Another Infill - A Kit this time

[David Weaver]

Not a lot to say. I went to great lengths to whine about the unnecessary hoops with this kit where I posted on another site, but I think summarizing, I'd say that if you are going to build a shepherd kit (if you find one unbuilt), maybe keep the kit aside and build an infill or two scratch first. The skills you learn will help you overcome the shortcomings of the kit - depending on your luck, there may be many when you're expecting something more along the lines putting togehter the equivalent of pienable legos.

In the end, the plane works, and it's heavy, so it kind of goes on its own.

I don't think it could outperform the cocobolo toted LN 6 I got as my first "real" plane - man I wish I had that plane back. It does "feel" like an infill, though - which is something like plowing 4 inches of snow with a Euclid TC-12 bulldozer.

3 planes down, and three more to go in my "too cheap to buy it, might as well build it" streak. So far, I prefer scratch building. The planes are more "plain", but I have much more control over the stuff that makes the plane perform.

[Dave Anderson NH]

That is one of the later Shepherd kits based on the size of the laser engraved logo on the iron. The earlier ones had a much nicer logo of about 4 times the size and twice the depth but they were in a cost cutting mode toward the end of their existence.

[David Weaver]

they were in a cost cutting mode toward the end of their existence.

It really shows in the kit. Some of the parts were really sloppily done. I'd say that the stuff that was done poorly basically doubled to tripled the time it took to complete the kit, and in the end I had to lap it so much that it's not as flat as I'd like (the toe and the nose are a tad proud, a couple of thousandths - not enough to affect a skilled user). Notice the piece of peined metal on the chipbreaker, too - a necessity because of where they located the holes for the lever cap vs. where the mouth was roughed in the sole - the lever cap screw actually didn't reach the chipbreaker.

The infill blanks were actually narrower than they had cut the metal parts, and they were out of square by a lot, necessitating squaring up with a plane (a power jointer is obviously out of the question for both size and parsimony reasons), and then getting some cocobolo veneer to build the with back up to a semi-snug fit in the plane.

I probably should've sanded their signature off the lever cap, but in the end I just wanted to have a usable plane, so I forgot about it and focused on fixing all of the problems.

There....I thought I wouldn't get into the problems with it, but that is *some* of them. :o

[Orlando Gonzalez]

Well done Dave. It's nice to be able to build something for yourself. Pretty soon Holtey, Brese, and Konrad Sauer will need to start looking over their shoulders.

[David Weaver]

Thanks for the compliment, Orlando, but...I wonder who they'll see if they look back. Raney nelson maybe, or the guy who is going to make the loopy smoothers. :D

I really like making planes for myself, but the level of detail awareness you have to have in things that don't affect how the plane works, but affect the sensitivities of buyers - that's really tedious stuff. Making a plane that looks good enough to command what you have to do to get paid more than the materials cost, and that also works really well is a tall order. This plane works fine, but that's about what I'd say - a shrug and "yeah, it's fine". I'd be nice if it was 5 degrees steeper, a lot more useful i think, but you don't get to choose that with kits.

If I didn't think anyone would ever see my planes, I would probably put them together and clean up only the bottom and leave unfinished coarsely sanded wood in as the tote and front bun. The only part of the planes I have the stomach to really get anal about is the mouth, the bed and the lever cap.

As it is with this one, I didn't bevel the sides at all - i was so disgusted with all of the extra work that went into fixing problems with it that I thought that would be sort of like dressing up a yugo and there'd be something quasi - intellectually dishonest about it. I could still do them, but I doubt it'll ever happen. It'll be up for some tote work at the bottom and top of the tote to steepen the angle a little, but that's about it.

[Leigh Betsch]

It does look pretty good in the picture.
I know what you are talking about though. I agreed to finish a Shepard kit for a fellow creeker, if I listed all the fixes I've done to get it to the point I'm willing to put my name on it you'd think I'm crazy. I'm almost done and I'll post a pic in a few days. I need to insert the mouth tonight so I can get it tightened up. When I get it done I think it will be a fine plane but next time I'll just start from scratch.
Were your dovetails already fit? Mine were but the owner may have done that part.

[David Weaver]

It does look pretty good in the picture.
I know what you are talking about though. I agreed to finish a Shepard kit for a fellow creeker, if I listed all the fixes I've done to get it to the point I'm willing to put my name on it you'd think I'm crazy. I'm almost done and I'll post a pic in a few days. I need to insert the mouth tonight so I can get it tightened up. When I get it done I think it will be a fine plane but next time I'll just start from scratch.
Were your dovetails already fit? Mine were but the owner may have done that part.

Nope, dovetails weren't fit - they were cut out with curve corners left that you had to file out - like fingers on both sides. The tails were fine, I cleaned them up with a barrette file just to make sure they were tidy. The pins in the brass required cutting to fit the tails. That's not a problem, though - it was very quick to file everything in compared to comb cutting 3/16th and 1/4th O1.

I don't know what the brass was, but it was extremely soft. I have worked with only O1 on O1 on my first two planes. I think I like that better, it doesn't just give way. My tails are messy looking in some spots where the mild steel got into the brass at the tails. Everything is a learning experience the first time. They are all peined in tight with no gaps, though, and structurally that's all that counts.

I just had a session with the plane, and I am starting to get along with it a little better. I think it's probably similar in operation to a really heavy well tuned bench plane (heavy and very thin shavings). I'm less dissatisfied with it now - it does excel on hard maple, which I think a stanley bailey is mildly uncomfortable with in a heavy shaving, and a woody is ugly to use.

I know the feeling about not wanting to put your name on it - I feel the same way. I just want it to be a good user, and now that i'm not thinking about how disgusted I am with the kit, I can recognize that it seems like it is.