Time to build two quickie drawer grooving planes - step by step

[David Weaver]

(if you have experience making tools, the following isn't going to be of any interest to you. If you don't, I can't guarantee it will, either, but if you want to make a grooving plane similar to the type that warren mentioned and you've never even thought about making a plane before and don't want to do something hard to start - like making a one-piece coffin smoother - then it might be worthwhile).


plane 1 worked well. So I've made two more in the same style and same build speed. (same cost, too).

Start with a billet of something that is at least flat on one face and one edge. That will be your reference side and the sole of your plane. The rest of the stuff doesn't really matter (as I type this, the back sides of my planes are still rough sawn). The flat face and square edge need to be good, though, they are the reference for all of your marking and plow planing.

I had a cherry offcut 5/4 or a little more and quartered. I'd like 10 inches per plane, but the offcut is 18, so they're 9 once I split it in half (not going to go find some good wood to waste) and I trimmed the width of the board, so that becomes the plane's height - about 3 1/2"

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I attempted to show that it's QS in the next picture, but the picture didn't show it on the rough sawn end. On the face of the board in the prior picture, you can tell it is, though. Cherry has a narrow window of orientation where it actually looks like that.

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Mark off of the reference face. I think this plane is going to cut 1/2" and I'm going for 3/8" below the grooves on the drawer - as in 3/8" of space between the fence and the edge of the iron, so the mark is 7/8" from the front face. Right now I'm going for a fence on the edge that's 1/4" deeper than the runner and I want the runner to cut 1/4" deep (this depth is up for negotiation later)

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Anyway, plow down the first big groove. Take the time to try to get it as vertical as possible. It's nice to make these planes in a hurry, but don't do it here.

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Then cut down the runner to height with whatever you want. I used a rabbet plane. That's kind of sloppy, but it can be fixed later.

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[David Weaver]

Crapo...LV skew rabbet. Seems to happen all the time. I think I'm going to clip the corner of the rabbet plane on the outside of the cut like someone would clip a straight razor. There is no use for a point on a straight razor, just like there's no use for the point on the non-cut side of the LV skew rabbet planes. It never cuts wood, but it sure cuts fingertips.
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The next two pictures are just the second plane getting its two cuts.

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In both of these cases, the plow plane groove drifted a tad plowing out the groove. A quick and somewhat ugly fix is to just cut that back a little with the chisel. The problem didn't occur at the top of the cut (which is the very bottom of the fence on the soon to be new plane), so leave the top as it is and clean up the side further down. Clean it out and then sight down the length of the fence to make sure nothing is intruding into what should be open space. Make your cuts into the material from the vertical. It'll be easy to do it and you won't have any grain following disasters.


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[David Weaver]

Now mark and cut the area where the wedge will go. These are something along the lines of 54 and 66 degrees. This plane is 9 inches long, which means a good mouth location is about 3 inches from the front. If you use 10 inches, add a half inch. Be sure to mark the dept on top of the mortise with a marking gauge, you do want to know how deep you'll have to chop it out.

I cut these with a back saw with no set (tip courtesy of larry). I didn't ues any guides or anything. Larry shows how to make a small guide in his video, but on a longer cut like these, it doesn't work out. Save that neat stuff for the H&Rs. Try to do a good job of keeping your saw vertical, though. the wider your iron, the more important that is.

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The chop out the waste like this. It's cross grain, it comes out easily. Really easily - in huge bricks. Come at it from the other side just short of your marked depth line on the top of the plane. Pare the rest of the way once you have the bulk chopped out.

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Go back and forth until you have a clean area. If you've bought plane floats from LN, finish the job with them if you want. I cleaned up one with a float and one with a paring chisel. I think I like the chisel better for this when there's open space. When you're doing this, mind how far the cut at the bottom goes past the runner. Just the tiniest hair past is what you want (you'll see later - you want the iron to come inside the runner just a bit), and make sure there is no bulge in the middle of the mortise (that would just push the wedge and iron out). It probably won't matter for a plane that cuts such little depth, but don't do it anyway.

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Need something for the wedge. Pick something that won't splinter apart when you tap it. This is some beech scrap, artwork courtesy of my daughter (she's got the artistic taste of a computer programmer). Maple should be fine, too, even if it might split a little easier.

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[David Weaver]

Basic stuff for the wedges. Mark for thickness, plane to thickness.

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Mark rough shape of the wedges on the thicknessed stock. You could make an 11 or 12 degree wedge shaped cardstock pattern before this if you don't have something like that handy. I already have wedges around from this setup that I can just trace.

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Cut off the excess from the edge if there is any, and might as well clean up the sawn edge because it's easier while it's one piece. Not as easy once it's wedges.



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Cut the wedges, same backsaw. It might seem hard to figure out where to start a cut like this because you're on a corner. Put the wood in the vise and cut on the flat side of the wood on the pencil mark, of course, don't fight the corner.

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[David Weaver]

Check the fit of the wedge. Not so good. Have a look at your situation when something looks like this, get out a rule, and see which part is offending (the plane or the wedge). It's the wedge in this case.

Easiest thing to do is lay your plane down, and pull the wedge across it with one hand. If you have a feel for vertical on a jointer, you can get a sense for square on the bottom of your smoother doing this and clean up any sawing boogers. Keep your fingers on top of the wedge, of course, and use your index finger to keep the end of the wedge in the cut - where it gets thin, it can spring and try to keep itself out of the cut.


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Is that really better? Yes, it actually is. Small gap from not doing a great job on vertical on the abutments. We'll see if it matters later. Interruption in the middle of the job when picking out the iron material, the mrs. just put the kids to bed overhead. That means no hacksawing 1/8" stock, so I can only finish the 3/8" because I have some junk stuff laying around that's close enough to 3/8" wide for me to drawfile it. Kind of nasty, but if it doesn't work out, I'll make another iron sometime.

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Grind a bevel on it - yeah, that's really blue. doesn't matter at this point, it didn't get cherry red or anything. Heat treat will take care of any bluing that occurred. I grind a bevel before heat treating, I know some don't. There won't be any warpage on something this small.

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[David Weaver]

Next step on the irons - on the BACK of the sides, file a little bevel toward the front for relief. It'll help make a cleaner cut and it'll minimize the amount of iron needlessly pressing against the sides of the groove that's cut by the plane. Don't file any of the width away on the face of the iron. This plane's 3/8". I ended up around .370". Close enough. With care and checking, you can do better if you want. The resultant planed groove is always a tiny bit bigger than the iron, so that's good for me.
o
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This is the iron post heat treat. heat from the back side of the iron in the middle toward the edge, and when the whole thing is cherry red, quench in oil (this is O1). Couldn't take pictures of that, needed both hands.
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Take your iron over to your stone and lap off the carbon so you have a fresh surface to judge temper. Of course, remember the iron could be a little hot. It shouldn't be too hot if you swirl it around in the oil for a while, though.

Temper from the back the same way. Heat the iron until you get the desired color. I don't need the iron to be ultra hard. I was aiming for straw. I got a really crappy result not close to uniform, but it might be OK, we'll see. It's close to straw at the edge where it counts. Just make sure that when you're heating your iron to temper it, you have your quench near by. If you gaze at the iron it when it's straw, it'll quickly turn brown even after you take the heat away. The crappy job above is the result of being in a hurry - you can tell where I had the heat on the other side of the iron. Heat it more slowly and more uniformly to get a nice even temper. Or just put it in the oven around 375 degrees and call it good, which is what I'd do for a larger iron where I cared more about the result.

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Check the fit of the iron. Still not that great. Do what you need to do to the bed or the wedge. If your bed is bellied like this one is, get rid of the belly but leave good contact points at the top and bottom of the plane. If this situation was reversed and I had contact points at the bottom and the top of the bed, I'd try the plane first because a bed bellied in the middle is bad, but the opposite isn't necessarily. I didn't get to neat with this - just did the same thing to it with a paring chisel that I did to clean up the fence. Straight down, take off a little and check. If you have a float, this is a good place to use it if you want to do a quick neat job.

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Sighting down this plane, you can see the iron protruding from the left side of the runner. You want it to a little bit. If it doesn't, the plane will bind in the cut. What I didn't do a good job of was showing that it wasn't sticking out of the other side. I want it sticking out of both sides a little so that I get a clean bind-free cut.

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[David Weaver]

Carried over from the last post - the answer to thinning the runner on this side is just to plane the side of the face some - through strokes - until it seems good. Then check with the iron and make sure there's a little iron sticking out on all sides of the cut.

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Throw it together, put it in a cut. Instant clog at the wedge, you can see the chip (given the amount of space left at the bottom, it wasn't hard to predict that outcome).


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Take a chisel you have handy and use it bevel down to work out a relief area, and then pare off some of the wedge to get it out of the way. Check it with a test cut (the groove might look rough, it's actually not. I just didn't have much finished edge stock to waste, so I cut a groove in a board that still has rip handsaw cut marks on it.
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This one works well now. It's still just on the edge of clogging. I might open the mouth a little bit. The wedge is still overthick,too, so that the other one that goes in the 1/2" plane will be big enough (both done at the same time). It works fine. Don't be surprised if your first edge doesn't hold up too well. Let the stones tell you whether or not the iron got hard enough by how fast metal comes off of the flat face of the iron and how easy it is to raise the wire edge and how large it is, or you can use a file if you have a good crisp quality file. I use oilstones and let the stone tell me what the iron is doing. If natural oilstones cut something like crazy, it's soft, and that's confirmed by a substantial wire edge (on a finer stone, harder irons don't propagate much of a wire edge). This iron is just a bit soft - OK to work for test cuts, but I gave it another heat treat and a better quench after this. You don't want to reharden two dozen times, but twice is fine.

I did measure the groove that's cut. The iron is about .370 and the groove comes in on the dial calipers right at .380. That'll be fine.

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Total time to make the two planes, less the iron from the other one, about an hour and 45 minutes. I'll have to cut and file the other iron, so it could take just over two hours total for both planes when all is said and done. There's a lot of merit making cheap tools. It would've taken me much longer to find suitable versions of these planes. I already have plow planes, too, but it's just easier to have something with a fixed mouth for drawers.

[David Weaver]

One more last thing...I don't know if you can see the final pictures, but you should file with a wood file a half round slight notch in the front of the wedge if you do nothing else to it. If you're not using a tapered iron, the wedge will not come out unless you tap it out. You'll remember that if you forget to do it and are all of the sudden trying to get the wedge out.

And some tips for the newbies who might have to get a little bit of metalworking stuff.
* for a hacksaw, you want something that has a strong tensionier on it and a solid square steel back. Something thats 20 bucks at home depot is fine
* i like the lenox blades. Avoid the buck blades at HD, they won't cut steel and stay together. They're garbage. The straight HSS lenox blades with 18 teeth (at HD) cut steel fast and straight, and though they will a few teeth on thinner steel, judge their usefulness by how they're still cutting. They cut the steel well for a long time even as they're losing teeth. A finer blade wouldn't lose teeth, but it would actually cut slower and it'll have that stupid wavy pattern on it.
* mapp torch for small blades like this. the bernzomatic thing with the push button is my favorite. It's kind of expensive, but you only have to buy it one time. If you get into wider irons, you'll a much more elaborate setup, but you can do irons up to about an inch or so with good results and a single torch
* you don't have to have a carbide scribe, but I like to have one around. Nothing here requires actual precise marking, you could just mark your irons large and then file them to width checking with a caliper. I like dykem and a scribe. Just makes life easy to file to a line - you'll only ever have to buy one carbide scribe to make every plane and plane iron you'll ever make, and they're about 10 bucks. Don't let the dykem bottles fall - they break!! some markers are good to take the place of dykem, too.

[william nelson colorado]

Wow. Great post. Thanks for taking the time to put this together. It makes me think I might even be able to pull this off.

[Chris Griggs]

Dave. This is a great tutorial and one of the best SMC contributions I've seen to date. Super non_intimidating. Thanks you for taking the time to put this together. Excellent!

[Warren Mickley]

I posted this picture from Roubo of a fixed plough two weeks ago on this forum. A plough of this type will make a nicer groove than any skate type plough because the iron is supported across its entire width, the mouth is full width, and the portion of the plane that is in the groove keeps the plane steady as it excavates.
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[David Weaver]

I built them solely because you put that picture up and attested to their function. It was a helpful comment.in would have otherwise made three closed mortise planes, which would have taken a lot longer.

[Maurice Ungaro]

David, thanks for taking the time to post this. I suggest this be put up as a "sticky".

[Sean Hughto]

Great! Wow, thanks!

[Chris Griggs]

I suggest this be put up as a "sticky".

I agree. This would very useful to someone starting out who needs to make some drawer bottom grooves and doesn't have and/or can't afford a plow. I'm sure for the new neander lacking a plow the groove could be cut by other means, and one could easily re purpose an old iron or use a chisel if they are not setup to make their own iron.

[David Weaver]

it could be mortised sash mortise style, and cleaned out with a long bench chisel. I considered doing that just to show that it could be done, but I was a little bit lazy. The plane would still be a nice functioning plane, and if the marking was done accurately, then so too would be the resultant mortising. It would just take longer and be a little rougher looking, but the groove that's cut would look just as good.

[Adam Cruea]

Hey, I think I just found a use for the 10BF or so of hickory I have left. :D

And if worse comes to worse, I believe both LV and LN sell blank irons for this if Chris' idea of repurposing isn't possible.

[Paul Saffold]

Thanks, David. A very nice tutorial covering all the important points. Appreciate the time spent doing this for the Creek.
Paul

p.s. another vote for putting this in the stickies.

[Warren Mickley]

Thanks for putting this up, David. I used to put a very slight angle on the upper surface of the wedge and corresponding to this I had a very slight under cutting of the open mortise so the wedge and iron will not pop out. Just a couple of degrees. It is not necessary, but can be done at any time if there is a problem.

A few years ago Fine Woodworking had a Matt Kenney article on making grooving planes in their "hand woodworking" column. The plane was made in four thin parts glued together, using machine technology. The implication was that one should get a table saw, band saw, jointer, planer, router, and drill press and learn to use them in order to enjoy the "tranquility" of hand woodworking. I am sure your planes took less time, David.

When I made my first plough of this type I had no other plough; I don't remember how I made the groove for the plane. My guess is that I laid it out with a marking gauge, sawed close to the line, and pared to the lines with chisels. One of the interesting things is that these planes are capable of higher precision than the work that went into making them.

[Don Dorn]

I agree, very nice work, but will admit, as simple as he makes it look, it's above my pay grade.

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks for putting this up, David. I used to put a very slight angle on the upper surface of the wedge and corresponding to this I had a very slight under cutting of the open mortise so the wedge and iron will not pop out. Just a couple of degrees. It is not necessary, but can be done at any time if there is a problem.

Brilliant! Thanks for the tip.

[David Weaver]

Thanks for putting this up, David. I used to put a very slight angle on the upper surface of the wedge and corresponding to this I had a very slight under cutting of the open mortise so the wedge and iron will not pop out. Just a couple of degrees. It is not necessary, but can be done at any time if there is a problem.

A few years ago Fine Woodworking had a Matt Kenney article on making grooving planes in their "hand woodworking" column. The plane was made in four thin parts glued together, using machine technology. The implication was that one should get a table saw, band saw, jointer, planer, router, and drill press and learn to use them in order to enjoy the "tranquility" of hand woodworking. I am sure your planes took less time, David.

When I made my first plough of this type I had no other plough; I don't remember how I made the groove for the plane. My guess is that I laid it out with a marking gauge, sawed close to the line, and pared to the lines with chisels. One of the interesting things is that these planes are capable of higher precision than the work that went into making them.

Warren, you make a good point about the undercut and especially the sawing of the groove on the plane sole - that's a better idea than mortising the whole thing. With the cut made at both ends and then finished a perfectly nice groove could be made.

I haven't fit an iron to the second plane (that's got the abutments the opposite of what you're saying -by chance, and not by intention). The comment in the middle where I mention the gap of "we'll see" is more or less that if the wedge doesn't stay tight, I'll undercut it a little bit with a chisel. It would be better practice to do that, anyway.

And I agree exactly, I saw that same article linked, and I know a couple of people have made planes from it, but I don't like using power tools with small parts and I don't want to thickess and rout a whole bunch of things. I know I couldn't manage to get all of that stuff out and set up in an hour, and no part of this plane will delaminate. These can be made at throw-away speed, but they have indefinite life and their ugliness hides just how wonderfully they work to make a groove - as you said, the runner/sole keeps the whole plane solid in the cut the whole time, and you don't really have to do much to bear in on the side of it to keep it in and over.

[Daniel Rode]

Thanks David! This is a great tutorial for someone like me who's never made a plane. I have a couple drawers I need to make and I was resigned to using the router. If I can source something for irons, I'm going to try to make one or two of these instead.

I'm not really much of a metal worker but I think I can get through the hardening and tempering process.

What to use for the irons?

[Judson Green]

Thank you David. What a great contribution.

[David Weaver]

1/8" thick precision ground O1 steel. I'm sure that there are actually pieces available that are already cut to width, but that will up the cost.

I see mcmaster has 18" long pieces of 1/8" thick steel in 1/4" wide and 1/2" wide for about 9 bucks each. That would make at least four irons for about $22 shipped. The two made at exact size could literally have the side relief bevels filed on with any mill file (a mexican nicholson is fine in this case, the steel is unhardened when you file that bevel).

That would alleviate the need for a scribe, too.

Since only a small part of the irons in this type of plane are in the cut, you could easily make a 3/8" iron out of the 1/2" stock by filing off 1/8" of thickness for about 1" of the iron's length. The extra width would stick out the side of the plane body, but your hands never touch it and neither would any wood, so it would just be cosmetic.

I buy 1/8" in 3" wide sheets 3 feet long. It takes a lot of moulding planes and little joinery planes or new irons for old stuff like bullnose planes missing their irons to go through a sheet like that, but cutting a bunch of little irons out of it does introduce a lot of hacksaw work, which means somewhere to cut it needs to be available too.

So mcmaster or any other place that sells small blanks already sized is a viable option. All you'd have to do is cut them to length.

[Adam Cruea]

Seriously stupid question, but for quenching something like this, can one use any old oil? Like, even the 20W-50 I have sitting around for my Harley?

Another stupid question. . .is there any viable reason to use A2 over O1?

[Judson Green]

Couple other stupid questions.

How about thinner stock like 1/16 or 3/32? And W1?

[David Weaver]

Yes and no to the two questions.

Any oil that flows and doesn't allow gas pockets of any type around the iron is good. You want oil that is warmed a little and flowing well if your shop is cold. It stinks, though, because you're burning it, so my preference is vegetable oil, whatever is cheap in the grocery store. A quart is enough for these tiny irons. A gallon is enough for larger irons, more if you're doing multiple larger irons - it heats up pretty fast when a red iron is placed in it.

The no is the A2 - unless you get foil wrap and an accurate furnace, you are going to get better results from O1 than A2. A2s critical and tempering temperatures are different (higher temp needed to reach quench temperature, and at that higher temp, carbon is migrating out of the steel if it's exposed to open atmosphere - makes a bad result). The foil wrap obviously takes away your ability to see the steel, which means you need an accurate furnace to bring it to temp instead.

O1 can be quenched right before it gets to carbon migration temp, and it can be tempered in a kitchen oven or just by going to straw temp. On the other end of the spectrum, for example, some HSSs don't lose anything at BLUE temper, so the old straw temp rule used for 1% carbon steel doesn't work.

Can you still get a usable iron out of A2? Maybe, probably? I haven't used it. Will it be any better than an O1 iron that you make? very likely not.

In a plane like a grooving plane, you pretty much want the iron to hold an edge well, it doesn't have to have the fine grained super exact 60 hardness perfection that you'd want in a paring chisel or finish smoother. It's easy to make a *good* O1 iron with just a torch in the open air.

[David Weaver]

Couple other stupid questions.

How about thinner stock like 1/16 or 3/32? And W1?

W1 would be fine if you water quench it. I don't know what the critical temps are or where it is at straw temp, but it would probably be fine. 1095 would be OK, too. I don't like irons a whole lot thinner than 1/8 for stuff like this, but 3/32nd would probably be fine. I'd still rather have 1/8th though.

Save the 1/16th irons for scratch stock or something.

[David Weaver]

Hey, I think I just found a use for the 10BF or so of hickory I have left. :D

And if worse comes to worse, I believe both LV and LN sell blank irons for this if Chris' idea of repurposing isn't possible.

LN does sell blank tapered irons. They're expensive if you're looking at them from one direction (just need a quick plane iron and it doesn't have to be neat) and not so bad if you're looking at it from another (want a perfect tapered iron for a plane made with a lot of care).

Not sure what LV has in a length you'd want to start with (something along 8 inches or so). I didn't finish cutting the wedge of the plane off, but it will eventually be cut off 1/2 inch or so below the length of the iron. It's nice to have that iron exposed and not have a short iron that dictates where the top of the plane should end and how short the wedge should be.

If you're making your own iron, you can, as walter sobchak says, "have it your way."

As far as hickory, if you've got some QS in that pile, I guaranTEE it would be the first QS hickory plane I've ever seen!! WE burned some hickory when I was a kid, it's stringy and dense. Planes have been made of harder things, though (like lignum vitae, ebony, cocobolo, ...), so I can't see a reason not to use it.

[maximillian arango]

Dave thanks so much for making this, I understand plane making much better now after seeing this.

[Christopher Charles]

Fantastic, third for the sticky.

C

[allen long]

Another idea is to get ahold of an inexpensive old tapered plane iron and slice smaller irons from it. With a guide and going slow you can get a pretty nice set of 1/4" and 1/8" plane blades without losing the temper. I haven't made the planes for them yet, but I now have some pretty nice blades whenever I finally get to the planes. If I ever get down to it I will let you know how well the irons actually work! I had bid on an old wood plane and won (something like $16 or $18 including shipping). The plane itself was unusable. I had nothing to lose so I gave cutting off smaller blades. They polished up and sharpened very nicely. It woked so well I ordered another similar blade for about $5 (probably only about $10 when you include the shipping.)

[maximillian arango]

^would it be a poor idea to use a set of plane blades from a 45 since they aren't tapered?

[Ron D Davis]

Very good information and I also Thank You for taking the time to make this thread. I have never made a plane myself and although it maybe above my pay grade also, I am not afraid of trying it now.
Ron

[David Weaver]

^would it be a poor idea to use a set of plane blades from a 45 since they aren't tapered?

The only problem with 45 blades is that they're too short. You might be able to find an old used pillar file or something of the sort and lap the faces of it, temper it in the oven and put a bevel on it.

[Chris Griggs]

I started one last night. For those of you who are saying that you think this is above your pay grade, please know that this is even easier than Dave makes it look. Like stupidly, ridiculously easy. I've never done this before and still it was easier than making a drawer, and way WAY easier than making a frame and panel door. Seriously, if you can cut/fit even a half decent tenon by hand you can do this (heck even if you can't do that you can probably do this).

I actually wasn't planning on making one these right now, but I was dinking around in the shop last night and just happen to find a nearly quartered offcut of walnut that was the prefect size for this.

Cut the sole/skate first using a my LV plow and skew rabbet as Dave did.
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Finally had a chance to use this 3/32", mortise chisel that I bought specifically, "just in case" I ever decided to make a side escapement plane (I sawed the walls with a dozuki first btw) I cheated for the final depth of the recess and used my 3/32 blade on my router plane to get an even depth. A chisel would have been fine and technically it doesn't need to be uniform depth all the way through (just at the top and bottom),but I'm pretty anal and since i have the router and the little blade I decided to use it.
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Then I made and fit the wedge. Also ridiculously easy since the entire side is open. Just clamp a bench plane upside down in the vise and remove material from the wedge where it needs to be removed until it side snug. I did, btw, also take Warrens advise and undercut the front abutment and then plane the front edge of the wedge to match. Works like a charm. It creates a dovetail effect and with the wedge seated you cannot pop it out the open side...it can only be removed by backing it off.

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Seriously, that's the bulk of the work. Now I just need a blade, to do some final shaping on the plane and cut the litlte half round recess for the shavings to clear. Again, I can't believe how ridiculously easy this is.

My brain wasn't working last night and I accidentally made this with the grain running upward from front to back instead of the traditional downward from front to back. That doesn't actually matter at all for this plane (since the traditional orientation is to make fitting the bed easier with floats by eliminating short grain near the mouth on the bed side) but it still annoyed me...just because I like to do things "right". Just realized I also oriented bark side up and IIRC "correct" practice is bark side down (Honestly, I don't remember why)...shouldn't really matter for a plane like, but again, if I remake it I'll do it the "correct" way next time.

Also cut the mouth twice as big as I intended. I don't know why but for some reason i was thinking 1/4" thick blade not 1/8" so I laid out the saw cuts accordingly. It will be pretty wide open, which is fine for a hogging plane I guess, but I would have like to make it small enough so that I could dial it in to being just barely as open as it needed to be...since that's kinda the point of using this instead of a plow. Oh well, once I get a blade in there we'll see how it works. If the mouth is too big I'll have no problem spending 30 to 60 min making another one of these...that's how flipping easy they are.

[David Weaver]

Definitely nothing above anybody's pay grade. If you're absolutely new, you might find cutting steel a bit difficult the first couple of cuts, but after you get a setup that works, it's cutting to the side of a line like you do in WW, just a bit more physical in the cut.

The wooden part of the plane, as chris says, is easier than making a drawer. There's less to do and there's fewer pieces and directions to keep track of. It's sort of a point and shoot project that even if you have to do it twice or three times, you're not out much.

If cutting the bed and abutment seems like something you're afraid you might not do cleanly, just mark three or four of them on a scrap board about 3/8 inch deep and cut them until you're pleased with the result.

I don't hope that people remember that I started this thread, but I do hope they build themselves some almost free drawer grooving planes. The picture utility made it a real pain in the butt to put the picture progression in the original thread part. That should be something where you can bring in a group of photos into some kind of utility like ebay has - all at once, order them, and drop them in the thread, but my vbulletin thing limited me to uploading two pictures at a time and then waiting for the goofy thing to confirm that they were OK, and the next two pictures uploaded came in and went ahead of the first two, etc.

[Adam Cruea]

Try Imgur for an album like that, then link it here.

[Jeff Bartley]

David,
Thanks for taking the time to put this up! This will definitely go on my list.

[David Weaver]

Try Imgur for an album like that, then link it here.

They (SMC) don't love that because of the chance that the content becomes inactive, though it is a lot easier.

[Warren Mickley]

Reading these posts about plough planes brings back memories of when I was starting out in woodworking. When I made my first plough I had one plane, one saw (8 point 20 inch Disston filed rip, used for resawing, ripping, crosscutting, tenons and dovetails), homemade mallet, square, and four chisels.

If you make one of these, you can use the same iron to make a fillister plane, which is even easier. Here is the feuilleret from Roubo:

282964
Of course if you are lazy, as I was, you can make a little slip to fit into the groove of the plough to form a new fence right next to the iron for a fillister.

[David Weaver]

Warren, so that folks understand why I often quote stuff you say, your posts are sometimes nondescript, brief and to the point, and I think beginners and blog-crazy amateurs can sometimes miss them in favor of hearing less accurate and less useful (at least in terms of economy of effort) answers from folks who are more interested in being heard and promoting themselves than in giving a fine, useful, and well understood (by them) answer.

At any rate, the point I'm getting to, is that you have made a living doing this (hand tooling without power tools, be it restoration efforts, supporting needs from museums, etc), am I correct? I think I am, I'd just like you to confirm it. You already know I have the highest regard for your advice, the same as I do when George answers a question and his answer is finer and borne of experience of the practical as well as thorough digestion and grasp of the historical.

It's extremely important that when the rest of us decide it's working wood that we want to do (especially with hand tools) that your advice gets amplified so that the folks who might otherwise miss its subtlety do not, and so that they get off on the right track and begin to develop their sense of what's good advice and what's otherwise just bloggery repeitition of another source without mastery. The intentionally blind or at least severely vision impaired attempting to lead the seeing, if you will.

I spent my share on the wrong side of it, like many of us have.

[Chris Griggs]

You already know I have the highest regard for your advice, the same as I do when George answers a question and his answer is finer and borne of experience of the practical as well as thorough digestion and grasp of the historical.


Same here, but I must add that my absolute favorite stuff that they post isn't about their years of experience and expertise so much as it is their humble beginnings.

It like its out of a movie...

"I made fishing pole out of a radio antenna"

"I made an inlaid guitar using nothing but a too soft hardware store chisel"

"I made a plane using wood broken off a piece of furniture, and a broken knife blade using only one saw and a chisel"

"I made Philadelphia Highboy out of extra parts from broken Ikea products using nothin but my whits and a tooth from a dead hound dog" (okay I made that last one up).

These dudes were like the MacGyvers of woodworking...

Truly inspiring.

[Sean Hughto]

Maybe we should just make a list of "folks who are more interested in being heard and promoting themselves" for the newbies? <chuckle>

[Chris Griggs]

Maybe we should just make a list of "folks who are more interested in being heard and promoting themselves" for the newbies? <chuckle>

I think that already exists. Go up to the top of of the page. Click on "community" and then "member list". :D

[David Weaver]

Maybe we should just make a list of "folks who are more interested in being heard and promoting themselves" for the newbies? <chuckle>

That kind of stuff makes me known as a "preachy" crank :)

I don't have any interest in telling people to do something other than what has become "woodertainment" or quasi-correct repeated information social club - if they really really like the delivery and it's more about entertainment and the social aspect, that's fine.

When it gets to specifically accomplishing woodworking, though, doing it with good design, parsimony, etc, the warrens and the georges seem to have a lot fewer incorrectly marked rabbit holes and "taxes on the unknowing" along the way.

[Warren Mickley]

Yes, I work exclusively with hand tools, have never owned a machine. I work almost exclusively for other woodworkers, not so much for the public. I do restoration, reproductions, carving, turning, mouldings and the like. The public can look at a shop worth half a million and think "This guy is really going to save me money" when they might be thinking about who is going to pay for all this stuff and the attendant disability and workman's compensation insurance.

I have spent my life trying to think like an 18th century woodworker. To get an idea how different this is, contrast the subject of this thread with the sentiments in this 21st century article. Workers in the 18th century were thinking anvil and bench, not CNC.
http://www.planemaker.com/articles_plow_n_skated.html

[Sean Hughto]

Quite simply, the most valuable advice is that which reflects the learnings of of actual experience. Repeating what one has read in a book or speculations about what might work, can be useful, but it's gonna have a far lower batting average.

The Buddhists have a proverb: "To know and not to do is not yet to know"

Confucius said the same thing too: "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand"

[David Weaver]

Yes, I work exclusively with hand tools, have never owned a machine. I work almost exclusively for other woodworkers, not so much for the public. I do restoration, reproductions, carving, turning, mouldings and the like. The public can look at a shop worth half a million and think "This guy is really going to save me money" when they might be thinking about who is going to pay for all this stuff and the attendant disability and workman's compensation insurance.

I have spent my life trying to think like an 18th century woodworker. To get an idea how different this is, contrast the subject of this thread with the sentiments in this 21st century article. Workers in the 18th century were thinking anvil and bench, not CNC.
http://www.planemaker.com/articles_plow_n_skated.html

I read that article thinking that they should either commit to making a design that works well with machine tools if they want to make a plow plane with machine tools, and make a flat ramp and skate section. A blacksmith in the 18th century wouldn't have spent their time trying to make a perfect reproduction of a flat surface made by a machine.

Your sentiments on the laminated plane play well here. If I'm thinking of making a cheap simple plane to plow a fixed drawer groove, this one could be made with a saw, a plane and a chisel. Literally. I suppose I probably have the tools to make the machined plane out of laminated pieces, but it would be a whole lot harder. We (or I) just needed your endorsement that the type holds its wedge well before I went ahead and did it instead of spending the time making something that looks more like the style ofa hollow and round plane with a closed mortise (which I already know I can make, but to spend 6 or so hours making the plane and then feeling like I need to make it look nice because it takes longer - that makes me hitch for a second - I do like to make prettier tools, but such a rudimentary tutorial as the one attached to this thread would never have occurred if people didn't request it - frankly it's a pain in the hiney to do it, but it's worth sharing it as a gateway drug to the new - then can move on to fancier things later).

[Darren Brewster]

Thanks for the hard work you put into this David. It looks completely accomplishable by someone of my skill level. That fillister looks like a good project too. I wonder if there are anymore planes like this in Roubo? Making some of my own tools is something I would love to get into. I'm just not sure where to get O1 in Canada. Ordering stuff like that is so much easier in the states.

[David Weaver]

I'm sure there's industrial supply in Canada (whether or not some are open to the public like they are here, I don't know). If there isn't, there's always ebay or buddying up with a straw purchaser in the US to buy the stuff and then ship it to you.

[Roger Rettenmeier]

The tempering seems easy enough, but what about using an old chisel of appropriate width? That is assuming you were just making one or two of 'em.

[David Weaver]

If you have an old chisel that is the right width and long enough, you could use it without issue. It'll get more complicated if it's the old long type with a very irregular taper (like a curved taper), but you could try it.

Anything within striking distance of 58 hardness should be fine, and all but the crappiest chisels are hard enough.

[Pat Barry]

Quite simply, the most valuable advice is that which reflects the learnings of of actual experience. Repeating what one has read in a book or speculations about what might work, can be useful, but it's gonna have a far lower batting average.

The Buddhists have a proverb: "To know and not to do is not yet to know"

Confucius said the same thing too: "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand"

I prefer:

I know what I know

I don't know what I don't know

There is far more in the second category than first, thus the avid interest in forums such as this one

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

RE: Daniel's mention of using a chisel, it seems like it'd be a great use for those old plastic-handled chisels sans beveled edges, and whose blade does not taper as it comes to the point; like the cheaper later Millers Falls that appear to have been stamped out of 1/4" material before being hardened.

[Chris Griggs]

Finished mine after work. I suddenly remembered that I have molding plane with an undersized iron I need to replace anyway, so I took that iron ground it down to 1/4", honed it and put it too work. I then spent some time making it pretty just because. Grinding down the blade btw, was the longest most difficult part of the whole process.

The chip ejection on this is fantastic, they literally shoot out the side and across the bench, but initially I had some issue with the plane binding it the cut. I knew the skate/sole wasn't binding because I left the iron a fraction wide for the exact reason. Turned out the recess between fence and the blade was causing the binding. I trimmed the skate back so that the blade protruded a tiny fraction past the sole/skate on the inside as well and now its work awesome. So there's a tip to watch for. Make it so the iron extends past the skate the tiniest amount on both sides of the skate. If you plane up front for this you would simply need to make the blade recess a little deeper than the edge of the skate, as opposed to trimming the inside of the skate afterward.

Gotta thank my buddy Dave again for this great tutorial. Super awesome little project.

282984 282985

[Kees Heiden]

Yes that's funny. Now we can buy new tapered plane irons, CNC milled. I wonder if the old ones were tapered in the first place because they were hammer and anvil work? Far easier to hammer a taper then something absolutely flat. Later came the hot rolling mills, where the blanks were tapered with tapered rollers. Now it's CNC.

The same for laminated irons. Apart from the Japanese that seems to be a lost art?

Of course, taper is also very usefull to hold the iron in the plane and to easilly get it out again. But parallel irons do work in a plane.



Yes, I work exclusively with hand tools, have never owned a machine. I work almost exclusively for other woodworkers, not so much for the public. I do restoration, reproductions, carving, turning, mouldings and the like. The public can look at a shop worth half a million and think "This guy is really going to save me money" when they might be thinking about who is going to pay for all this stuff and the attendant disability and workman's compensation insurance.

I have spent my life trying to think like an 18th century woodworker. To get an idea how different this is, contrast the subject of this thread with the sentiments in this 21st century article. Workers in the 18th century were thinking anvil and bench, not CNC.
http://www.planemaker.com/articles_plow_n_skated.html

[Warren Mickley]

The old irons were made with a slip of steel forge welded to wrought iron. At that point the iron is maybe just over 1/8 at the steeled end and less that at the other end. It is easier and cheaper to hammer and grind this into a tapered shape than to make a "parallel" or "gauged" iron. We know that tapered was cheaper because when they offered the gauged irons in the double iron era, workers had to pay a premium for the gauged irons. It is not necessary for the iron to be tapered to prevent slippage in the plane, but the taper makes it easier to adjust the iron once it is in place.

[Judson Green]

If using this method to make a fillister, how wide of an iron could you use?
Is there a relationship between how wide the iron is to how wide the thinnest part of the body?

[David Weaver]

I wouldn't make a fillister super wide doing it, though I don't know the limit from practice. If you're going to make the fillister wider, then I'd want the non-mortise side of the body widened a little bit, too. If you made a chunky plane 2" wide, i'd think you could pretty safely make a 1.25" iron, but at that point, you'll have to make additional provisions for getting the chip out.

If I was going to make a larger rabbet or fillister plane, I'd rather make a traditional closed mortise plane, and really rather have it on a skew because of the way a skew forms chips.

[Judson Green]

Ok but how bout... And I'm just thinking out here soooo

Using this method, sort of. Cut the bed skewed. Add escapement. Then glue on a chunk effectively making a closed mortise?

Seems like it maybe a easy/lazy/minimum tools/tooling required way. But I'm a total handtool newbie.

Is this totally crazy?

283052

[Darren Brewster]

Reading these posts about plough planes brings back memories of when I was starting out in woodworking. When I made my first plough I had one plane, one saw (8 point 20 inch Disston filed rip, used for resawing, ripping, crosscutting, tenons and dovetails), homemade mallet, square, and four chisels.

If you make one of these, you can use the same iron to make a fillister plane, which is even easier. Here is the feuilleret from Roubo:

282964
Of course if you are lazy, as I was, you can make a little slip to fit into the groove of the plough to form a new fence right next to the iron for a fillister.

So Warren, what would you use a fixed size, fixed fence fillister for anyway? Must be something that would be used fairly often to have a dedicated plane for it.

[Warren Mickley]

So Warren, what would you use a fixed size, fixed fence fillister for anyway? Must be something that would be used fairly often to have a dedicated plane for it.
An interesting question, Darren. The way I used a fillister when I was young was to start a rabbet. I would mark out the rabbet with the marking gauge, use the fillister to start a small rabbet, then use a rabbet plane to expand to both lines. When I got a moving fillister decades ago, I stopped this method, although for a very clean or precise rabbet I sometimes set the moving fillister a little shy of the mark and use the rabbet plane to make the final cuts in both walls.

Larry Williams and Matt Bickford both make Snipes Bill planes and promote a method of starting a rabbet where a gauge line is made, deepened by the snipes bill, and then the corner of a rabbet plane is fit into this indentation in order to start the rabbet. However, the snipes bill is much more expensive to produce and more work to maintain than a fixed fillister. In addition the rabbet plane needs a very crisp corner to work in a snipes bill groove.

Here are some more questions. Why does Roubo show fillisters, but no moving fillister? And why is it that Nathaniel Dominy IV, working on Long Island, made a moving fillister dated 1765 and a common fillister (fixed) five years later dated 1770? These were both made for his own use, both in good shape today.

Roubo may have been more concerned with large scale production, where a single purpose tool works better and will get used repeatedly. He also illustrates these winding sticks which sit in small rabbets on the edges of the board. I think he made the rabbets so they were out of wind and then used them as a guide to plane the board flat. An example where a single fillister could be used many times.
283040
Before I forget, here is a close up of Roubo's fillister showing how the mortise is slightly housed in the fence so that shavings don't get stuck between the iron and the fence.
283041

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

So Warren, what would you use a fixed size, fixed fence fillister for anyway? Must be something that would be used fairly often to have a dedicated plane for it.

a lot of my rabbets are simply so a panel fits in a groove - drawer bottoms and such - the width is pretty much consistent, (although I couldn't tell you what it was) and driven by the depth of my grooves (so if you were using a fixed-depth grooving plane like this, there you go, that's the width you want) and the depth is just eyeballed until it fits. A lot of my rabbets are also simply based on my stock - if I'm ship-lapping a back, it's probably around 3/8's of inch for 3/4 stock, 1/4 for 1/2 stock. etc. Before I got my moving fillester, for wider rabbets, I'd often plow a groove on the inside and then snap off the remainder with a chisel.

[Chris Griggs]

I was thinking a 1/2" fixed filletster would be pretty handy. Most my rabbets are in the backs of cases for setting in the back which is pretty much always 1/2" for me.

..continuing the conversation about the grooving plane...I'm almost can't believe how well this thing works especially considering how easy it was to make. I'm definitely tempted to make a few in different widths. For most basic grooves they are quicker and easier to use and do a cleaner job than an adjustable plow. And of course, its such a pleasure to use a tool you made.

I'd really love to see some more folks make these and post them, and I really hope this thread gets stickied.

[David Weaver]

Me, too - 1/2 or 5/8 would be something I could use to fit T&G or something else into the back of a case.

What width did you make for yours, maybe you said above. my eyes are getting too heavy to look. I noticed that the 1/2" plane is quite a bit rougher working in figured wood than the 1/4" plane. There might be a practical limit for them in terms of width because of their slight size and weight.

[Chris Griggs]

What width did you make for yours, maybe you said above. my eyes are getting too heavy to look.

Not sure if you are asking Warren about his fillester or me about my plow. In either case the answer is the same 1/4". Warren mentioned about that he just used his to start rabbets and then enlarged them with a rabbet plane.

My plow cuts a 1/4" wide 3/16 deep groove about a 1/4" from the edge.

[Paul Saffold]

I made one that ploughs a 1/8” wide, 1/8”deep groove 1/8” from the edge. From cherry with sycamore for the wedge. Bed angle of 55 deg. My first time hardening and tempering but it went very smoothly with just a propane torch. I was going to temper in the kitchen oven but after watching the colors migrate up the blade when I was hardening it I could see how to control the heat. It cuts very well with and against the grain. Just for giggles I cut a groove in the end grain - no problem. I thought it might be a bit chancy making the wedge 1/8” thick to match the blade so I made this one 1/4” thick. Now, I also have a LV plough plane with a bunch of blades including the 1/8”. Both planes cut very smooth. I don’t expect to make any more of this style but it was a good experience. I will use this one when I make small trays for the page-a-day calenders as gifts. They look lot nicer than the black plastic base they come with.Thanks again, David, for the tutorial. It took me longer. Like 1 1/2 hrs just to cut, file, temper and sharpen the blade. And about that for the body and wedge.
Paul

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[Chris Griggs]

Very nice Paul! This has got to be one of the best shop made tools for just about anyone to make.

I love mine. I want to build more!

[Praki Prakash]

Just catching up with this thread. Super cool! Thanks for taking the time to write all this.

I am looking at McMaster website and I see there is ground and precision ground. Does it matter which kind I get?

[Paul Saffold]

Perhaps an expert will chime in with some technical info but I went with the lower cost one knowing I would be cutting and filing the surfaces and losing the advantage of precision ground.
Paul