First plane built!

[James Scheffler]

Here's a couple of pictures of my first plane built, a high angle smoother (55*). I'm working on a project with quartersawn white oak and was having fits with tearout from my Stanley No. 4. :eek: The new plane is a lot better in that regard. It was a fun project.

I'm still not great with the adjustment part, and the wedge may still need a little more tweaking (I think there is a minor pivot point that causes the blade to rotate a little when it's tapped, but it might just be me).

I mostly followed David Finck's book in building this, so it's Krenov-ish from a construction standpoint. However, I like really like the look of old planes and wanted it shaped like a coffin smoother. So it's really a bit of a mutt, but I like it. I'm finding it pretty comfortable to hold and use.

It has a 1-7/8-inch A2 blade from Lee Valley.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer my questions along the way!

In the interest of full disclosure, a large number of electrons were harmed in the making of this plane. ;)

Thanks,
Jim

[Ron Petley]

Its a beaut, good on Ya.
Cheers Ron.

[David Gendron]

Nice little plane! Is n't a great feeling to produce something that work better than a proven stanley plane! I'm so happy with mine, that I'm thinking of making a few more to replace most of my metal planes!

[Brian Kent]

Wonderful design and grain patterns. Looks like a hefty blade too. Those wedge pivot points are real issues. The nice thing is that if you keep on tweaking it until you wear away the whole wedge, it's easy and cheap to make a new one.

Congratulations

Brian

[Jim Koepke]

Nice looking plane.

If you can find a piece of carbon paper, place it carbon side on the wedge between the blade and the wedge or the retainer and the wedge and if you are lucky, it will leave a smudge at the high spot. You may need to use a piece of white paper if it does not leave a mark. The high spot could be on either side of he carbon paper.

If you can not find carbon paper, you may have to make your own with a pencil or artist charcoal.

jim

[Sam Takeuchi]

I know it's not going to make things any different, but here (http://www.youtube.com/user/djfwood) is a dose of inspiration for you. Not a lot of videos, yet, but the introduction video is especially nice I think.

[Eddie Darby]

In the interest of full disclosure, a large number of electrons were harmed in the making of this plane. ;)

Thanks,
Jim

Too bad the Hadron collector can't make the same claim.

Nice looking plane! Thanks for sharing.

[Terry Beadle]

As a suggestion I've found that the wedge is more responsive to control if it is made from a wood with some compression capability. Like beech, or cherry. Oak doesn't compress and therefore will be a real challenge to get exactly tweaked to mate.

Using a pencil lead on the surface of the blade where the wedge touches the blade will show you where you may need to very lightly scrape off a little material. Same procedure is used in kanna ( japanease planes ) to seat the blade exactly to the plane body.

Nothing like a good home made woody!

Thanks for posting.

[James Scheffler]

As a suggestion I've found that the wedge is more responsive to control if it is made from a wood with some compression capability. Like beech, or cherry. Oak doesn't compress and therefore will be a real challenge to get exactly tweaked to mate.

Using a pencil lead on the surface of the blade where the wedge touches the blade will show you where you may need to very lightly scrape off a little material. Same procedure is used in kanna ( japanease planes ) to seat the blade exactly to the plane body.

Nothing like a good home made woody!

Thanks for posting.

I was looking for burnishing on the wedge where it rubs against the pin, and I made a lot of progress using that method, but I did find that the burnishing was hard to see. Sounds like this suggestion, as well as the one above to use carbon paper, would be worth a try.

The compressibility of the wedge is something I hadn't thought of, but it makes sense.

Thanks!
Jim

[James Scheffler]

Nice little plane! Is n't a great feeling to produce something that work better than a proven stanley plane! I'm so happy with mine, that I'm thinking of making a few more to replace most of my metal planes!

I'll make some more planes eventually, but my wife is getting impatient for me to build the "fabled" oak radiator covers. She's only been waiting since 2000 or so. ;) I tried to explain that the new plane was needed for the project, but she didn't really buy it.

I don't have a No. 6-size plane at this time, so that might be next. Maybe also a block plane, as I've never been really thrilled with my No. 9-1/2. Now that I've seen some success with this plane, I'll think first about building instead of buying.

I still love my Stanley No. 4, and I find that it gives better results on pine (which I use quite a bit).

Jim