Building shoulder planes

[Jerome Hanby]

I've got the goodies together to build the 3/4" shoulder plane they featured in Shopnotes a while back. I was reading some article by Christopher Schwarz and he mentioned a 1/2' shoulder plane and that got me thinking that might be a handy size to have also. I looked at the available 1/2" models and it looks like they all use a wedge to hold the blade. Assuming I get the first plane built and I like the adjustment mechanism, do you think I could get the same blade and grind it down (taking an equal amount off both sides) from 3/4" to 1/2"? I ordered several of the brass parts used to build the Shopnotes plane adjuster because they were a pain in the backside to source and I can buy the Clifton bladed from Woodcraft. The rest is just sheet brass for the sides, round brass stock for the rivets, and steel for the sole (think the steel and round brass pieces I bought are enough to build two planes).

Or maybe I should just use an off the shelf 1/2" iron and build a wedge style plane...

[bridger berdel]

is there an online version of thay plane uou can link to?

[Jerome Hanby]

This (http://www.woodworkingseminars.com/wp-content/ShoulderPlane.pdf) shows a couple of pages. Full plan is available from plansnow.com (http://www.plansnow.com/dn3086.html), I think.

[Tony Shea]

That is an interesting project out of Shopnotes. I would not expect such a project from them. IMO the adjustment mechanism is going to cause more issues than it will help. With a wedged iron such as this plane I would just leave the adjuster part out and make adjustments with a small plane adjusting hammer. Similar to the small shoulder plane Lie Nielsen sells.

[Steve Branam]

I have that issue. It's from August, 2006. I've always wanted to build that plane. I'll be interested to see how it goes!

[Jerome Hanby]

If I ever get down to that project, I'll snap some pictures and take some notes an post them.

[Trevor Walsh]

Tony, I know what you mean, I never expected something that sophisticated from shop notes.

Jerome, as long as the shank will fit in the smaller plane I don't see an issue. If however the shank of the 3/4" wide rabber iron measures 5/8" you have a lot more grinding to do. A replacement LN or LV iron for 1/2" might be a better route as long as you have to buy more irons.

[Jerome Hanby]

Tony, I know what you mean, I never expected something that sophisticated from shop notes.

Jerome, as long as the shank will fit in the smaller plane I don't see an issue. If however the shank of the 3/4" wide rabber iron measures 5/8" you have a lot more grinding to do. A replacement LN or LV iron for 1/2" might be a better route as long as you have to buy more irons.205519Here is a picture of the iron. I don't have it in front of me to measure but just eyeballing the picture, it might be close. Definitely wouldn't want to grind the shank. After I actually measure I may just copy the way the LN 1/2" shoulder plane controls the blade. The Shopnotes plane has a wedge anyway, so the 1/2" could still be an almost perfect match. Maybe I'll actually get the 3/4" one built and tuned up before I worry anymore about a companion plane :D.

[Trevor Walsh]

That looks like it would do both thicknesses just fine, nice.

[Joe Fabbri]

I think I would leave off the adjustment also. It might be more annoying to set the plane, but once you have it set, I'd imagine you won't change it for a while.