Really big rabbet's, The Neander Way

[Matthew Springer]

I've been making a mirror frame for a friend and I'm stumped on a cut. The frame is out of QSWO that's been hand dimensioned. The stock is about 4.5" wide and 1" thick. My friend's plans call for a rabbet to fit over the mirror on the backside. The trick is the rabbet is 3.5" by .75" along the back, bascially most of the back side, leaving a 1x1" thick region and a 3.5 x .25" region.

I've already got the wood, but I'm starting to realize it'd be easier to just use quarter inch thick pieces with a .75" x 1" strip tacked on. Alas, my friend is kinda attached to the romance of solid wood. How do I remove that much wood? scrub plane + bench rebate plane? back saw with a guide and make two cuts?

I heistate to use electrons, as I'd like to not create that many cubic meters of saw dust.

-Matthew

[Aaron Kline]

Maybe a #10 jack rabbet or if worse comes to worse a *choke* rou.....t..e.r:rolleyes:

[Roger Nixon]

Do you have a plow plane with a nicker, Stanley #45, #50, etc.? The nicker is to score the line on cross grain. If you have a plow with no nicker, score a line with a knife. Use a 1/4" blade and set the fence to plow a groove 3.5" from the edge and set the depth stop to 3/4". Once the groove is plowed remove the bulk of the waste with a chisel and use a small bench plane or a block plane to finish up. The 1/4" groove allows the clearance to use a regular plane.

[Marc Hills]

My friend's plans call for a rabbet . . . . 3.5" by .75" along the back, bascially most of the back side, leaving a 1x1" thick region and a 3.5 x .25" region.

Alas, my friend is kinda attached to the romance of solid wood.

I heistate to use electrons, as I'd like to not create that many cubic meters of saw dust.

-Matthew

Well Matthew, you might have been a little facetious about "many cubic meters" of saw dust. Depending on how big this mirror is going to be (I'm guessing BIG) I'm going to be only somewhat less facetious when I say planing such a rabbet will produce a "many cubic meters" of shavings.

Clearly not using a table saw, some other power tool or building up the rabbet with separate pieces of wood is completely irrational. However, this is the Neanderthal forum and all of us, if we stop to think about it, are at least a little bit irrational in our devotion to hand tools and their use.

This actually looks like a job for a Stanley #10 or #10 1/2, the kind with open cheeks on the sides and a blade that extends across the full width of the sole. I don't suppose you have one lying around, do you?

A scrub plane might also work in tandem with a plow plane. I think the trick would be to plow a dado at the 3.5" mark all the way down to the 3/4" depth first, and then attack the remaining "median" of wood with the scrub. Actually, I doubt you have a plow plane that can cut a 3/4" deep dado in one go. You may have to go down 3/8", remove the remaining rabbet width with the scrub down to the 3/8" depth, and then start the process again.

I think this would work much better than first using the scrub to take off as much as possible and then trying to establish a clean rabbet wall with a rabbet plane. As a scrub's blade doesn't extend across the full width of the sole, you'll end up with a sloping surface that would be very difficult to square up, even using a temporary fence.

Just a crazy thought here: of all the planes in the Anant line, I always thought their copy of the #10 was one of the more compelling, as it's really hard to find an affordable vintage original for a user. I think the Anant copies go for around $60 or $70.

HTH,

[Dan Moening]

...a 3.5 x .25" region...

Hmmm. Far be it from me to criticize your friend's plans, but does that dimension seem weak to anyone else but me?

I'm not sure I see how a 1/4" of material is going to support a large mirror.

The 3.5" {by 0.25"} area will be covering the mirror on the front side, yes?

Perhaps the frame is simply a "covering" and not intended to support the mirror itself?

If you are wedded to a neander solution, I like Marc Hills idea:

...I think the trick would be to plow a dado at the 3.5" mark all the way down to the 3/4" depth first, and then attack the remaining "median" of wood with the scrub....

[Pam Niedermayer]

I'd go to chisels for removing that much wood, probably bevel down to help avoid tearout. Then finish up with a 71 router plane.

I'm also interested in what's going in the rebate.

Pam

[Matthew Springer]

Turns out I'm an idiot, incapable of reading blueprints correctly. Good thing I switched to programming as a career....

The rabbets are a mere 3/8" deep in 4/4 stock (but still 3.5" wide). I beleive the jack rabbet bench plane then becomes the tool of choice.

[Roger Nixon]

Think again. If you really set a jack rabbet for a coarse cut you might get .005". You are talking about removing .375" so 75 passes, give or take.

[Marc Hills]

I don't know Roger, 75 passes is a lot, but this is hand powered woodworking after all. If Matthew really wants to do this, 75 strokes with a hand plane isn't an unreasonable task. Ever ripped an 8' board down the middle?

[Matthew Dworman]

Nah - you can easily remove 0.020-0.025 shavings if you set the blade for it - they won't be pretty fluffy shavings, but it will work absolutely fine nonetheless. These planes were designed to be able to take thick coarse shavings and then follow up with fine finishing shavings

[Roger Nixon]

Ever ripped an 8' board down the middle? Sure. Oh, you mean with a ripsaw :rolleyes: ? I have and I have resawn a few. Now I use an ...alternate... method ;) .

[Roger Nixon]

Nah - you can easily remove 0.020-0.025 shavings if you set the blade for it - they won't be pretty fluffy shavings, but it will work absolutely fine nonetheless. These planes were designed to be able to take thick coarse shavings and then follow up with fine finishing shavings

.02" x 2" shavings on QSWO? No wonder so many #10's have welded cheeks :o !

[Wade McDonald]

Matthew,

In your first post you suggested sawing. If you were only going to have 1/4" left, there seemed to be little room for error- the 3.5" "cheek cut" was ahem, advanced. Now you have enough room for minor misalignment in sawing- saw most of it away like it was a tenon (rip "cheek cut" and shoulder cut) and clean it with the "bunny" plane. Of course depends on having a saw with rip cut teeth and that much clearance- so you could use a fine toothed rip handsaw or a big rip miter saw for the cheek cut. Could be an opportunity for tool acquisition;) ? I'd still practice first, and try to leave a bit proud- but sawing is gonna be quicker than planing for removing waste- even if your practice sawing makes you want to leave 1/8" proud. Beyond that, maybe planing makes sense.

Wade

[Matthew Springer]

I actually seriously thought about sawing. Basically get a beater back saw, file it rip and install a depth guide. then saw down the to rip cuts. Clean to taste.

i guess, what i forgot to add was this is a groove, not technically a rabbet. And the board is 4' long,which makes sawing down one cut the side of the board that 2.5" deep and 4' long. It's almost like a resaw, but it doesn't go all the way through. The other option was just to resaw the darn thing and then ripsaw the one strip to glue back on from one of the pieces.

Just to be safe, there's a LN 10.5 on the way. Cause you never know.....

[Roger Nixon]

Aha! So this whole thing was an excuse to get a LN 10 1/2. Good thinkin' :)

[Matthew Springer]

Well the LN 10.5 came in last weekend, so a bit of polishing and honing later we were makign shavings.

An observation of the glaringly obvious....

You can't use a rabbet plane in any realistic way unless you can take long strokes that start from the end of the board. In my case I was trying to rabbet out a 4' long board. Trick is: I don't have a real bench, so I had to use a handscrew to clamp the board to the table saw rail. This means the I could only take about a 2' swipe and then move the clamp. You basically MUST have the board in a tail vise with the straight edge held down over it with a holdfast or two.

Unless you can really get a good start at the end of the rabbet, the plane just skips.

[Louis Bois]

Correct me if I'm wrong Matthew, but wouldn't it be possible to clamp the board at two places (see rudimentary sketch) with some double sided tape underneath for good measure?!? It would free up the space to run the rabbet all the way along the board...and since most of the pressure is on the unclampled end, movement shouldn't be too much of an issue.

...just an idea...