Tools for plane making

[Mark Baldwin III]

One of the next things I want to learn is making a traditional wooden bench plane. LN recommends an edge float and side float as the two basic floats required. What other tools should I have on hand? I will likely be ordering the floats from LN in the next couple of days. I have a 1/2" LN mortise chisel, along with two of their joinery floats (1/2" mortise and a face float).

[Jim Paulson]

One of the next things I want to learn is making a traditional wooden bench plane. LN recommends an edge float and side float as the two basic floats required. What other tools should I have on hand? I will likely be ordering the floats from LN in the next couple of days. I have a 1/2" LN mortise chisel, along with two of their joinery floats (1/2" mortise and a face float).

Mark,
I know that you want to make a traditional plane, but as a starting point it might be advisable to make a Krenov style plane first. It is laminated, but still has some challenges of getting everything to fit.

Regarding the making of a traditional plane, I haven't made one from scratch, but I plan to do it eventually. I bought a video on traditional plane making, by Tod Herrli, and a couple books, and it seemed pretty manageable. If I was going to make one, I'd seriously look into making some of my own tools to keep it affordable. Making your own tools has a number of benefits too, you can see what is most helpful as you go. It doesn't sound that hard to file a float in untempered steel, yet it would let you make a plane or two in the process without the bigger investment.

Best wishes on your plane making.

Jim

[David Weaver]

For tuning the bed, either a bed float or a blunted chisel ala bill carter.

What i mean by that, is an old chisel (that is sharp) squared off with a 90 degree bevel honed well, heated to orange and quenched but no tempering - leave it super hard. Makes an excellent tool for fine tuning a plane bed, maybe more precise than a float, though a little slower.

[Leigh Betsch]

I haven't built a traditional either, everything I've built has been laminated. I use sandpaper glued to a stick, and then sandpaper glued to the blade to lap the blade to the frog. I haven't thought about how to cut the checks for the wedge in a non-laminated plane, floats may be the only way.
I think this weekend I'll make a couple of floats just for fun. I picked up Tod Herrli's "Hollows & Rounds" DVD, it shows how to build a couple of floats. That is after I finish up my infill shoulder plane that's been taking way too long!

[Tri Hoang]

St. James Bay has a pair of floats based on Tod Herrli's design. Have you consider a hybrid approach in which lamination is used but the cheeks are formed traditionally (similar to what Derek has done with his jack).

[george wilson]

I made many a plane without any floats years ago. You can just use a sharp chisel. Don't feel put off if you don't have a float.

[David Weaver]

I don't think inomoto uses floats, either, and there's a video of him on youtube making a plane in about 15 minutes - same idea as a western plane with abutments. I could be wrong about that, but I remember that most of the trimming work he does, he just does with paring chisels. You can cut the abutments with a saw (like a hobby saw) and chisel out the waste.

[Ron Hock]

I've often recommended these instructions (http://www.crfinefurniture.com/1pages/sitelinks/howplane.html) from the "Krenov Shop" for making the basic, laminated Krenov-style plane. I called David Welter recently when a comment was made about the inadvisability of laminating a plane and he told me that after how-many thousands of planes made in that classroom he couldn't recall one failing due to delamination. So if the pleasure of using a wooden plane is the goal, give yourself a break and glue one up. One tip I'd add is to eliminate the pivoting cross-pin in favor of a 1/2" dowel. The pivoting cross-pin is more difficult that the rest of the plane, IMO, and the dowel works just fine.

Good luck. And please post a photo of your results.

[Matt Ranum]

I've often recommended these instructions (http://www.crfinefurniture.com/1pages/sitelinks/howplane.html) from the "Krenov Shop" for making the basic, laminated Krenov-style plane. I called David Welter recently when a comment was made about the inadvisability of laminating a plane and he told me that after how-many thousands of planes made in that classroom he couldn't recall one failing due to delamination. So if the pleasure of using a wooden plane is the goal, give yourself a break and glue one up. One tip I'd add is to eliminate the pivoting cross-pin in favor of a 1/2" dowel. The pivoting cross-pin is more difficult that the rest of the plane, IMO, and the dowel works just fine.

Good luck. And please post a photo of your results.

I picked up an old Ohio coffin smoother for cheap thats basically shot but the cap & iron are real nice. I may just have try one of these with it.

[john brenton]

Although its another cheat, I have had a few old planes that were two pieces. It gets you out all the tight chiseling but will still give you options for traditional style cheeks and eyes.

[Pam Niedermayer]

I made many a plane without any floats years ago. You can just use a sharp chisel. Don't feel put off if you don't have a float.

I never use floats either; but then I've never made traditionally styled western molding planes, which is where small side and bed floats would come in very, very handy. Regularly sized block and bench plane making certainly doesn't require them.

And I second David's/Bill Carter's use of a blunted chisel for scraping the abutments.

Pam

[Pam Niedermayer]

I don't think inomoto uses floats, either, and there's a video of him on youtube making a plane in about 15 minutes - same idea as a western plane with abutments. I could be wrong about that, but I remember that most of the trimming work he does, he just does with paring chisels. You can cut the abutments with a saw (like a hobby saw) and chisel out the waste.

Nary a float did he yield in the class I attended. :)

However, you do need a good 3 mm/1/8" chisel.

Pam

[Bob Strawn]

I have to agree. A chisel with a flat back will do a fine job. You can even use the blade you will be using to tune the bed. I like floats, don't get me wrong, but you can do just as well without one. If you plan to make a lot of planes, then get a float.

[Stewie Simpson]

Mark. I have been making traditional wooden planes for a number of years. The 2 floats LN recommended are well worth the buying if you wish to make more than one. Using them to shape the throat and wedge abutments is ideal and less time consuming.

[Mark Baldwin III]

To Ron and Jim...I've made 6 Krenov style planes (or is ti 7 now?). I enjoy them a lot, and Ron, your irons are top notch. This is really just a challenge for me and another skill to learn. Ron, your tip on using the dowel...that's what I do right now. I got the idea from your kit! It didn't make much sense to me to spend a lot of time on the cross pin.
I've heard of the blunt chisel method, and I may have to give it a shot. I've seen Carter's planes and he makes some neat stuff.
I could see making my own edge float, but not the wider ones. For the wider ones, it makes sense to me to pay someone 50 or 60 bucks instead of taking the time to make my own. Every now and then, I just cough up the cash instead of making something.
Thanks for the tips, everyone. My main concern beyond floats is cutting the giant hole! But I'll have a few more mortise chisels soon to help with that, I need them for another project anyway.
As soon as I get started, I'm sure you all will be the first to know!

[Mark Baldwin III]

Stewie...have you ever thought of making a thread here showing your progress through a plane? The couple of planes you've posted here were gorgeous and I'd love to see your technique.

[Jim Paulson]

Thats cool Mark on building 6 or 7 Krenov planes. I made three and it was fun for a time. I too am hoping to venture into building a traditional plane, although I think my preference will be to make molding planes. Regarding floats, George and others have rightly said you can do a lot with sharp chisels especially if you build a smoother or jack.

I lean toward making some floats evenually out of unhardened steel as Tod Herrli suggests. I won't be making the floats or the molding planes for that matter until I make some furniture for Barb. My honey do list is pretty long after moving twice in the last ten years.

I hope you get inspired to make a traditional plane.

Take care,
Jim

[Mark Baldwin III]

Jim-Eventually I'd like to make some moulding planes as well. I have three E. Baldwin planes from pre 1850. They are beautiful tools, very well made. The fact that they could be made in a manner that turned a profit blows my mind. When the time comes to make moulders, I think I'll get the DVD from Old Street Tools. Spending 3 hours on a Friday night watching a video on tool making is more appealing to me than going out. I think there's about 5 or 6 hours worth of DVD's that I plan on adding to my next order from LN.
I'd love to see a moulding plane being made at production speed by hand. It would probably take me a few days just to make one.

[Steve knight]

I've often recommended these instructions (http://www.crfinefurniture.com/1pages/sitelinks/howplane.html) from the "Krenov Shop" for making the basic, laminated Krenov-style plane. I called David Welter recently when a comment was made about the inadvisability of laminating a plane and he told me that after how-many thousands of planes made in that classroom he couldn't recall one failing due to delamination. So if the pleasure of using a wooden plane is the goal, give yourself a break and glue one up. One tip I'd add is to eliminate the pivoting cross-pin in favor of a 1/2" dowel. The pivoting cross-pin is more difficult that the rest of the plane, IMO, and the dowel works just fine.

Good luck. And please post a photo of your results.

I have had failures. but most of the time it was from wood that was not fully acclimated or oily woods. it is critical that the wood be fully dry and acclimated to your shop. more then about 2% too much moisture and the sides can pull from the main body. the issue is you have a thick block of wood for the body and thin sides the sides loose moisture faster and pop they start cracking. but my planes were shipped all over so there were large humidity changes too. the only thing my cnc cut planes have over krenov style is they are only two pieces of wood face glued. can't beat that for strength.
the oily the wood the more chance of failure. Cocobolo was really chancy and ebony and ipe. I am replacing a plane now about 8 years old out of ipe that just failed.
Floats are great on non tropical woods. they hardly cut at all on hard woods like purpleheart and such.

[Stephen Pereira]

I have had failures. but most of the time it was from wood that was not fully acclimated or oily woods. it is critical that the wood be fully dry and acclimated to your shop. more then about 2% too much moisture and the sides can pull from the main body. the issue is you have a thick block of wood for the body and thin sides the sides loose moisture faster and pop they start cracking. but my planes were shipped all over so there were large humidity changes too. the only thing my cnc cut planes have over krenov style is they are only two pieces of wood face glued. can't beat that for strength.
the oily the wood the more chance of failure. Cocobolo was really chancy and ebony and ipe. I am replacing a plane now about 8 years old out of ipe that just failed.
Floats are great on non tropical woods. they hardly cut at all on hard woods like purpleheart and such.

Thanks, Steve, for this post. The key is fully acclimated/dried wood . Your advice is well taken. I'm just tooling up to fabricate infill planes..steel sole and sides with wood infill..it is a lot of fun and I love the machining challanges. Advice from people who have done it is invaluable.

[Stewie Simpson]

Mark. I will keep that in mind.

Stewie.

[Steve knight]

Thanks, Steve, for this post. The key is fully acclimated/dried wood . Your advice is well taken. I'm just tooling up to fabricate infill planes..steel sole and sides with wood infill..it is a lot of fun and I love the machining challanges. Advice from people who have done it is invaluable.

I think there are pinless meters that read deeper now. mine would only o about 1/2" or so and I could not really check cocobolo well. the outside would be dry not the inside.
my simple method was to have blocks of each wood I use hanging in my shop. get new wood and compare the two. that was the easy way.
really wood should be sitting around for years before you use it. the longer the better. but I never had the money to have wood sitting around.

[David Keller NC]

Mark - Regarding the tools you will find useful for traditional wooden planes - I highly recommend 3 floats - a edge float, a side float and a bed float. The cheek float is also useful, but you can easily do without it. You can definitely use chisels instead of the floats, but the job will take more finesse. One of the principle advantages to a float is that it has many cutting edges in contact with the wood in use, which helps a great deal in getting the angle you intend. Chisels tend to dig, and it can also be difficult to overlay one chisel cut next to another on the bed of a bench plane so that a perfectly smooth surface is left when you're done. Another way to do the work of tuning the bed, mouth, and wedge abutment is with files. These are certainly cheaper than floats, but they're also a lot slower in wood that's fairly easy to cut such as cherry, beech, maple and walnut. For rosewood, ebony, and other really hard tropical woods, files work best in my opinion, as they're so hard that floats have a tendency to skitter over the wood's surface.

One other tool that L-N sells that, while not absolutely necessary, makes cutting the mouth one heck of a lot easier than drilling & straightening with a float or file - a 1/10" mortise chisel. I was skeptical at first that this tool was something I really needed, but I wouldn't be without one after a few uses.

Finally, realize that the floats from L-N do not come ready to use - they must be sharpened with a triangular file to really work at all. Once sharpened, however, they work really, really well.

[Mark Baldwin III]

Finally, realize that the floats from L-N do not come ready to use - they must be sharpened with a triangular file to really work at all. Once sharpened, however, they work really, really well.

I figured that would be the case. When I purchased my joinery floats, I also got the appropriate file to sharpen them with. 6" double extra mega super slim (whichever one that LN recommended in the use and care page). I few quick swipes with the file made a marked difference in the performance. Glad to know that I was thinking along the right lines!
As for which floats to have...It seems to me that my 1" wide joinery float will make an OK substitute for a bed float for now. Or am I barking up the wrong tree? I have already used it to help tweak the last two Krenov style planes that I built.
I will also keep in mind what you said on the small mortise chisel. It may not make its way onto this order, but I may get one for the fine tweaks later, especially when it comes time to make a moulder.

[Mark Baldwin III]

St. James Bay has a pair of floats based on Tod Herrli's design. Have you consider a hybrid approach in which lamination is used but the cheeks are formed traditionally (similar to what Derek has done with his jack).
I've considered the St James Bay floats, and also the Mazzaglia pieces. I may try each of them out at some point. I won't mind a little overlap in tools if they each bring a little something extra to the table. The only problem with the Mazzaglias that I can see is that they're so pretty I'd be afraid to use them !

[David Keller NC]

As for which floats to have...It seems to me that my 1" wide joinery float will make an OK substitute for a bed float for now. Or am I barking up the wrong tree? I have already used it to help tweak the last two Krenov style planes that I built.


Mark - the joinery bed float will work, except for truing the portion of the bed all the way at the bottom. Because the joinery floats are thicker, you may have clearance difficulties to get the bed float out of the mouth on the sole of the plane. But - you could use the joinery bed float for most of the bed, then finish up around the mouth with a wide paring chisel.

[george wilson]

I have made floats,but could never keep them,because collectors would come into the shop and see them,and beg them off me.

[Mark Baldwin III]

Mark - the joinery bed float will work, except for truing the portion of the bed all the way at the bottom. Because the joinery floats are thicker, you may have clearance difficulties to get the bed float out of the mouth on the sole of the plane. But - you could use the joinery bed float for most of the bed, then finish up around the mouth with a wide paring chisel.

The irons I intend to make are 1/4" thick, and I believe the joinery float is as well. I can see that this may still be an issue, though. As of right now, my plane floats are on back order at LN, as is my 3/8 mortise chisel. I have other stuff to play with in the meantime, so I'm not too worried. I'll just have to work on my dovetailing skills to stay busy until these other tools arrive. My face vise should arrive tomorrow, which means I'll be able to work on my bench more too!

[Mark Baldwin III]

I have made floats,but could never keep them,because collectors would come into the shop and see them,and beg them off me.

I wish I had that problem ;)

[Pam Niedermayer]

The irons I intend to make are 1/4" thick, and I believe the joinery float is as well....

OK, but I'd bet your edges won't be that thick. :)

Pam

[Mark Baldwin III]

OK, but I'd bet your edges won't be that thick. :)

Pam

Is that a challenge, Pam? :) My surface grinder is a piece of junk, so I'll probably be flattening by hand. I'll end up with a thinner bed float by the time this is all over.

[Pam Niedermayer]

Is that a challenge, Pam? :) My surface grinder is a piece of junk, so I'll probably be flattening by hand. I'll end up with a thinner bed float by the time this is all over.

No, no, no, no.... not a challenge. It's a certainty that if your edges are 1/4" thick you won't plane anything, maybe compress the wood to death at best.

Pam

[David Keller NC]

Mark - 1/4" is really, really thick for an iron, and may cause you some difficulties - particualrly in the heat treating department. Once you heat the iron up to a uniform high temperature (itself a challenge for 1/4" irons and a torch - forced-air charcoal/coal fires work much better for this purpose), quenching it may well result in a case-hardened blade. The outside will be very, very hard, while the inside will retain enough heat during the quenching process (and cool more slowly) to remain somewhat soft. This could create problems all the way from making the tempering process extraordinarily difficult to control, to actually warping or delaminating the steel.

If this is your first plane-build experience, do yourself an enormous favor and purchase an iron from Lee Valley specifically made for wooden bench planes - it comes tapered (an important attribute in a wooden plane), ground flat, and correctly hardened and tempered.

Failing that, an antique iron would be my next choice, though an important note is that the antique needs to be from a wooden plane (or an infill plane - but in that case the iron/chipbreaker is way too valuable to use in a shop-built woodie). The reason is primarily because of the chip-breaker - it needs to be flat to let the wedge work correctly; a antique Stanley chipbreaker is difficult to mate properly with a wedge because of the swell near the business end. Of course, you can just dispense with the chipbreaker all together, as it's not really needed in planes with a cabinetmaker's pitch.

[Mark Baldwin III]

No, no, no, no.... not a challenge. It's a certainty that if your edges are 1/4" thick you won't plane anything, maybe compress the wood to death at best.

Pam

Maybe I misunderstood what you said?

David-I've had success on two plane irons that are 1/4". I had totally forgotten that LV had those irons. I definitely like the fact that they are 6" long. The 3/16" thickness is nice too. I have material for 2 more blades about 4" long each. This will be my first traditional style plane, though. You are likely right in recommending a pre-made iron for this. In fact, I will probably get one of the LV blades now that you've reminded me about them! I want to make this a single iron affair.
Since my floats are on back order, I was thinking about e-mailing LN to see if a bed float may be available at about the same time my other floats are ready to ship.
Thanks again for all the help. It's nice to throw out ideas and get feedback.

[David Keller NC]

Since we're talking about thick irons - thought you might enjoy this extra-thick edition:

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=49588&cat=1,230,41182

[greg Forster]

2 edge floats and an abutment saw float: 185813 185812

[george wilson]

That folding rule looks very early. 18th.C.? The top float looks quite old too. Any info on the age of the rule or float????/

[greg Forster]

George, don't really have any info on these; bought at auctions back about 25-30 years ago- just after molding planes starting selling for more than $5 a bushel. I think the rule is first half 19thc, kind of hard to tell from photos,I need a better picture-taker. I have one bona-fide 18thc and there are some differences.
A few more planemaker's tools; the float at top has pewter "fittings"
185825

[greg Forster]

My humble attempts at some floats; just a hacksaw, files and one very cramped hand


185829

[Mark Baldwin III]

Those are some neat old floats. I'd love to find something like that as I dig through the antique stores!