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Leigh Betsch
08-04-2010, 11:35 PM
Here's a little block plane I just finished. Mesquite with a purple heart sole, O1 iron, and a brass mouth insert. 2 1/2" X 5 1/8".

Gary Hodgin
08-05-2010, 12:00 AM
Great job! Nice looking plane.

Jim Koepke
08-05-2010, 12:02 AM
That is cool!

jim

Kemil Pepin
08-05-2010, 12:42 AM
Leigh, I looked at the pictures before reading the description. I thought that the adjustable mouth looked like poplar...then read that it was brass! Nice job...a very cool looking plane.

Dale Sautter
08-05-2010, 8:52 AM
I like it. What's that thing next to it on the second pic though?

george wilson
08-05-2010, 9:54 AM
Looks like a brass hammer w/plastic face.

Rob Young
08-05-2010, 10:06 AM
You say "block plane" so I'm curious. This is bevel up and what is the bedding angle?

That mesquite looks pretty neat.

Leigh Betsch
08-05-2010, 12:10 PM
Yes, a small brass hammer that I made. I originally had a wood face but it cracked so I made a Delrin face.

Block plane, bevel up, bedded at 20*. I was worried that the blade would slip back up the frog, so I put the cross pin and clamp close the business end so the clamp screw would get a lot of leverage on it. So far it seems to be holding fine. I originally had it planned for a 50* bevel down but at the last minute I changed to the traditional block plane design. The clamp will distort the sole, it must be flattened fully assembled and torqued. I made it so the knob will bottom out on the top of the clamp at the same time it is fully torqued so the sole deflection would be repeatable.

Terry Beadle
08-05-2010, 2:53 PM
]Nice plane ! I especially like the brass adjustable mouth.

I recently made a small block plane too. Rock maple, purple heart, and red oak. I bedded the plane at 50 degrees bevel down. 25 degree main bevel on the blade with 35 micro. The blade is one of those $10 replacement blades you can get for a Tiawanese smoother. It's about 1 5/8ths wide and works good.

I originally made the plane to take a Home Depot $3 clearance blade but it gave me some challenges with chatter and adjustment control. Mr. Hock gave me some advice which took care of the chatter problem. The control however was stubborn and would not allow me to get ready repeatable tap control. So I bought the much thicker ( 3mm ) blade and that cured that.

I used Steve Knight's design for the adjustable mouth and it works great.

I use this plane mainly for rounding edges and the higher angle seems to keep me from stringers pulled for grain change areas on the edges.

Once again, kool plane and I especially like the sole treatment. Thanks for posting !

Steve Branam
08-05-2010, 6:10 PM
Terry, I like the jam-cleat you have on your planing stop in that photo. That's a unique variation on others I've seen.

I'm always interested in clamp- and vise-free work-holding. It seems that a little ingenuity allows a variety of solid work-holding even with just a bare slab of a bench. This is good for small, portable benches that you can't really attach fancy vises to, like the one Harry Strasil has shown in some of his photos.

Bob Strawn
08-05-2010, 6:50 PM
Here's a little block plane I just finished. Mesquite with a purple heart sole, O1 iron, and a brass mouth insert. 2 1/2" X 5 1/8".

I love it, great work and lovely.

I have however one small issue with it. :) The woods were swapped. Mesquite is harder and more stable than barneywood. Barneywood has better grain cohesion, mesquite is a bit split prone. Wear resistance is not much of an issue since both are quite wear resistant.

Mesquite would be superior for the sole, and Barneywood would have been better for the body. For a plane without an adjustable mouth, Perhaps the grain of barneywood might be slightly better for the mouth of the plane, but you gave it an adjustable brass mouth, so that isn't an issue either.

It still is going to be a lovely, great, adjustable and stable plane, and will probably outlast all of us currently on the forum.

Bob

Jeff Wittrock
08-05-2010, 8:29 PM
That is a cool looking plane.



Block plane, bevel up, bedded at 20*. I was worried that the blade would slip back up the frog, so I put the cross pin and clamp close the business end so the clamp screw would get a lot of leverage on it. So far it seems to be holding fine.


Just wondering if you had to have anything kind of recess or pin on the cap iron to keep it from sliding back on the cross pin? From your description is sounds like you didn't need to.

-Jeff

Leigh Betsch
08-05-2010, 10:39 PM
Bob, you're right I used mesquite because of it's stability. Although in this small of a plane I doubt it really would make much difference. But I wanted to try it out because I have plans for a larger plane and I wanted to get familiar with mesquite. The purple heart sole was kind of an after thought. When I started to work the mesquite it didn't seem as hard as I thought it would be so I added the purple heart sole. Maybe it was just this particular piece of mesquite. I didn't realize that mesquite is supposed to be harder than purple heart. Anyway I have a couple more pieces of mesquite for the next projects, and I have a piece of lignum vitae for the sole that should pretty much remove any concern for hardness!:) Barneywood? Never heard it called that!

Jeff, I did machine a groove in the cap iron so the iron is locked in and can't move. I set the iron up in my jig borer and bored a 3/8 diameter groove so it would fit the cross pin very accurately, so everything would fit tight and clamp the iron down snugly so the blade wouldn't chatter.

David Gendron
08-06-2010, 12:11 AM
Nice looking plane Leigh... And I'm sur it work great! Do you have picture of the process of making the DT sole to body? It would be great to see how you did it!
Again great job!

Leigh Betsch
08-06-2010, 12:27 AM
David, no I didn't take any pictures as I built this, I sure most people here would be quite disappointed to see my Incra dovetail set up anyway! If I had it to do over I wouldn't do the half blind dovetails. I don't think they are really needed because of all the glue area anyway. After I built it I realized that the beauty of this plane is it's simplicity and I think the dovetails take away from the simplicity.
But my next one will probably have box joints running in both directions like the ECE Primus planes. Not sure what they are called, maybe castle joints?

Steve Branam
08-06-2010, 8:06 AM
Here's some nice ECE propaganda on their planes: http://www.ecemmerich.com/images/ece_complete_book_of_woodworking_tools.pdf. They call them "castellated glue joints".

Bob Strawn
08-06-2010, 12:01 PM
When I started to work the mesquite it didn't seem as hard as I thought it would be so I added the purple heart sole. Maybe it was just this particular piece of mesquite. I didn't realize that mesquite is supposed to be harder than purple heart.


I use a lot of mesquite, and I have found some that was considerably softer than typical. I like to make Krenov's with the inner section as mesquite and use a better cross-linking wood for the sides. That way the wedging is unlikely to separate the grain as it might on mesquite.

Not all mesquite is prone to split, but there is no non destructive way I know to predict ahead of time. all the mesquite I have used however was amazing at dealing with compression and changes in moisture however, so it really is a good material for plane beds and soles.

Mesquite can fool you in a way. It is so easy to sand and shape, yet it is hard and very wear resistant. Make no sense really.

Bob