Floats Finally Finished...well al-most

[greg Forster]

some of the planemaker's floats I've been working on - totally Neander

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still have a more couple handles to make, but so far: oak,mahogany, walnut from a tree that went down in an icestorm back in 1984 and maple from an old cow-stanchion.
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my 2 favorites-
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[Jim Koepke]

They look good.

Any photos of the work in progress?

Were these made with a file then hardened?

jtk

[Patrick Tipton]

Greetings Greg.

Those look great. I have been eyeing the LN floats, but keep toying with the idea of making them myself. Time vs. money. How did you make them?

Regards, Patrick

[Charles McKinley]

Hi Greg,

They look great. Can you give us some more specifics? Thickness, type of steel, How you laid them out ,TPI, etc....

Thanks

[David Weaver]

Looks nice. A lot of work in those flat floats. I made a couple and gave up on making the rest when someone asked me what I wanted for Christmas two years ago.

How do you plan on hardening them? My thought was that the front teeth would see the most use, so I would harden as much of the front as I could heat with a torch and leave the rest alone (on an O1 float) and sharpen it as needed. I haven't set the world afire building planes in the last two years, but the float I did that to is still fine, and in use, the front inch or two has definitely taken the brunt of the work.

[Steve Croom]

you don't harden them..?
you will have to use a file to resharpen them later on.

What planes you planing to make....?
I made a 22" Jointer at Roy U.... with Bill Edwards(inst). it was a blast... I'm currently making a 90° bed toothing plane(coffin style).

[george wilson]

You could leave them soft and re file as needed,if they are 01 or another decent tool steel. If you harden them,they will warp like crazy due to different surface areas on each side. they can be straightened,however. Sand the back sides of the floats clean and bright. Heat to a medium straw(brown) color. WHILE THEY ARE HOT-ONLY,you can bend them like noodles until they are straight. When they cool off,they'll snap like glass,so make sure they are hot. I have made floats before,and straightened them thusly. Make a hardwood fork you can insert them between the tines,and bend them. This won't deface the teeth. Files being made are sometimes straightened the same way. Half round reamers will also warp like crazy. I treat them the same way. Just be sure they are still hot when you bend them. You can sand them clean and re heat if needed.

[Leigh Betsch]

I'm thinkng that 4140 prehard would be a good steel to make floats out of. About 32Rc and no heat treating needed.

[george wilson]

4140 prehard is so soft that I haven't been able to tell it's too much different from cold rolled steel. I've machined it several times,using it as part of injection molds. I did have a gunsmith friend who used to make checkering tools out of annealed 01. He filed the teeth on with a checkering file,and just gave them another hit with the checkering file when they got dull. Of course,checkering isn't a lot of punishment for a file.

[Leigh Betsch]

George what steel did you use when you made your floats? I'm teatering on buying an old metal shaper off the PM forum and figure I could grind up a form cutter and make a couple of fine floats. Anything to justify another machine for my shop!

[greg Forster]

I didn't take any in-progress pictures, maybe I'll remember next time. The handles are attached with machine screws ( except for 2), so always have the option to heat-treat later. I looked at using other steels, but didn't see any great advantage compared to O-1, which I already had. The "mortise" float is 1/4" x 5/16" hand filed to a taper along top and two sides... next time a belt grinder. The other floats are 1/8" thick O-1 hacksawed from inch wide material.

The first 3 floats I filed with a 6" XX Slim tapered sawfile; coated with layout dye, scribed 8TPI and then filed a small starting notch for each tooth, made three passes trom toe to heel to completely cut the teeth... not good; it brings new meaning to the word "random", the floats work , but not that well; I need to reshape/sharpen some more, and the amount of time it took is too crazy to think about.

I changed my methods on the other three. Went to a 6" 3-square bastard file, set up a saw sharpening jig, applied layout dye, then filed the tooth until only a sliver of marking dye remained, relocated, referencing off the just filed tooth and so on down the length of the float,( it's all about the JOURNEY) then I came back lightly jointed the teeth, reapplied layout fluid and free hand filed the final sharpening, and these cut like little smoothing planes... work great. It took 2-3 minutes/tooth on edge float and 5-8 minutes/tooth on side float and then about 5 minutes/ float for final sharpening.

I'm planning on refining my techniques, using some electrons and making some more; I hate to re-invent the wheel, but there isn't alot of info out there. If it wasn't for Larry Williams and some of ya'll, I never would have got to this point.... I tried almost 20 years ago to make a float from an annealed file using a photo in a book, that didn't get to far.

So any and all thoughts are appreciated. Anyone tried floats for shaping cabriole legs?

I think I can give LN some competition, just waiting for them to raise their price point to $250 per float

This photo isn't great but... the top pull side float is from the better 2nd group and the bottom push side float is from the first not so great group.
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[Charles McKinley]

Just a thought:

Could you take a big horse shoeing file and have it cut on a water jet? It seems to have about the right TPI. If you think this may work I will ask around about a water jet. There has to be one not to far from me that I can get some time on for a reasonable exchange.

[george wilson]

I just made mine out of 01. I cut the teeth with a horizontal milling machine,using an angular cutter,which had 45º teeth on 1 side and 90º teeth on the other.

Horse shoeing files do have very coarse file type teeth on 1 side,about 1/16" apart. Water jet would be a good way to cut floats out of them,I suppose. Never have had experience with them,or with what they would charge to do such a job. The machine shops around here aren't very cooperative with the small customer.

I have thought about opening a "Poor Man's Machine Shop" myself. But,I don't want to get stuck with repairing rusted out farm equipment.

[David Weaver]

That and the "poor man" likely wouldn't want to pay you enough to cover the tooling and taxes on the building, let alone enough for you to pay yourself anything.

I think Larry mentioned at one time that LN cuts them on a mill, and in relative terms, they take a while because you can't just wham them through.

Filing them by hand is mind-numbing and creates sore hands and tired eyes, at least for the wide flat and long floats.

I think if anyone wants to be frugal, getting some 1/8th 01 steel and mabye one piece of 1" 3/16th to make a wide edge float and making the edge and cheek floats is not unreasonable. Making the bed floats and the side floats is something to do only if you want to do it, it takes so long to file or jig something up to hold a coarse file.

[Ray Gardiner]

Hi Greg,

Nice work, the reward for all those hours of filing... Well done.

What is the rake angle of the teeth on your floats?, the ones I made I did a 5 degree positive rake, but that was just a wild guess after seeing a LN float at a wood show.

Anyone ever seen an "real" antique float to check the tpi and rake angles?

Regards
Ray

[David Weaver]

Haven't seen any of the old ones, but I think Larry mentioned to me before that the LN floats have no rake (maybe it was even positive?). I could confirm that later, but so could anyone who has one.

I think you want them (especially the bigger ones where more cutting area will be in use) to be as aggressive as possible. IIRC sharpening the front tooth, it has postive (as in more aggressive) rake.

[Jim Paulson]

I'm impressed and encouraged to try this myself. Clearly you can't be in a hurry and probably take plenty of breaks to keep things even on the angles and to stay square to the sides or consistent in orientation.

Like David said, I'll probably make a couple of the less time consuming ones. That way I can see how much it takes out of me.

Best wishes and now you get to make a few planes, right?
Jim

[Trevor Walsh]

Really nice work, I like the clean lines and soft bevels in the handles.

[Mark Baldwin III]

Haven't seen any of the old ones, but I think Larry mentioned to me before that the LN floats have no rake (maybe it was even positive?). I could confirm that later, but so could anyone who has one.

I think you want them (especially the bigger ones where more cutting area will be in use) to be as aggressive as possible. IIRC sharpening the front tooth, it has postive (as in more aggressive) rake.

I just had a look at one of my LN floats. From the leading edge of the cutting surface, the teeth slope back slightly towards the handle. Is that what you mean by positive?