Floats

[Dan Barr]

Just looking to ask all the creekers about how many types of floats there are.

I see the seven types Lie-nielsen makes, but i also see odd gunsmith floats at auctions.

who has seen what? any pictures? any literature out there describing the different floats and their uses?

regards,

dan

[Trevor Walsh]

I'm not sure about gunmakers and other floats, but they are mostly for making smooth critical surfaces. Plane making is a good illustration of this, there are bed, side, wedge and cheek floats just like LN. But if you make skewed iron planes, there are also skew mortise and side floats for getting into those corners.

Planemaking is really the only place I've seen then come in more handy than another tool, unlike trimming regular cheeks or mortises. Which I do with a shoulder plane/router plane etc.

Clark and Williams (who helped design the LN floats) has a nice writeup about them in their articles.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Dan

I can't offer much in the way of a comparison of the various floats available, but I did review the LN Face Joinery Float a while back ...

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/The%20Lie%20Nielsen%20Face%20Joinery%20Float.html

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/The%20Lie%20Nielsen%20Face%20Joinery%20Float_html_ 1ab3fde3.jpg

I have also found it useful for leveling the beds of planes I have built, as well as its intended use on tenon cheeks.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Tony Joyce]

I have both(joinery & plane). The cutting edge or teeth(tpi) are spaced the same. I think the only difference seems to be the shape and size of the cutting portion of the blade. I can't speak to gunsmith floats, I'm not familiar with them.

Floats can leave a surprisingly smooth finish, considering the coarseness of the teeth, if used correctly.

[Eric Brown]

Iv'e also been looking at floats and noticed that the LN ones come in push or pull styles.

Is it just a personal preference or are there good reasons for this?

Grain direction? Blind vs open holes?

Just curious. Thanks.

Eric

[David Weaver]

Blind vs. open, working in tight spaces, working at edge grain.

For example, if you were to try to cut all the way to the mouth with a side float pushing, you can blow out the side grain at the mouth on a moulding plane. Pulling, no problem, it's very easy to work near the area without damaging anything.

You don't *need* them, but it makes it easier to work faster. If you didn't have both in the scenario mentioned above, you could modify a mill file to cut on the edge only and work near the edge of the mouth. it's just nicer and faster to do with floats.

[Tony Joyce]

Iv'e also been looking at floats and noticed that the LN ones come in push or pull styles.

Is it just a personal preference or are there good reasons for this?

Grain direction? Blind vs open holes?

Just curious. Thanks.

Eric

In regard to the plane floats what David said applies. On the joinery floats I bought both not knowing which would work best. After using both I find I use the pull more than the push. So how you work probably has some bearing with the joinery floats.

[Dan Barr]

shameless bump. :D

[David Weaver]

Are you averse to filing your own? I think I may be getting crossed up.

A fairly large source of heat, like a weed torch, and you can harden them fine.

On some of the ones I've made, if the teeth are not too long, I will make one out of O1 unhardened and then figure out which teeth are doing most of the work and then just harden those with a small torch.

For example, on a bed float (and I guess on an edge float), the front teeth get most of the work by a long shot. You can make a very useful float that way. You also may find you don't need to file them as large or with as large of teeth as the LN floats. Flat wide surfaces are a pain, so you can balance what you need the float to do vs. how hard it is to file the teeth.

I have never seen an old commercial float - the closest thing I've seen is vixen files and other things of that sort.

[Dan Barr]

I will definitely make some of my own one day. im just trying to figure out all the different types that are out there.

I honestly dont think that many people actually have the answer to this question.

:)

dan

[Larry Heflin]

Are you averse to filing your own? .


So, how do you go about making your own?

Larry

[Johnny Kleso]

Buy a Auto Body file and cut it with a abrasive cut off wheel and try to keep is as cool as possible heat the handle to bend it..

If wose comes to worse re-heat treat it..

http://www.bloomertool.com/images/Dollies_130.jpg

[Ray Gardiner]

So, how do you go about making your own?

Larry

Not sure I can help with the float design questions that Dan has asked, but I have made floats, with varying degrees of success.

The ones Lie Nielson sell are designed by Clark & Williams. There is precious little literature on-line about what tooth pitch, rake angle etc.. to use.

I use a mill with a 60 degree dovetail cutter and tilt the head to set up the rake angle.

http://www.backsaw.net/pics/MillingFloat.jpg

I find floats nice for cleaning up and tweaking joinery.

The variables are, overall shape, thickness of material, tooth pitch and rake angle. The teeth should be a little higher than the flat portion so that you have a little tooth height to work with when jointing and filing the teeth.

I would love to see some on-line literature on traditional float design. I've never seen a real antique float...

Regards
Ray

[David Weaver]

So, how do you go about making your own?

Larry

You get some O1 stock, 1/8th and 3/16th thick, and some triangular files.

Zero rake or very little rake, and file teeth in. They do not have to be perfect, they just have to be the same height (you can joint them same way you'd do a saw).

You can also anneal old files, file them, and then reharden them. That's probably more common.

I've made mine with O1, though.

It is a lot of work to file the bigger floats, it could take a couple of hours, but if you have more time than money, you can make a very workable float.

[David Weaver]

Buy a Auto Body file and cut it with a abrasive cut off wheel and try to keep is as cool as possible heat the handle to bend it..



that's a good idea, I like it.

Don't they make diamond hacksaw blades?

[Larry Heflin]

Thanks for the replies. Making some planes is on my list of things to do. I've looked at the LN floats and they are a little bit pricey and their use would be experimental at this point, so I've considered making my own some day. I can't recall for sure, but I think on Larry Williams DVD on making side escapement planes he demos making floats. I'll have to view it again to see if that's where I first heard of it.

Thanks again,

Larry

[David Weaver]

He demos sharpening floats on the video.

They are pricey, but if they sell like most LN tools, I think if you could bring yourself to buy only the ones you need and sell them when you're doing, you ultimately won't be out much.

I made my first few, and then bought two LN floats, and then just got the rest after attempting to file a bed float (got about 6 teeth done and then got lazy - it's best to buy the ones that have very wide teeth and a lot of them (like bed floats), and make the ones where the volume of metal removed isn't that big - like the edge and cheek floats).

I'm not sad I bought them now, but I doubt I'd sell them, so I'm eating the cost, I guess.

[Johnny Kleso]

My Friend Leif did a tutorial way back you might like to check out...

http://norsewoodsmith.com/content/pair-planemakers-floats

[David Weaver]

They're straightforward. that's pretty much the only way to do it if you don't have machine tools, and aside from the tangs, how I did mine.

I didn't even bother to rivet the handles to the metal on mine, I just cleaned off the metal, epoxied on wood from the scrap pile and then shaped it. They aren't tools anyone would sell, it's difficult to get the entire float covered with uniform teeth and to get the whole thing hardened uniformly, especially with O1. You want the hardness to be something you can file unless you will stone them, and O1 likes to be harder than that for people who can't temper it with something other than a kitchen oven.

The S7 steel that LN uses is a good choice if you regularly send stuff off to a commercial hardener, I guess. I still have a couple of sticks of it (bar stock) that I was going to make floats out of, and after seeing the hardening schedule, just cast them aside.