tools needed for plane making

[Matthew N. Masail]

ok, so this is the deal... I find krenov style planes very comfortable, but have lot's of respect for a plane made out of a single block of wood.
so I want to stop the laminating and get serious. I'll probably made a Krenov shape, but it will be a solid block.

the problems:
1. I want to use very heavy woods, bloodwood is on the top of my list. I like heft in my planes.
2. I have little "truing tools" like floats and such
3. tight budget.
4. I'm a total novice...

this is what I have:
- a good set of white steel chisels
- a 1/2 inch narex mortise chisel
- Japanese file that I don't find very effective.
- a will to produce superior tools.

my question to you is - what tools should I get first?

[Metod Alif]

Matthew,
Here is a 'contrarian' suggestion, provided that you are not in a rush: Start chopping out the the cavity for the iron. When you hit a 'dead end' with your existing tools, think what tool would come handy for the next step. Get the tool. Repeat.
My guess is that many tools were invented this way.
Best wishes,
Metod

[David Keller NC]

It's possible to produce a very well made, traditional solid-block wooden plane with the tools that you have with 2 additions:

A small mortise chisel for cutting the mouth of the plane - Lie-Nielsen sells a 1/10" width mortise chisel that's made to Larry William's design (of Clark and Williams fame, now Old Street Tools). You don't absolutely have to have this, as you can drill out the mouth opening with a small drill bit, then true up the opening with a file or a rasp. But this isn't an easy thing to do, and cutting the mouth opening with a mortise chisel is far easier.

A couple of coarse files or rasps. The ideal tools to use for truing the bed for the blade and cleaning up the various surfaces inside the throat of the plane is an edge, bed and side float. But you can exchange more work for less tool money by using coarse files and/or rasps for this purpose.


If you wish to do this, I would highly recommend buying Larry William's video on making side escapement planes from Lie-Nielsen. While he is focusing on making hollows and rounds in the video, many of the operations like cutting the mouth/throat opening and bedding the blade are the same as what is done to make single-block wooden bench planes.

[Jeff Heath]

I would not be a happy planemaker without my plane floats. Lie Nielsen is what I purchased, but you can make them out of old files with a little due diligence. However, I'd suggest having a go of it with what you have, and see what you come up with. If you are planning on making a bunch of them, just buy the floats......best money you'll spend. Don't forget a couple 6" XXS quality saw files, too, to sharpen the floats.

Jeff

[Kees Heiden]

You really need something to cut the abutments. A very small and narrow saw would do but an edge float is easier. Luckily that one is the easiest float to make yourself. And don't forget a candle. The candle smoke deposits on the back of the blade is a great way to mark the high spots, works much better and faster then pencil or markers. Get a real candle, no these small tealights.

[Matthew N. Masail]

It's done. I'll be saving up for the floats and DVD and chisel. Thank you guys! I can't work and buy as I need because every tool most likely involves international shipping.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi MatthewYou can get away with what you already have. Two tools you can add - one you can make and one you likely have already.One. You can use coarse files in place of rasps for leveling up. Two. Square the end of a chisel, and use this as a push scraper. It is fantastic.Regards from Perth (currently in Manhattan)Derek

[Jack Curtis]

Here's what I needed to make a Japanese plane (in most cases, not making any judgements about tailed or untailed), a 9" smoother with subblade:
1. Saw and plane to get the blank squared up (9 X 3 x 1.5)
2. marking gauge, pencil, and ruler/straight edge to do the layout
3. hand drill for breaking through the sole (also later for installing the subblade pin)
4. massive 36-42 mm chisel for chopping the mortise (dependent on blade size, but 42 is as wide as you'll need), this chisel has to be fairly short to avoid mucking up the mortise dimensions by jamming the mortise front
5. 36 mm or so paring chisel to fit the blade to the bed
6. small hand saw for cutting the abutment boundaries
7. small chisel, 2 or 3 mm, for evacuating the abutments, fitting the blade sides in the abutments, can be much larger if you'll make a western plane with wedge
8. scraper for conditioning the sole

That's pretty much it. Enjoy.

[Jack Curtis]

...Square the end of a chisel, and use this as a push scraper. It is fantastic....

This is a great tool. I don't need one for making Japanese dai, but for tall escapement planes a must unless floats abound.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Hi MatthewYou can get away with what you already have. Two tools you can add - one you can make and one you likely have already.One. You can use coarse files in place of rasps for leveling up. Two. Square the end of a chisel, and use this as a push scraper. It is fantastic.Regards from Perth (currently in Manhattan)Derek

I made a chisel like that out of a cheap 1/2 inch chisel, I use it to fit the blades to the bed when using a candle, but it doesn’t really take shaving or remove any amount
of material. I guess I'm doing it wrong. does it need to have a burr? does the flat edge need to be polished? basically how do I do it? :)

[David Weaver]

Doesn't need to have a burr, just needs to have a sharp 90 degree intersection. It's easier to keep one of those sharp if you have a power sharpener of some type, the edge doesn't need to be fine (or polished), it just needs to be fresh.

If you're going to use really hard woods, like mentioned above, an abutment saw is all you need. You won't favor floats too much in really hard wood... I don't. They work well in beech, but less well in maple in terms of speed unless the cuts are crossgrain. Working on endgrain, like a bed and the face opposite of the bed, I'd rather have the modified chisel. You can take a bigger shaving with it and it's easier to keep it in shape. If you want to make it really hard, you can make reharden a chisel and quench with no temper. I put a long handle on a cheap socket chisel and did that, and since the edge is so blunt it doesn't seem to mind that it's not tempered.

At any rate, I'd go for chisels and an abutment saw, and do the initial opening of the mouth with a cordless drill where you've got the mouth profile marked on the sides of the plane for visual reference while drilling. You can use a punch to put marks on the mouth waste before drilling so the drill hole goes exactly where you expect it to.

[Pinwu Xu]

I made a plane the old way (digging out the waste).
The opening was drilled out, you can say it's time consuming, but you have better control.

Floats are good, but I was able to make a coffin shaped smooth plane with chisel, file, rasp, drill

HTH

Pinwu

[Matthew N. Masail]

ok.... that's good, because it'll take me a while to save up for floats. Thanks.

David, I'll have to buy a cheap chisel, is it better if it's O1 or somthing vs an alloy steel? also, what is an abutment saw?

[David Weaver]

An abutment saw is a small saw with very little set or set only on one side that can cut the notch in the inside of the plane mortise where the wedge fits against. Something like a keyhole saw or some other such thing, but small.

As far as the chisel, I don't know. I just used chisels from probably about the 1930s or so and quenched in oil and they were fine. If that wouldn't have hardened them enough, I would've quenched in water.

If you were making one from stock (which you could definitely do, just cut a tang on the end of a piece of O1) O1 is nice, because you know for sure you can quench it in oil and it will behave.

[Mike Holbrook]

I made my planes using Steve Knights methods. I think one gets a plane as solid as a single block of wood but with most of the advantages of the multiple parts used in many kits. The idea is to make the plane from two pieces of wood. The inside portion of the plane is cut into each half, The two halves are then glued together to create the rough form. The plane only has the one glue line right down the center of the plane. The roughed out form created by gluing the two halves together is easy to finish up with small files & rasps.

I like the Iwasaki wood files. They come in a large selection of shapes, tooth configurations and sizes. They are much cheaper than the hand made files but they perform as well or some might argue even better. I also have a Gramercy handle making file, tapered and curved. I also like using rolls of sandpaper with sticky backing that I stick to a construction table saw table for final leveling and flattening of the plane bottom.