looks fine, but if you did use the front ramp angle recommended by David Finck (62 deg), you might not have enough clearance to get a finger down there to clear out the throat. That's what I did, and I had to cut a scoop out of the front ramp.

It looks beautiful, by the way!

Jim

[Dominic Greco]

The way it's drawn up it looks fine, but if you did use the front ramp angle recommended by David Finck (62 deg), you might not have enough clearance to get a finger down there to clear out the throat. That's what I did, and I had to cut a scoop out of the front ramp.

It looks beautiful, by the way!

Jim

Jim,
Thanks for the compliments! But lets hold them and see how the REAL one turns out eh? :D:D:D

BTW you really can't see it from the rendering but the ramp does feature a radius. Here's a preliminary drawing that shows some of the layout dims.

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z287/DominicGreco/HASmootherV4.jpg

[bridger berdel]

So, what are your thoughts?

looks like a good blade. build a stiff plane body for it and back it up with a meaty wedge- it doesn't need a chipbreaker.