finished my panel raising plane

[Darrell LaRue]

Hi all,

New to Sawmill Creek, longtime member of the Oldtools List.

I've been working on some closet doors, got the frames done

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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:
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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.

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Darrell
Wood Hoarder, Blade Sharpener, and Occasional Tool User

[Curt Putnam]

Way cool dude! Well done!

[Jim Matthews]

This is an impressive piece of work.
The geometry of the skewed, angled bed is not trivial.

Kudos.

I can only imagine the flurry of creative output from your shop,
once the Leafs get eliminated from the playoffs.

Jim
Habs fan in exile,
Taxachusetts, USA

[Pat Barry]

After a bit of fettling, it works OK. 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.

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Darrell
Wood Hoarder, Blade Sharpener, and Occasional Tool User
FIrst off, nice work. It looks complicated but the results are astounding.

Now - what exactly was involved with the fettling? Its a topic of interest to me, so if you could expound on that aspect of the project it would interesting.

[Steve Voigt]

Darrell, welcome to the creek! To even attempt a plane of that complexity is an awesome task. It looks good; I'm sure you will get it fettled to a satisfactory state.

[Chris Griggs]

Neat. I'd love to make a panel raiser (it's a ways down on the "round tuit" list though). PWW (I think) published an article on making one last year; I should did out that article.

Anyway, very cool! Thanks for posting it.

[Darrell LaRue]

what exactly was involved with the fettling?

Hi Pat,

There are a few common misbehaviours you run into with a plane: choking, tearout, and the inability to take a fine shaving.

Tearout can usually be dealt with by sharpening. Sometimes with steeper angles, sometimes just sharper. If the plane goes from no shaving to a huge cut, then the sole is likely way out of flat. I'm not a member of the Flat Sole Society, but rather one of their poor cousins, the Flat Enuf Soles. But that wasn't my issue with this plane, it was the choking that got me.

I ran the plane till it choked up really bad, and it wouldn't cut anymore. Then I carefully removed the wedge and looked in the throat to see where the shavings were hanging up. Removed the iron too, and gently pulled out the mat of compacted shavings. Look close, see how they are layered up, and it will help point you to the origin of the choking. In my case it was on the port side, seems like the shavings were hanging up on the tip of the wedge.

Peering into the mouth with a strong light I noticed that there was a gap between the tip of the wedge and the port sidewall. And the sidewall was a mess, shavings could get caught between the side of the iron and the sidewall too. The solution was to rework the sidewall so that the iron and wedge met the side properly. The only thing I could think of was to pour some epoxy in there and let it set. Then file it back down to where it should be. And it mostly worked. The plane still chokes sometimes, but not so much that I want to take a hammer to it anymore.

Get a strong light, and get your nose almost into the throat of the plane and *watch* the shavings come up from the mouth. Push the plane very very slowly, and watch what happens. You can sometimes see the shavings catch on something, the wedge, a rough part of the wear, or the side of the throat.

One more way to stop a plane from choking is to increase the set. Thicker shavings don't get caught in those places as easily. But to make that work, the iron has to be super sharp. I have a centre bead like this, chokes all the time unless you increase the set to the point where the profile is complete in 3 passes. Sure speeds up the work, but heaven help you on grain reversals.

Good luck with yer fettling.
Darrell

[Jim Koepke]

Darrell,

Nice job on the plane and welcome to the Creek.

Does the plane create the edges on the raised area or were those marked out beforehand?

jtk

[Darrell LaRue]

Does the plane create the edges on the raised area or were those marked out beforehand?

Both. The plane cuts the profile, including the edge of the raised area. There is another bevel on that side of the iron to cut that part of the profile. Makes honing a bit dicey when you forget that sharp bit is there. But I also mark it out with a cutting gauge before planing. This is mostly to give me a line to plane to with a jack plane. I make a rough bevel with the easy-to-sharpen jack before running the panel raiser.

Darrell