Steve knight
03-27-2005, 11:30 PM
Here is my new plane idea. They have adjustable mouths. They now use the full width of the iron. They are also can be shorter as in the case of the coffin smoother.
Myself I don’t think an adjustable mouth is super important in a woodie. They just don’t seem to need it. but this added feature does a lot of things for me and my customers. It makes the plane more uniform in the boy width. I used to make them with the thickness of the wood on edge. So if the wood was undersize (I was shooting for 1 7/8” wide) I did not always get that width and you had less blade to use. That also made all of the wedge widths different and the mouth blocks had to be modified to fit. Then you have the mouthblock sticking up. All it does is adjust for wear. If you wanted a more open mouth then a tighter one you needed two blocks.
This setup saves me several steps in tuning too. First I would lay out all of the planes that were shipping that week. I would install the threaded inserts and setscrews. The put in the unsharpened irons. Then I would fit the wedges for width and length. Then the mouthblocks for width. Then I would shape the wedge and mouthblock. Then I would put some linseed oil on the mouthblock and put the two machine screws and washers in. I would then adjust the wedge then sharpen the iron. I would install it and set the opening of the mouth. This was seldom perfect and I had to adjust it later. I would have to turn on my edge sander for 20 seconds to flatten the mouthblock to the sole. Then I would run the plane over the jointer (this is a tricky thing since you have face grain and endgrain) then lap the plane flat. Then I would check the mouth opening and adjust it with the file. Sometimes I would have to lap the sole to remove the excess mouth block.
So I eliminate the session with the belt sander and maybe that extra time on the jointer. Plus the extra time to get the mouth just right.
The issues I face now are the screw on top and the wedge. I was going to go with brass but I was afraid it would not hold up. Plus I need a 2.25” screw and that’s a oddball. So right now I am using a ss panhead slotted. But I think it will change over to a button top socket head (a button is about all I can find in that size) well it is 2.5” so I will have to cut them down to size.
I want to improve the looks of the wedge too. But I still need it to be simple to adjust. So I can’t have anything but a simple taper. If I can’t lap the face of it to adjust it that would make life far harder. Since my planes are not milled out the cheek cuts are not always the same width for the wedge. So far the suggestions have been a larger hole and curved fingers.
The top hole for the screw will change too. I am getting a ¾” washer made with a ½” long but ¼” slot in it for the screw to slide on. This will look nicer then the 1 1/8” hole right now.
http://www.knight-toolworks.com/web_temp_pics/newplane12.jpg
the sole is one piece and the block is cut from it. This plane has a replacement block as I did not account for how much the mouth would open up when I jointed the sole. Well that’s easy to fix from now on
http://www.knight-toolworks.com/web_temp_pics/newplane11.JPG
these design changes increase the plane width about ¼” or so they are about 7.5” long 3” wide and about 2.57” high. The jacks and jointers will only be a bit wider.
--------------------
Steve knight
Knight-Toolworks
http://www.knight-toolworks.com (http://www.knight-toolworks.com/)<o ="">:p></o>:p>
Myself I don’t think an adjustable mouth is super important in a woodie. They just don’t seem to need it. but this added feature does a lot of things for me and my customers. It makes the plane more uniform in the boy width. I used to make them with the thickness of the wood on edge. So if the wood was undersize (I was shooting for 1 7/8” wide) I did not always get that width and you had less blade to use. That also made all of the wedge widths different and the mouth blocks had to be modified to fit. Then you have the mouthblock sticking up. All it does is adjust for wear. If you wanted a more open mouth then a tighter one you needed two blocks.
This setup saves me several steps in tuning too. First I would lay out all of the planes that were shipping that week. I would install the threaded inserts and setscrews. The put in the unsharpened irons. Then I would fit the wedges for width and length. Then the mouthblocks for width. Then I would shape the wedge and mouthblock. Then I would put some linseed oil on the mouthblock and put the two machine screws and washers in. I would then adjust the wedge then sharpen the iron. I would install it and set the opening of the mouth. This was seldom perfect and I had to adjust it later. I would have to turn on my edge sander for 20 seconds to flatten the mouthblock to the sole. Then I would run the plane over the jointer (this is a tricky thing since you have face grain and endgrain) then lap the plane flat. Then I would check the mouth opening and adjust it with the file. Sometimes I would have to lap the sole to remove the excess mouth block.
So I eliminate the session with the belt sander and maybe that extra time on the jointer. Plus the extra time to get the mouth just right.
The issues I face now are the screw on top and the wedge. I was going to go with brass but I was afraid it would not hold up. Plus I need a 2.25” screw and that’s a oddball. So right now I am using a ss panhead slotted. But I think it will change over to a button top socket head (a button is about all I can find in that size) well it is 2.5” so I will have to cut them down to size.
I want to improve the looks of the wedge too. But I still need it to be simple to adjust. So I can’t have anything but a simple taper. If I can’t lap the face of it to adjust it that would make life far harder. Since my planes are not milled out the cheek cuts are not always the same width for the wedge. So far the suggestions have been a larger hole and curved fingers.
The top hole for the screw will change too. I am getting a ¾” washer made with a ½” long but ¼” slot in it for the screw to slide on. This will look nicer then the 1 1/8” hole right now.
http://www.knight-toolworks.com/web_temp_pics/newplane12.jpg
the sole is one piece and the block is cut from it. This plane has a replacement block as I did not account for how much the mouth would open up when I jointed the sole. Well that’s easy to fix from now on
http://www.knight-toolworks.com/web_temp_pics/newplane11.JPG
these design changes increase the plane width about ¼” or so they are about 7.5” long 3” wide and about 2.57” high. The jacks and jointers will only be a bit wider.
--------------------
Steve knight
Knight-Toolworks
http://www.knight-toolworks.com (http://www.knight-toolworks.com/)<o ="">:p></o>:p>