Moulding Plane Construction - Problems with a Flat Iron?

[David Weaver]

So, anyone who has started making moulding planes is faced with the conondrum of whether or not they will buy tapered blanks. In my case, I think the answer is no, which leaves me two options:

1) make my own blanks out of 1/8th O1 (the likely option for me)

2) harvest irons out of some of my perfectly OK (though not desirable for one reason or another) mouldling planes on hand. They would not be consistently sized and thicknessed, which poses a problem, plus it's a matter of wasting a plane. I'd have to find irons with reasonable thickness and then heat them and grind/file them to size/shape

I choose option 1, which leaves a problem in moulding planes - the wedge doesn't have any mass, and it's difficult to get the plane apart without striking the wedge. Not a big deal day to day, but if the wood moves and it gets really tight, it could be the end of a wedge.

Has anyone tried putting some mass in the wedge finial so that it's more likely to move when the plane is truck? Could be something simple and tacky like lead, or something nicer, like brass. I have plenty of brass rod on hand.

I don't want this to turn into a debate about whether or not the tapered blanks that are available are reasonably priced, I just don't want to spend another $50 per pair when I have a bunch of 1/8" O1 stock lying around, and these planes aren't going to exit my shop before I'm deceased, so what's proper or not proper isn't an issue, I just need to worry about what works and what doesn't work.

[Jim Koepke]

I think the mass that is moving when the plane is struck is the blade, not the wedge.

When the blade and wedge are stuck, any movement helps to break the state of stuck.

I wonder how much a plane being soaked in BLO may have on blade stickage or freedom of movement.

Then it might be a good idea to put the planes away with the blades loosened.

These are just my thoughts and should not be mistaken for the wisdom of someone who actually knows the answers.

jim

[David Keller NC]

David - I have many, many antique molding planes. Many are professionally made with tapered irons, but many are craftsman-made with non-tapered irons. It's true that a tapered iron offers an advantage of driving the iron out of the mouth of the plane by tapping the top of it thus releasing the wedge.

But on the craftsman-made planes, a hard rap with a rubber hammer on the heel of the plane will nevertheless almost always release the iron and wedge. The taper of the wedge in the body of the plane seems to be more than enough to release it when the body is struck.