There's two of them Abraham boys and they're both quite talented

[Ron Brese]

Most of you are quite familiar with the work of Jameel Abraham whether in the area of fine woodworking, workbench vises, instrument making and many of the other fields of expertise in which he is quite accomplished. Unless you've visited our booth at one of the shows we've attended you probably don't know his brother Father John Abraham.

The graphic design work that Father John does is amazing. In fact most of the pictures on my web page are his work. Recently he did a photo shoot of the new Stainless Panel Plane that I've just recently introduced and I have to say that he's raised the bar again. To see all the pictures use the link below.

http://benchcrafted.blogspot.com/

Thanks for looking,

Ron

[Tony Shea]

Beautiful. I like the machining marks left on the inside of the plane's body. Just a lovely looking plane and bet it's a joy to use.

[Marco Cecala]

I'm guessing when the three of you get together you don't talk, just exchange telepathic ideas.

[Ron Brese]

Marco....how did you know?:D:D

Ron

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

That is awesome, Ron! I'm drooling! :D Woodworking pornography at it's finest.
When will these be in production?

[Ron Brese]

Jim it's hard to say right now. I'm working on prior orders for infills. I have received some pre-orders for this panel plane so I have them in the schedule so it's just a matter of when I work to that point in the sequence of the schedule. I'm trying my best to get there because I sure would like one for myself. Huh...making a plane for myself, now there's a novel idea.:)

Ron

[David Gendron]

Ron, I think we get the point;), stop posting picture of that plane:eek:... My wife will kill me...:D

[Leigh Betsch]

Ron are those milling cutter marks or did you jewel the finish? I've been thinking if I ever build an infill that I would jewel the finish. Or what we used to call jeweling, chuck up a felt bob in a mill spindle, add a little diamond polishing compound, run the spindle down on the work for a bit, pull up and advance the table 1/2 bob dia, and repeat until you are done. Kinda tedious but makes an interesting finish.

[Marco Cecala]

I'm gonna wreck the spelling, but I grew up in the jewelery business and my father was a watchmaker. He did the pattern on watch movements and called it damis-caning(sp). He used what looked like a pencil eraser on a flex shaft.

[Ron Brese]

Leigh,

When you look at this pattern in person it looks like tweed fabric and is the result of an overlapping pattern done with a carefully metered feed and depth of cut adjustment on the mill and with a 4 flute milling cutter. The overlap is dictated by the width of the plane sole and then the pieces are polished on a buffing wheel after this operation.

Wanting to use this pattern as a distinctive surface treatment on this tool is one reason I determined that it was best to make this tool from the 410 stainless alloy. The possibility of removing rust from this part of the tool would most probably destroy this surface treatment.

The unusual thing about this and engine turning treatments to metal is you have to be careful how you display them to their best advantage. If you take one of these sole pieces and turn it on it's edge to emulate how this would look on the side of the plane body, you will find that the effect all but disappears. It relects light differently than when it is laying horizontally and basically becomes a dull less distinctive surface. A lot of work for little effect.

One treatment for the side of a plane body that really caught my eye was on some tools that George Wilson posted in another thread that looked as if the plane side had figure similar to curly maple. I've logged that one away in my mind for future reference.

Surface textures are certainly a way to enhance the visual enjoyment of a tool. However I think some restraint needs to exercised as anything can be overdone. In this tool you have this texture on the interior of the sole and there is a slight grinding texture on the iron, all surfaces in the horizontal plane contrasting with smoothed lapped surfaces in the rest of the plane body. It's the contrast that creates the interest.

Ron

[Tony Shea]

It actually looks as though the iron has had the same treatment done as the interior of the body. Is this true? The treatment actually must put a textured feel to surface. Very interesting. The jeweling process refered to earlier is one that is common on good quality Bolt Action rifles, Remington 700's for example. This jeweling treatment will actually produce a polished effect and will be very smooth to the touch. I actually have a gun with the bolt like this and think that it is smoother than just a standard bolt without the jeweling.

Anyways I really like the contrast of the milling marks that were intentionally put inside the body. Very nice plane and would love to give it run around the shop.

[Ron Brese]

Tony,

The iron is not milled but has a textured grind on the surface. This is similar to what you are talking about in regards to something that you can see visually but you can't really detect it with the touch. Even though it has a textured surface it's so shallow it doesn't even effect the length of time necessary to polish the back which on these ground irons is about 10 minutes.

Ron

[John Gornall]

The planes are beautiful as they are with their smooth lines and surfaces but I wonder what might result if Jameel's artistic abilities were let loose with a set of engraving tools.