Darrell LaRue
03-01-2014, 11:37 PM
Hi all,
New to Sawmill Creek, longtime member of the Oldtools List.
I've been working on some closet doors, got the frames done
283743
Then I needed a panel raising plane. By way of a very cool coincidence just such a plane was featured in the Nov issue of Pop WW. I had to read the article a few times to wrap my head round the geometry. I've made a few planes, but no skewed ones. This is a challenging project. For the stock I used a piece of hard maple I acquired from Lee Valley (a baseball bat blank second apparently). It was perfectly quartersawn, exactly what I needed. I just wish it was not so hard. Beech is a better choice for wooden planes, but I used what I had.
Couple of progress shots:
283745
283744
I managed to make a hash of the bed, by a couple of misdirected holes drilled to open the mouth. And another hole was drilled up into an abutment. I seriously need to work on my drilling skills. I mangled the port side of the plane's mouth, which caused it to choke from shavings catching under the side of the iron and under the tip of the wedge. Solved that by pouring some epoxy in there and then filing it back down smooth.
The tote was a re-use from an old project. I had made a closed tote at least 10 years ago, but it was hideous, so I tossed it in a bin. It languished there until last week, when I pulled it out, and hacked off the front bit to make an open tote out of it. I used a plow and a shoulder plane to work the profile on the sole. Grinding the iron was tedious to say the least. I ordered one of the new tapered irons from LV, and since I did that before starting on the plane, I got the widest iron, thinking to just grind it narrower if I had to. Turns out I had to take 3/8 inch off the width of the iron. Plus all the grinding to shape the profile. Like I said, tedious.
After a bit of fettling, it works OK. Still chokes a bit, but I've got 8 panels done now. I'll keep tweaking the plane as I go and by the time I am done with the doors it will either be perfect, or utterly destroyed.
283746
Darrell
Wood Hoarder, Blade Sharpener, and Occasional Tool User
New to Sawmill Creek, longtime member of the Oldtools List.
I've been working on some closet doors, got the frames done
283743
Then I needed a panel raising plane. By way of a very cool coincidence just such a plane was featured in the Nov issue of Pop WW. I had to read the article a few times to wrap my head round the geometry. I've made a few planes, but no skewed ones. This is a challenging project. For the stock I used a piece of hard maple I acquired from Lee Valley (a baseball bat blank second apparently). It was perfectly quartersawn, exactly what I needed. I just wish it was not so hard. Beech is a better choice for wooden planes, but I used what I had.
Couple of progress shots:
283745
283744
I managed to make a hash of the bed, by a couple of misdirected holes drilled to open the mouth. And another hole was drilled up into an abutment. I seriously need to work on my drilling skills. I mangled the port side of the plane's mouth, which caused it to choke from shavings catching under the side of the iron and under the tip of the wedge. Solved that by pouring some epoxy in there and then filing it back down smooth.
The tote was a re-use from an old project. I had made a closed tote at least 10 years ago, but it was hideous, so I tossed it in a bin. It languished there until last week, when I pulled it out, and hacked off the front bit to make an open tote out of it. I used a plow and a shoulder plane to work the profile on the sole. Grinding the iron was tedious to say the least. I ordered one of the new tapered irons from LV, and since I did that before starting on the plane, I got the widest iron, thinking to just grind it narrower if I had to. Turns out I had to take 3/8 inch off the width of the iron. Plus all the grinding to shape the profile. Like I said, tedious.
After a bit of fettling, it works OK. Still chokes a bit, but I've got 8 panels done now. I'll keep tweaking the plane as I go and by the time I am done with the doors it will either be perfect, or utterly destroyed.
283746
Darrell
Wood Hoarder, Blade Sharpener, and Occasional Tool User