Beginner - Using my LA Block Plane - Sizing narrow inlay strips to fit in routed slot

[Eoin Ryans]

Hi All,

I am a new owner of a Veritas LA block plane, my first "proper" hand tool! My first use for it is as follows..

I have a large number of mopani wood strips which are roughly cut. I wish to inlay them into the routed slot below (strip of oak, ded ebony). Currently, the mopani strips are a little to wide to fit in the slots (about 1/16th inch too wide). They also are too thick, as they will sit proud of the ebony coloured trim, and I will have to somehow plane or sand them flush, without planing the ebony dyed oak moulding.


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Has anybody any suggestions on how I will plane the mopani strips uniformly, so they will be a perfect snug fit in the slot?
I have attempted to plane some of them, and when I fit them into the slot, some arin eas I have taken too much material off the mopani, thereby leaving a gap!

Thanks guys
Eoin

[Russell Sansom]

One of the easiest ways is with a shooting board and a "fence" set to the width you want. The fence would run parallel to the direction of the shooting plane. How long are the strips you want to inlay? You will have to take precautions that they don't pull out away from the fence while you're shooting them. Not a huge problem, but you still have to pay attention to it as a possible problem that could ruin your stock. You can pin them to the shooting board outside the length you need. With a dedicated shooting board made just for this task, you can make provision for clamps to hold the strip down so it is less likely to pull away. Look up "sticking board" for a common version of this idea.
This gives you a repeatable process for cutting many strips. If it were me, I'd put a very (,very) slight taper on the strips. As a general principle, it's hard to make pegs that exactly fit their holes ( as an easy to understand example ). A tapered peg, on the other hand, can be trimmed until it just fills the hole and bottoms out at the same time.

I can't dream up any way to make the strips the correct width and the correct height at the same time. They should go in proud then be taken down until they are flush with the top. I don't think there's any other way to do it.

I know of a second method that is seldom spoken of. I have used this to produce hundreds of harpsichord jacks that are extremely similar in dimensions. Harpsichord jacks are, roughly speaking, about the size of very fat lollipop sticks. Cut ( rout ) a slot in a 2" piece of hardwood. Make the depth of the slot equal the width of the finished strip you want. Or a hair wider. Stick your strip edgewise into the slot and plane across the top. Take a little care not to remove wood shavings from the top of the hardwood itself and hold the plane iron to a single depth ( don't crank it in and out ). Practice a bit. Pull out your micrometer and prepare to be amazed.
Good luck,
Russ

[george wilson]

Tp plane harpsichord jacks,in 1970 i made a jig to do so: I took a wooden shoulder plane and screwed sticks of hardwood on each side so the plane would stop cutting when the strips touched bottom. The jacks were laid in a groove which clamped them in place.

Lath planes were made similarly. A parallel sided plane had adjustable strips of hardwood fitted to each side. The plane was wide enough to straddle the lath.

You could just super glue two strips of hardwood to the bottom of your plane,and shave them down to the exact thickness you want your strips to be. Then,plane the strips while laid on a nice,even surface. The plane will stop cutting when the strips make contact with the surface. You can remove the super glued on strips afterward by levering them off with a sharp chisel. Remaining glue can be cleanly removed with acetone without harm to the plane. Keep solvents off of the black paint,though.

[Jim Koepke]

Two great answers already.

My thought on this is will you be doing this just once or will it be repeated. If it is to be repeated then making a special shooting board for this kind of work is indead an option.

What George describes reminds me of how fishing rod makers would modify a #9-1/2 block for cutting bamboo to make fishing rods. Lie-Nielsen sells one as a 9-1/2g.

My thought was to have a plane mounted upside down in a vise and have the piece with the groove close by. Use a block of wood to hold the piece across the blade and be careful since this is an easy way to remove your finger prints.

Also if you do a lot of inlay you might want to make a thicknessing gauge like LN has on this page:

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?cat=549

jtk

[Jack Curtis]

Here's a Japanese implementation called hikouki kanna, typically used to make kumiko for shoji:

[bill tindall]

You haven't said how thick these strips are, but what you describe could be what is called "stringing" or "string inlay". If it is stringing there are two common ways to size it- scraping with a tool made for the task and sanding. Do a search of string inlay and you will find various tools for the task. Steve Latta has a dandy video on this procedure available from Lee Nielsen. Once inset and the glue dry it is scraped level with a card scraper.
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[george wilson]

The Japanese plane Jack shows works exactly the way I proposed,except you can't screw strips to your block plane.

If you plan to do much of this work,find a wooden shoulder plane,and attach the adjustable strips to each side. Use elongated vertical slots in the strips so your screws can be loosened,and the strips raised or lowered to suit the thickness you want.

As for making their widths,do like I did,and was suggested above: make a groove you can lay the strips in,and use the same shoulder plane to plane the edges until the plane's strips bottom out on the jig.

[Jack Curtis]

The Japanese plane Jack shows works exactly the way I proposed,except you can't screw strips to your block plane....

I should have mentioned that the darker wood that runs across the plane in front of the blade is variably sprung with a leaf spring, so the planed piece is pressed against whatever bed you're using so you get same sized pieces.

[Eoin Ryans]

Hi again guys, thanks so much to all of you for your help. I ended up routing a slot into a piece of hardwood as suggested by Russell in order to size my pieces to the correct width. This worked pretty well, but I ended up tearing out a lot. I am now just putting it down to my lack of knowledge in setup and use of my block plane.
In fact, I got quite frustrated and ended up ditching the plane altogether and started sanding.

I managed to fit some inlay into the slot of the moulding (the slot depth is about 5mm, and the inlay is 8mm thick, standing about 3mm proud). I glued the mopani strips in, and picked back up the LA block plane to see if I could manage to shave off the 3mm to bring everything flush. Again, things started to turn bad pretty quick, more tearout and also I contacted the oak strip too (even though the piece is 3mm below). Again, I ditched the plane and started sanding. Shame, my enthusiasm for planes has taken a big hit today.

Can't win em all I guess!

[Russell Sansom]

Eoin,
1) Practice. 2) Learn to figure out grain direction. You can't plane against the grain, at least... 3) with a block plane. I would have been tempted to use a faintly cambered #8 set for a .0005" shaving. 4) As mentioned above, a scraper will let you ease your way down.
I would encourage you to be disappointed but not discouraged. If you haven't done some of this already, you didn't really stand a chance. Practice.

[Eoin Ryans]

Eoin,
1) Practice. 2) Learn to figure out grain direction. You can't plane against the grain, at least... 3) with a block plane. I would have been tempted to use a faintly cambered #8 set for a .0005" shaving. 4) As mentioned above, a scraper will let you ease your way down.
I would encourage you to be disappointed but not discouraged. If you haven't done some of this already, you didn't really stand a chance. Practice.

Wise words Russell, thanks. I was probably a little too ambitious anyway!

I might try size the remaining pieces with scrapers - any advice on the type/model of scrapers and a technique?
Should I also use scrapers to bring the inlay flush with the moulding?

[Metod Alif]

What Bill Tindall and George Wilson said. Last Fall I made some shoji screens. I used carpet tape to attach the runners to my (metal) block plane. It worked just fine. No need for screws. Sand the runners for fine tuning their thickness
Best wishes,
Metod