Cocobolo Smoother Build - #2

[David Weaver]

I don't love taking the time to describe build threads, and I can get carried away, so I'm going to do bullet point style in this build thread.
Please keep comments to legitimate questions until the end. I'll keep my answers brief. I can't make you do that, but I'd appreciate it.

Main points are:
* I already built another smoother. It works fine. I want the aesthetics of this one to be a little better (wider front, better eyes, generally a little better fit and finish), and the mouth to be tighter. The little things about the aesthetics of the other one are really starting to bother me. I intended to cut the front of the other plane back a little (which would make it look fatter), but even then it would still be a little too narrow.
* Length of this plane (not sure, same as other one. I'm limited by my piece of wood. I think that one was 8 1/2 inches or so)
* Cocobolo. Not the nicest wood to make planes out of Beech would be nicer, but I like the weight of the cocobolo a little more
* This plane will have a slightly shorter wear, but it's still going to be a long one compared to most planes on the market - that adds a little bit of a challenge for feeding and forces a bit more precision
* The height of the plane will be about 2 7/8" when all is said and done
* bed angle 45 degrees (I want a plane that's nice to use for everything)
* Iron is a vintage i&H sorby double iron set purchased on ebay, 2 1/4" wide
* You might not like my workmanship, I am not george, but you can build a plane of this sort and correct anything I do to be to your taste
* I have not read a book to find these things out that we're going to delve into, especially the serious bits about wedge fit and such that we'll talk about later for the plane to feed well without having a large mouth. There may be definitive answers on them (and other things like some of the angles on the mortise or wear) - I don't know what they are. I got here by trial and error and never thought I'd build a coffin smoother until I was able to locate two planes that were properly made.
* It is absolutely critical that this plane function well. It will be an expensive waste of time if it doesn't. A pretty plane that can't feed properly thick or thin shavings with the cap iron set close or far away is junk. One that can feed well no matter what is capable and practical

Here's the blank that I have. Somewhere between rift and quartered (which is what i like). Dead QS looks like slab sided steak knife handles on the top of the plane. The first plane is there, you can see the aesthetic shortcomings. Both it and the plane beside it came out of a turning blank I got about 3 or 4 years ago. It was already partially dry then, it's dry now.
291446

291447

I mark where I want the mouth to be on the sole of the plane first and go from there, marking the 45 degree bed first. The layout ultimately will look like this. The wear at this point is 85 degrees. I may cut it a few degrees shy of that and try the plane, I don't know. It should work OK, though. Figure the shavings will be coming off of a 45 degree bed and a 50 degree cap iron and hit the wear at a fairly low angle of incidence so that even if they don't have any strength, they shouldn't bunch.

291448

Last time I had a little problem with the mouth, because I thought I had a 3/16 iron and I didn't. So I use the actual iron to make the mark for the front of the mouth - sticking the iron on the bed line and marking the front of it on the sole (this step was actually before the last picture)

291449

Critical numbers.
* wear length - 1 inch (last plane was a quarter more than that)
* Top angle for the escapement or whatever you call it (Front of the mortise) 68 degrees. I might make it a little less steep, I don't know. Not critical right now.
* Distance from front of the plane to the back of the mouth - 2 3/4". that's just a tad long compared to most coffin smoothers, I'd imagine.

At this point, the blank is 3" tall. Gives me a little bit of wiggle room to work with.

I'm using a large japanese marking knife. Cocobolo is a funny wood to mark - I'd rather knife it. Bits of it are slick and bits aren't, and my white pencils just don't work well on it. Layout needs to be accurate and the blank needs to be square, but the precise work that's done isn't just done to the marks, so they don't have to be absolutely perfect, just good.

[David Weaver]

This is a wide blank, almost 4" I think. I'm going to work right in the middle of it. I forgot to take good pictures of my marking, but I basically went right down the center with a marking gauge from both sides to get an accurate center.

The iron is 2 1/4" inches, and I want to cut my mortise, which is going to be the width between the abutments (the narrowest point of the mortise) to be 27/16". In the end, i'll make it just a tad wider than that, but not much. I get that from referencing off of the other plane, which is just a bit narrower than I'd want. If that's not a decent guideline, we'll find out. It puts 3/8" of the iron under the abutment on each side, and that's just a bit chubby (it can always be made less later).

I take the initial marking lines across the top of the plane and mark out my mortise (which I also forgot to picture) and I get started with an old stanley "made in USA chisel". I have the finest mortise chisel ever made (a kiyotada tataki nomi), but I want a wide chisel for this.

Side comment - years ago, I would've noticed the edge damage this chisel took and searched for something tougher. Instead, I went to the washita and steepened the bevel a little bit and you'd be surprised how well it holds up in cocobolo. I have such a sinful amount of chisels, from these old flea market finds, to sets of japanese chisels, to the kiyotada (thanks stan) to high speed steel mujingfang chisels (which really do treat cocobolo like it's nothing) to an M4 chisel that I got from stu. But of those, this stanley chisel is my favorite for plane mortises.

* I take my time first taking a shallow cut at the top (cocoblo splinters easily - you can chisel out just inside the marked lines to start if you want to make sure it can't lift and chip out at the top).
* I get halfway through a second pass and I'm out of time for tonight

This mortise is probably only going to take 15 minutes to cut, and you need to not overcut it. Taking it at a lazy pace and taking small cuts of a 16th or a little more makes it easy. Cut it with the chisel bevel down, you'll be more comfortable and the chisel will be easier to keep inside your marked lines for the bed.

291450

Oh yeah, by the way. I should be using a pocket knife (remember the stockman thread?). I reground the sheepsfoot blade on a chinese stockman knife to be single bevel for marking (works fantastic), but somewhere in the shuffle of getting knives that would go in my pocket and be safe to keep there (as in be in a case), I got this cased kogatana. Either the auction wasn't that clear, or I didn't read it that well - it's bigger than I expected. With the case it's something like 10 inches - a monster marking knife - definitely won't fit in a pocket, which was kind of a downer. It works well for this, though.
0291451

[Kees Heiden]

Great thread allready David.

Interesting that you use a firmer chisel instead of a mortise one. William Armour in the 1898 article used a strong gouge for roughing out the mortise. A bit like a cambered jackplane i guess.

http://www.handplane.com/32/practical-plane-making-1/

[Chris Griggs]

Excellent Dave! This is very cool. I'll be following along.

[David Weaver]

Great thread allready David.

Interesting that you use a firmer chisel instead of a mortise one. William Armour in the 1898 article used a strong gouge for roughing out the mortise. A bit like a cambered jackplane i guess.

http://www.handplane.com/32/practical-plane-making-1/

A gouge would work for a start - it'd be interesting to watch someone use one. I intend to make this plane (and we'll see if I can manage to do it) without using my floats except to open the mouth. I will use a vixen instead, and a couple of shop made tools. A vixen is cheap if watching ebay.

I like the bench chisel/firmer for this because it's wide and easy for me to keep track of what it's done. Easing bits out of the mortise and keeping a visual reference is more comfortable to me, though if I had more experience, I'm sure I'd tend toward speed. I'm just trying to make *one* good plane that's good all the way around, so extra time is no big deal, especially if it's on the order of 5 or 10 minutes of extra time.

The most shocking mortise work I've seen is a video of Hisao (a now deceased daimaker) removing enormous amounts of wood at a time from a macassar ebony dai, and using a 6 pound hammer. That kind of capability is beyond anything I'll ever approach, a true professional with a lot of experience removing material fast and accurately. He used a japanese firmer, which is similar in cross section to this chisel.

Incidentally, I purchased a 1 inch imai chisel for about a hundred bucks a few years ago just for this job. The stanley chisel is better for it in the end. The imai chisel was no tougher in this type of work but took a lot longer to sharpen. Sometimes $10 beats $110.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Great thread, I will be reading every bit.

[David Weaver]

Little done tonight, but I did sharpen an old saw and got some kitchen cabinet work done. For the plane, I only cut the mortise to depth and cut a dent into the mouth area. I cut this because I'm going to drill the mouth in next time I work on the plane and I don't want the drill bit wandering. A wandering drill bit means a large mouth.

Side comment on cutting the mortise - when you're doing it, pare the sides of the mortise vertically cross grain. Some parts of this mortise are going to be showing in front of the abutments and you don't want to lift quartered grain, so cut the mortise as you normally would, but when cleaning up the sides, do it straight down and not by paring down the length of the plane.

291514


It should go without saying, but cut the mortises safely shallower than marked angles. You can mallet them closer later and I will show the bill carteresque tool that I use to do the final trimming when we get to that part. It is a super help for cleaning up and trimming all of the end grain parts of the mortise.

Beware of the diving chisel close to the marked line, too- you may start a cut shallower than your marks, but as the cut gets heavier, the chisel will dive in toward the angle. It may not be a fatal error, but it's ugly.


291515

Note, the mouth is only cut to the width of the mortise. I just set the gauge on the same marking lines as the top. We will mark width of the mouth with the iron later when we open the mouth and cut the abutments.

FTR, I sharpened the stanley chisel two times to do this thus far, a reality check for sure in terms of new wondersteel chisels vs. vintage. The process of sharpening this chisel on a single washita stone and then giving it a quick strop, limiting the sharpening time to less than a minute (and still having a shaving sharp chisel) cannot be discounted. It is the most satisfying tool use and sharpening I've had of any combination of tools, matched only buy wrought iron and white steel.

[David Weaver]

Drill the mouth by making parallel holes with whatever you want. A cordless drill is probably easiest. Choose something smaller than the mouth opening. Take care not to drill into the wear or into the cheeks of the plane. I've got a stray mark in the cheek of this plane, a bonehead move.

Break out the waste between the drill holes however you want to. I suppose there's probably other ways to do this (you could use a saw on both sides, like a drywall saw). I use an edge float because I have it.


291748

Then I continue working the mortise down toward where it needs to be. I can ignore my marking lines at this point and work the mortise to the mouth.

Chisel and mallet, of course.

291749

I work fast until I get to about here (this is the bed behind the mouth, notice that it's a bit thick yet.

291751


Thinner more careful chisel waste. Careful to not bang your chisel into your wear at the end of a cut.

Once I'm getting close, I use a chisel modified to be a scraper and work, the chips look like this (they're like smoother shavings).

291752

[David Weaver]

291753

This is the chisel modified to scrape. It's just a socket chisel that I had that was too soft, something that was about five bucks. I honed a flat on it about 70-80 degrees, and then rehardened the chisel and didn't temper it (leaving it full hardness, it doesn't matter if it's brittle when the bevel is almost square). It has a slight camber. I sharpen it freehand on a 400 grit diamond plate and nothing else, it doesn't need to be finely honed, it just needs to have a crisp edge.

The handle is an epoxied in paring style handle about 10 inches long so I can use two hands with this thing. It removes wood fast, and far more smoothly than you can fine tune things with a chisel which would dive in and out of cuts.

It's also next to magical to set up a japanese plane. You can set up a new japanese plane in about two minutes. The long handle is critical to making it easy to use for this. You work with it like a sewing machine with fast light strokes.

291755

This is where I am with the mortise. I beveled the back of the mouth very slightly. Cocobolo is a little chippy. I don't want it to chip out. My wear is about 85 degrees and the bed 45, so I don't want to remove much off of the bottom of the plane later - best to avoid chipouts. From early on, any work that removes wood near the edge of the mouth goes from the mouth in, and not coming from the other side.

Now I'm going to mark the width of the mouth using the iron. I want room for lateral movement on the top of the plane, but a good lateral fit at the bottom. this is mocked for the picture. Try to get this as even as possible (which I did after this picture was taken. If you have to measure and mark center on the iron and the mortise then do it).

291756

I will cut the abutments next, but before I do that, and after this picture was taken, I flattened the back of the iron that I have and prepared the cap iron. Sometimes old irons need a lot of flattening and I want to cut abutments and all of that stuff with an already prepared iron. Take your time preparing the iron. When you're finishing things up later, you don't want to try to troubleshoot problems with the plane with an iron (and cap iron) that's not prepared to perform well.

[David Weaver]

Cutting the abutments with a japanese flush cut saw. I don't know if it's better than anything else, it's just what I have.

Making the cut at the bed is no problem, just go slow, hold the saw against the bed and don't overcut at the top or bottom.

To make the cut toward the front that runs into the wear, I have to make a spacer.

291797

I mark it by holding the iron against the bench top and I'm using a wedge from another plane. This wedge tapers from just under 5/8" to just under 3/16" over a distance of just under 3.5 inches. I don't know how I got to this point with the wedge pictured, I probably just copied the taper of another wedge off of a "real" plane.

If it results in something not steep enough I can add a degree or two to the abutments.

I cut that template out and then. hold it against the bed and make the front cuts. Slow is good, it's really important that the first few strokes of the saw are right against the template. (the picture is just to show it in the plane, I lay the plane on its side to make the cut)

291798

If you look closely, you can see that I have a stray drill hole that's going to cause me a real problem. I'm going to have to fill it with epoxy, it's right where the taper at the tip of the wedge will be, a real problem. I was really disappointed to find that, but you may find if you use an exotic blank that even if you don't have a stray drill hole to deal with, that you have bug damage or something.

A picture of the saw I used (you can also see the length of the handle on the scraper) - these saws are only about 20 bucks and they do work well.
291799

The cuts as made:
291801

[David Weaver]

The mistakes are starting to add up. The wear is somewhere around 85 degrees, and at the outset, I was aiming more for 80, just a couple of dumb mistakes, and the drill hole now. You can see that the cocobolo chipped out on one of the cheeks some, also. If using beech or maple, it will be less chippy. We'll see if the wear is a problem. As of right now, the drill hole is sitting full of epoxy.

When you're removing the waste between the cuts, work carefully around the top of the plane, you don't want it to be too nasty ugly from something splitting out and crossing the line. If the grain runs a little less than perfectly in line with the plane's cut direction, make your chop at the marking line (you're working cross grain to clean things out) - your finishing one after most of the waste is removed - where the grain runs into the marking line. If you make it elsewhere, you might get a split running right through the marking line.

291802

Worked a little less than to the marks, I break out the iron to check the fit. I'm hoping for about twice as tight as what is. I like lateral movement somewhere around a fat 16th at the top of the plane, and I'm somewhere around double that. Bummer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Vlt-lpVOY). It just makes a sloppier looking plane. It's a little worse than the picture looks, you can see where the marked lines are. I can work just shy of them, because I'm going to plane a 16th to an 8th off of the top of this blank in thickness before all is said and done.
291805

I said something about not using floats on this plane, and I'd be happy to use only chisels if it was beech, but I'm going to use the side floats to keep control of what's going on. I liked, you can buy them if you'd like to if you're making a plane.

[Steve Voigt]

Looking good Dave. The mistakes don't look bad, and surely won't compromise the plane's function.
Just wanted to add one thought on cutting abutments. I don't like using a japanese saw. Too much flex. All the references I've seen suggest that 19th c. planemakers used fairly thick blades on abutment saws. So far, my favorite tool for this is a flush-cutting saw made from an old drywall saw. The blade is about .060, twice as thick as the japanese saws. I recently picked up a box of 10 vintage compass saw blades, also .060 thick, and am planning to make a nicer saw.
Anyway, it's coming along nicely; looking forward to seeing the rest!

[Kees Heiden]

A question David. The front abutment line doesn't run all the way through the mouth I guess. Ending somewhere in the wear? How do you cope with that when sawing?

I wouldn't worry too much about the slightly wider abuttments at the top. The wood might still shrink a bit, and you sure don't want the blade gets stuck in the plane after a while! That drill hole is really a bummer, but shit happens.

[Mark Almeidus]

Awesome work. So far its the most in depth tutorial Iv seen on the internet. It will be my prime guide for making mortise planes. Im also in the middle of making another jack plane and i encountered lots of problems with the mouth opening and the place where the wedge goes. Those parts reguire a lot of patience.

Also an easier way for making sure the mortising will end right where i want was to transfer the line at the bottom of the mouth to the top.
291838

here i was experimenting with the front of the mouth to be paralel with the bed of the blade, so when sanding is reguired later to not widen the mouth
291835

291834

But the problem was probably the wood wasnt dry enough, maybe because of sitting in moist for one year, and when i was planing the sole of the plane to open the mouth, the wood was cracking a lot and the mouth came wider as seen bellow http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/icons/icon8.png
291836

291837

[David Weaver]

A question David. The front abutment line doesn't run all the way through the mouth I guess. Ending somewhere in the wear? How do you cope with that when sawing?

I wouldn't worry too much about the slightly wider abuttments at the top. The wood might still shrink a bit, and you sure don't want the blade gets stuck in the plane after a while! That drill hole is really a bummer, but shit happens.

Yes, the top line runs right into the wear. I guess where it runs into it is just a matter of geometry involving the wear, etc. The japanese saw has a tooth all the way out on the end so it nearly cuts the whole thing to full depth, leaving only a little bit of extra stuff to pare at the bottom of the abutment.

The drill hole is a bit PITA, because it's a spot where the abutment tapers into the side of the plane, and the area is already chippy. It's easy to see damaged wood on my plane on the cheeks, and that damage occurs easily when paring that taper. Put a drill hole in the middle and all of the wood around the drill hole breaks when you pare it. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully the epoxy can be pared. that whole set up there is relatively critical to feeding when the plane is run on a skew or when a full width shaving is taken. Since I bungled the wear and it's at a rather open angle, which I think is more of a problem in the long term for mouth size opening up, maybe it won't be quite as critical, but that is the part of the plane where a lot of cheaply made planes fall short. I've noticed that many newer planes that still have a mortise (like a mujingfang) just have a really short wear to avoid feeding problems. The wear on my muji might be something like 3/8", and it feeds well. There was a pattern posted here, too, that looked like a copy of one of Larry's planes, and I don't know if it was really a copy, but it also had a fairly short wear. When the plane is single iron, the danger of having a short wear and having the abutments terminate above it (and look bad) doesn't exist.

Of course, I want a double iron plane for obvious reasons, and the fact that the wear is not the angle I wanted because of carelessness is more cosmetic.

The tearout on the cheeks that's occurred to this point could probably be avoided by roughing with a gouge instead of a bench chisel or paring chisel. Or by using a wood less chippy, like beech. The discussions of all of this started, though, because I wanted a plane significantly heavier than beech.

[David Weaver]

Looking good Dave. The mistakes don't look bad, and surely won't compromise the plane's function.
Just wanted to add one thought on cutting abutments. I don't like using a japanese saw. Too much flex. All the references I've seen suggest that 19th c. planemakers used fairly thick blades on abutment saws. So far, my favorite tool for this is a flush-cutting saw made from an old drywall saw. The blade is about .060, twice as thick as the japanese saws. I recently picked up a box of 10 vintage compass saw blades, also .060 thick, and am planning to make a nicer saw.
Anyway, it's coming along nicely; looking forward to seeing the rest!

Steve, you're right about the flex. This is the first plane I've cut with a spacer on it - the flex requires care and some side pressure from fingers until the cut gets started. Every old abutment saw I've seen looks like a thicker plate like you're saying. with the japanese saw against the spacer, it's sort of one of those three hands needed and room for one. On the other planes, I just drew a line on the cheeks and cut it freehand because I knew I'd need to widen it to fit the wedge. That was suboptimal as floating and chiseling the abutments in cocobolo makes me sweat.

The saw pictured wouldn't fit in a small plane, but it does have one virtue when it's new - if you lay it on a line and pull straight back, it literally cuts straight down into it.

A stiff keyhole saw would also be good for cutting the mouth. I used a float from LN, the modern day white collar more-money-than-sense way to go about it.

When it comes down to it, I'm still a hack with this and my desires (to match the try plane I showed a while ago) are a dozen planes off. Building a couple of dozen of these would get me a lot further ahead (and I'd build them twice as fast).

[David Weaver]

Those parts reguire a lot of patience.


A good dose of finding a plane that works well, some repetition and then blatant copying of elements works well :) All the way down to looking at where the abutment terminates, how wide the gap is at the top of the abutment beyond the thickness of the iron and cap iron, etc, wear angle, wear length....all of it. And much attention toward how a good working plane's wedge and abutment fit is tight, the wedge goes the full width of the mortise (so that the prongs on the wedge never intrude past the abutments, etc, and terminate smoothly into the side/cheeks of the plane.

It was a long time before I found a couple of properly made double-iron planes, though - that also had decent wedges to match their abutments. The whole abutment/wear/wedge, etc isn't very fully discussed anywhere for planes with a chipbreaker, and it's a little more difficult to get right on them (where right means a good performing plane regardless of what direction it's going and how thick the shaving.

A couple of years ago, Larry Williams got on one of the forums and called double irons a hoax or something similar and described all sorts of compromises in plane making that occur because of them, but I once I got a good plane in good shape, I didn't see any compromises. Good double iron planes can take a full width shaving with no chatter, as heavy as you'd want to go, and they can dominate a single iron plane in every way other than speed of disassembly and assembly in sharpening.

All of that is what triggered this discussion.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Looking great. I really want to make some planes. I got a LN gift certificate for Father's Day, and plan to get some floats. I have some cocobolo laying around that would make nice small planes, and I happen to need some small specialty planes. I also have some pieces of maple that have been drying almost 2 years now, and are perfect size for a smoother. You are inspiring me.

[Kees Heiden]

. The wear is somewhere around 85 degrees, and at the outset, I was aiming more for 80, [...]

85 degrees is in fact quite normal for a double iron plane. The planes from the Seaton chest are almost 90 degrees! A single iron plane has a wear closer to 70 degrees or even a bit less.

The tight mouth in a wooden plane is a bit of hoax. If you want to use a tight mouth to control tearout, it needs to be very tight indeed. There is a very small margin of error. Tighter then 0.1 mm and it is quite impossible to make without issues of a clogging mouth. Any wider then 0.2 mm and it doesn't work anymore to control tearout. And the front edge of mouth needs to press down on the wood firmly. Any wear on this edge and it doesn't work anymore to controll tearout.

What does this mean for the wear angle and flattening of the sole of the plane? Say you manage to make a wooden plane with a 0.1 mm mouth, evenly across the width of the mouth. After using it for a while, you need to flatten the sole, because of wear and seasonal wood movement issues. How much can be removed from the sole before the mouth gets beyond 0.2 mm? In a single iron plane with a 70 degree wear? A little bit of trigonometrics shows that you can only remove 0.16 mm from the sole to reach the limit of a 0.2 mm wide mouth. That is abouth 6 or 7 fine smoother shavings. And this is not even taking into account the traditionally tapered blades, which agravate the situation. Or the normal wear of the front of the mouth, where the shavings are squeezing through that gap.

So, why do we want a tight mouth? It is not really realistic to use a tight mouth to control tearout in a wooden smoothing plane. A tight mouth looks neater of course. I think it helps to take a fine shaving, Japanes planes take advantage of this. The wood is pressured down just before the mouth, which should help to make it easier to cut.

The mouth size, the wear and the cutting blade also play a role in feeding the shaving. When you start taking a shaving, the shaving itself curls up in a tight roll. But the wear helps to stop this curling and directs it upwards out of the plane. In a wide mouth plane, this curling could lead to a clogging situation. This was actually tested in a Japanese laboratory, where they found the best feeding characteristics were with a relatively tight mouth. But it didn't need to be super tight, up to 1 or 2 mm was fine. But their planing machine isn't directly comparable with handplanes of course.

[Jim Matthews]

Is this following your article?

I find that a tight mouth on the traditional coffin smoother leads to
a jammed shaving in each corner, where the wedge is closest to the opening.

I'm aiming for a shaving under 4 thousandths of an inch, but thick enough that it
won't jam up under the tip of the wedge.

I believe that the smooth sides of cast iron planes are one of their chief advantages.
Less time is spent disassembling and clearing those.

I have no such jams with the Gordon planes that use clever brass abutment
wedges on pivots - they're quite "high" up the mouth, holding a beefy
"Krenov" style wedge.

[Kees Heiden]

Well yes, but is also just conjecture of course.

I also have troubles with my wooden planes at the tips of the wedge. It helps when they are really pressing outwards to the sides of the abutments, but still...
I usually just grind of the corners of the blade to avoid any such issues.

[David Weaver]

Right, kees, I know all of those things about the wear and the mouth (and feeding, etc). But, this is about vanity and cosmetics. The other plane that I made has the wear around 78 degrees. It makes the junction of the wear and the taper of the abutments look much nicer if the wear terminates in a sharp line.

The mouth of this plane won't be especially tight by metal plane standards. I've made a tight mouthed (metal) plane before, and would much rather have a double iron, of course.

It's difficult to better a stanley #4, anyway, if the user knows how to use it. When all is said and don't, i'll probably go back to a stock stanley 4, which is to me, the most ideal smoother that I've used. Quick to sharpen, nimble, even likes the washita. Thin or thick shaving, no problem, no tearout, no feeding issues. Hopefully this plane will perform almost as well, as jim pointed toward, I hate to take a plane apart to clear shavings before the plane is dull, but on a common pitch plane, a wear just below 80 degrees won't clog if the plane is made properly.

[Kees Heiden]

Vanity, that's as good an excuse as everything else. :)

I am looking forward for more plane making secrets. I am not in any kind of a hurry to build my own planes, but it is very helpfull understanding old ones too.

[David Weaver]

I'll see if I can measure the english try plane that I have, it's where I got the vanity idea. It's probably 80 degrees or so at the wear (and common pitch). Having it and a decent coffin smoother that I found is what triggered this idea of making a couple of coffin smoothers, as the ones that are wide open and have less "vanity factor" don't make me want to build a plane.

The wedge being full width so that the prongs of the wedge (whatever they're called) are snug against the side of the plane is definitely one of the key factors in the plane feeding well, though, especially if it's used on the skew. If the wedge and fingers aren't full width, it's awfully difficult for the wedge to end up in the same placement against the abutments. I've noticed in the planes made with a lot of care, the wedge is oriented in a way such that it seems to shrink the same amount as the wood in the body of the plane (i.e., it's rift of flatsawn or something similar).

[Jim Matthews]

I've noticed in the planes made with a lot of care, the wedge is oriented in a way such that it seems to shrink the same amount as the wood in the body of the plane (i.e., it's rift of flatsawn or something similar).

That's an interesting notion.

If the wedge is quartersawn, it can always be driven in tight enough
to hold the blade still, but the "fingers" will be closer to the mouth.

I'm rehabbing a solid coffin smoother, using a Berg double iron from Kim Malmberg.
The blade cuts beautifully, but the replacement wedge is still jamming in the corners.

I saw a variant of the Krenov style wedge, with a semicircular profile that I hope to emulate.


I'm suspicious that most of my woodies suffer from a poor fit, for the reasons ascribed to Seasonal
movement, above.

Now that I've got my standard to judge performance by, I can make some progress
toward getting finer shavings out of these old girls.

I'm drawn to these because of the size and shape; it's a comfortable fit for me.

[Mike Allen1010]

David, thank you for a great thread!

I've always wanted to build a non_laminated plane but have never have always been intimidated by the details of chopping the mortise and cutting the abutment. Yours is the most helpful tutorial of the process I've seen. It is typically generous and self deprecating of you to show your build, complete with the real world challenges. I eagerly look forward to seeing the rest of your build.

Thanks for sharing!

All the best, Mike

[Steve Voigt]

I've always wanted to build a non_laminated plane but have always been intimidated by the details of chopping the mortise and cutting the abutment

Mike, I'll just repeat something Dave has said before: chopping the mortise the mortise for a bench plane is child's play compared to some of the furniture pieces you've posted on here. Once you try it, you'll wonder what was the big deal about digging a mortise the size of a Roma tomato.

[David Weaver]

Mike, I'll just repeat something Dave has said before: chopping the mortise the mortise for a bench plane is child's play compared to some of the furniture pieces you've posted on here. Once you try it, you'll wonder what was the big deal about digging a mortise the size of a Roma tomato.

That's definitely true. It's more about finding out what allows a plane to work full width, etc, than it is difficulty. Maybe that stuff was written somewhere (wear meeting the abutments and taper of the abutments starting into the side of the plane there, etc) but I haven't found it and it really was the thing about building a coffin smoother that makes a plane vs. making a piece of wood that may have problems that keep it from even being practical to use, let alone pleasing to use. Everything else is pretty much cosmetics and preference.

[David Weaver]

That's an interesting notion.

If the wedge is quartersawn, it can always be driven in tight enough
to hold the blade still, but the "fingers" will be closer to the mouth.


Yes, and if they move in closer to the mouth and get away from the cheeks of the plane, every cut askew or every cut of light shavings that is on the edges will get hung up on the tips. Before we started discussing all of this stuff a few months, the couple of coffin smoothers I ever bought, I spent a lot of time on the wear and cleaning up bits and pieces of the plane, not wanting to make a new wedge and clean up the inside of the cheeks, but that was probably the problem with most.

[David Weaver]

Now that I've got my standard to judge performance by, I can make some progress
toward getting finer shavings out of these old girls.


That marples smoother is not perfect, I guess (you might be able to get a jam running it on a skewed cut) but of all of the old coffin smoothers I've ever run into, but it's as close to perfect as I've seen on an older plane (and was certainly useful to help learn what we've learned about what makes them feed full width, askew, etc, without clogging. The rest that I've gotten, I've essentially had to sell away for less than the irons were worth.

It's too bad all of them in the wild aren't as well made.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Has anyone here tried a Philly plane? ....

[David Weaver]

I haven't, but they're single iron planes, and I'm sure they're fine (we'd know if they weren't). They are nicely made (clean and tidy).

"But they're single iron planes" means I have no chance of getting one because of the lack of a tapered double iron.

They look like they'd be in the range of about $350 or a little more once shipping was covered there to here.

Matt (can't remember his last name) is making them in quantity in CT, and there have been a few other pairs made by other people that have shown up on ebay for $400 a pair, which to me is a pretty steep ask if you're not well known.

[David Weaver]

After the last pictures, I did a little bit of cleanup to the inside of the cheeks, and then started to open up the escapement. Last time, i did this after I cut out the shape of the plane. I think that was a better order, but this should be fine.

After that, I started to taper the abutments. You don't have to do this, and I've made them fairly thin (the last half inch of them will actually be tapered into the side of the plane, so that bit at the end that seems really thin is destined to be tapered right into the side of the plane, anyway).

291978

I thinned the right abutment some after this picture, too. I wouldn't want them thinned any more than this, the iron still has a little bit of lateral movement at the top.

Opening the escapement, I chickened out. On beech, I've always done this with a chisel, but this wood is too chippy. So I used a push cheek float, which isn't exactly optimal, but it's safe. It's so much nicer to do this part with wood that is less prone to splitting.

291979


291981

The escapement is about the width bed of the plane at the top corners. That's pretty wide. The eyes will terminate up there, and I don't want the eyes to be so big and deep as the last plane, so this should be OK. At this point, it's all cosmetics - whether the plane feeds well is determined far below this. For cosmetics, though, this is where making a dozen planes and getting a pattern would help to be sure of what you were doing.

I want this plane to be about a 16th shy of 3" tall, which will require planing off some of the top. What better plane to choose for this? Cannibalism.

291980

Now, comparing the two planes, you can see on the cannibal smoother, the eyes at the front are not quite as wide as the bed, but close. They are, however, turning in toward the middle, and I don't want that. This plane will be wider in front.


I said I wasn't going to use floats, but ftr, I've used a pull side float, push cheek float and the bed float to this point. Oh, and the edge float. With the exception of the bed float, those are the same three that I use most often making moulding planes. If you're going to make a whole bunch of planes for yourself, those are what I'd have. you can make the cheek float and the edge float if you want. The other two aren't worth the trouble unless you have a mill...just buy them from Ln. My opinion.

[Judson Green]

Actually, I am more interested in the build of this plane...


Me too!!!!

[David Weaver]

In a prior discussion (and this is germane to the subject), I have suggested larry has said a few things. I did dig up some old posts where he used the term "choke trap" and suggested that what kees has done is the most practical solution to an arrangement where the ends of the wedge need to fit against the side of the plane, and terminate no later than the apex of the cap iron. Instead of avoiding that, we are making a plane that handles that situation instead.

Warren suggested that these are items that any competent woodworker can manage, and those parts are exactly what this thread is about. We're building a plane where those variables will change little over time, and when they do, they can be easily managed.

Interesting discussion now, I didn't grasp it at the time because I had never had a plane that could actually take any thickness of full width shaving and not clog. I only notice that it was presented as a problem back then after reading it through the lens of finding a plane that is probably 150 years old that has no problems with it, either (i.e., finding something that allows me to practically see the problem solved allows me to understand what it actually was in the first place). AT the time, I believed larry's explanation, I remember agreeing with larry over warren for a long time. Somewhere around this time I was also making what I thought was the ultimate smooth plane - a 55 degree bedded infill with a tiny mouth and a huge iron. It is a plane that works well, and for any beginner, it would be more dummyproof than a stanley 4. An experienced user will prefer the stanley 4 in spades, as it actually controls tearout a little bit better with the cap iron - especially in situations like the piece of cocobolo above that scraping actually makes the tearout worse than planing (as does an increased bed angle). Functionally, I wouldn't want to make furniture out of such a wood to begin with, and after I plane the bandsaw marks off of the side of this plane with a #4, I will probably just sand it instead. Neither larry nor I have a plane that will plane the sides of this plane curved, do it cleanly, and leave no little facets all over it. Scraping it is no option, it leaves tearout on the surface. I hate to sand finish projects, but this one is a rare case where it's appropriate.

The discussion in this thread about using cocobolo instead of beech stems from the fact that using a plane on things from, say, walnut to beech or maple, 3 pounds makes for a nice smoother when combined with an edge width of 2" or a little more. A beech plane will be closer to 2. When the wood gets harder than maple and you work it with regularity, especially if it's figured, sometimes 4 or 5 pounds seems easier on the user. A dense wood that carves well would've been a better alternative, but I don't have one. Boxwood would've been lovely. It wouldn't have cost me $50 in wood to get a piece of turkish boxwood that large, though.

We are making a plane to use on woods that are common in the US. Planing cocobolo would be out of the norm - actually, if you get a piece like this, it's a pain to plane. I don't think most of us build an appreciable amount of stuff that planes any harder than curly hard maple or curly cherry. I am not aware of any plane that will quickly and with good interval between sharpenings work the stick I've pictured above without any tearout - though this wood looks innocent and straight grained, curly hard maple and woods of the like aren't in the same ballpark as this stick of cocobolo - not even close.

We'll carry on and avoid the "choke trap" or the need to use less than full width of the iron, though. It's really not a big deal to make a plane that does that. What's more difficult is buying a dilapidated plane that can be refitted well enough to do it, especially if large amounts of the wedge have been chopped off or the abutments have been screwed with or not properly made.

At any rate, in any discussion that degenerates into a war about using planes, I side with warren. Any that degenerates into making them, and the aspects of them (or any tools), I'll have to side with george. It's a matter of credentials via proof with both, I guess.

[Matthew N. Masail]

I actually fine this very interesting, the idea of a plane that is a joy to USE and that can handle tear-out when you need it to (of course it must be pleasing to the eye as well) is what keeps me making planes. of course I use a cross pin so get perfect feeding of shavings in any situation with or without a cap-iron, which I guess is the more practical way to make a plane that is problem free and that will stay problem free. the cross pin if done right will hold even a thin iron more than well enough for anything so the benefit of abutments and a plane such as this to me is more about an accomplishment of skill than practicality.

I love an old Stanley no. 4, at the moment I'm using quite a bit of Ipe wood and I use a pre-war no.4 with stock iron (sharpened at about 35) and it does great, I use it mainly because the Ipe has nasty oils and it's easiar the clean the stanley than a woodie, but there is something about a fine wooden plane that just feels so nice, it's worth the effort.

[Kees Heiden]

I'm really looking forward to see how you adres the "choke trap".

What you say about some woods having spots that are getting worse when scraped rings a bell with me. Sometimes I have some softish European maple, aound a knot or close to a knot, where the grain is rising up vertically, effectively creating a bit of endgrain, and being rock hard too. Scraping such spots only makes it worse. Combine it with the typical grain reversal around the knot, and you get a problematic area, that isn't too much of a problem when cutting at 45 degrees with the capiron.

[Steve Voigt]

… and after I plane the bandsaw marks off of the side of this plane with a #4, I will probably just sand it instead. Neither larry nor I have a plane that will plane the sides of this plane curved, do it cleanly, and leave no little facets all over it. Scraping it is no option, it leaves tearout on the surface. I hate to sand finish projects, but this one is a rare case where it's appropriate.


To fair the sides of a coffin smoother, I usually start with a smaller coffin smoother, about 6" long. In general I find a little plane like this really useful for any gentle convex curve. It's true that in something like cocobolo, it's hard to avoid tool marks, so to finish up I switch to a Super Shear file. I used to use a Vixen, but after you recommended the super shear, I tried it and it does work nicer than a vixen; you can get a finished surface with it that looks nice but is a little more grippy than a sanded surface. You can clean up the chamfers with it too.

[David Weaver]

Well, I did some general clean up work tonight, and then cut the plane itself out of the blank. I don't have a good bunch of lines or a pattern, I wish I did. I just freehanded what I thought they should look like.

And cut the eyes. In this wood, the only way I've figured out how to cut the eyes nicely is cross grain with a gouge. any other way and they split or tear out.

292027

From now on if I build another, I will cut the body of the plane out, then do the cheeks to open everything up and then cut the eyes. My sides are uneven and fat, and thus the eyes are short and stubby. A bad look. I don't think any part of the eyes further back should be further from the center of the plane than further forward, but these eyes have gotten that way. I chased them a little after this and they only became worse. Too bad. I could really thin the cheeks at this point, but I have no functional reason to do that (in terms of how well the plane will perform).

By the way, the best way I've figured for any of us do dos with mostly hand tools to clean up the sides of a bandsawn plane is to just use a stanley 4. Set it with the cap iron close if the wood is nasty, it'll create less mess to sand off.

once you've got the saw marks out, if you need to thin a certain spot, planing cross grain is easy.

And ftr, in terms of the new age super metals, I've committed myself to not sharpening the stock stanley iron until I need to, and after all of this in cocobolo, I still haven't had to, but it's getting dull. Maybe tomorrow.

Next order of business is to draw a line on the cheeks inside the plan where the wear meets the escapement (hopefully those are the right terms), straight back. You are going to pare the abutment down into the side of the plane until it terminates right in the side. Small paring, it doesn't take long, but if you get in a rush and push out a chunk of stuff you'll be sorry you did.

the drill hole I was worried about earlier is gone.

My abutments terminate about 3/4" or so above the mouth (that's where they taper into the side).

If my wear was taller, this taper would be longer and if I had better wood that showed detail, it would be a good opportunity to neatly pare so that the wood at my pencil line was crisp.

292028

I drew a small orange circle where I'm talking about, hopefully you can see it. You want this to taper into the body of the plane so that no matter what runs into it, it can't get stuck there. This stuff doesn't all have to be perfect, but it has to be decent. If you somehow undercut the bottom of your abutment so that there will be a gap at the end of the wedge, you'll have trouble. Be careful to not do that.

I'm ready to bed my iron.

I like to use a light oil and a thin coating. Place it on the bed, move it a just a little, find the oil. See the dark spots in this picture - the iron is bedding on a diagonal.
292029

See the dark spots, scrape the dark spots, do it again. You want the iron bedding on the left and right at the bottom just behind the mouth, and not up from there until you get toward the top of the plane. You don't need the iron bedding anywhere in the middle of the plane bed, but you don't want to undercut that too much, either, in case you'd accidentally undercut close to the mouth area and have good bedding surface if you conditioned off a portion of the plane sole.

I'm done here. The area at the mouth looks similar for the last 3/4" or so.

292030


Anyway, you want even bedding at the top and the bottom, if you don't have it at both places, the iron probably won't adjust predictably (as in if you strike the center to adjust for depth, it may change lateral adjustment a little bit. You can learn to use a plane like that, but it's a pain.

You might think the eyes don't look quite so bad after this, but I managed to make them worse. you'll see them in later pictures. Nice eyes are longer and thinner and start closer to the abutment. I just dropped the ball on these trying to fix things after this.

[David Weaver]

To fair the sides of a coffin smoother, I usually start with a smaller coffin smoother, about 6" long. In general I find a little plane like this really useful for any gentle convex curve. It's true that in something like cocobolo, it's hard to avoid tool marks, so to finish up I switch to a Super Shear file. I used to use a Vixen, but after you recommended the super shear, I tried it and it does work nicer than a vixen; you can get a finished surface with it that looks nice but is a little more grippy than a sanded surface. You can clean up the chamfers with it too.

I cut the chamfers on the top after this, but didn't take pictures yet. I did use the vixen a little bit, and tried the super shear and it worked well, but the bed float was the most aggressive and I finished the top chamfers with it. I always forget what a pain it is to see your marks in cocobolo if the lighting isn't at the right angle.

That's part of my excuse for bungling the eyes. At least that's what I claim. It's harder to see where you've cut, for sure.

I'm just going to have to make a third one of these sometime to rectify this - hopefully I can remember to give the super shear a shot on the sides.

[george wilson]

SO,DAVID,it is YOU who is dropping the ball? I am relieved. I thought it was I!!:)

WE had a huge collection of plane making tools in the collection. The one they sold off. It wasn't 18th. C.,unfortunately. Among the tools was a clamp shaped like a coffin smoother. The jaws had a central screw,and slid on rails. Obviously used CAREFULLY(the jaws were wood),to finalize the shape of coffin smoothers.

There were also literally hundreds of mother planes for making molding planes. It was a huge collection.

[Kees Heiden]

To fully understand what you write, I made this quick sketch. When cutting off the back of the plane and looking forward, I suppose you see something like this. Grey is the sides of the plane, brown is the wear, yellow the abbutments and light yellow the escapement.

292032

[Kees Heiden]

And when cutting the plane through the length, it would look kind of like this? With the small red triangle, the area you were paring in your last post?

292033

[David Weaver]

292035

Kees, both of those pictures describe the "triangle" correctly. I snapped this picture on the way out this morning and you can only just see the triangle, it actually looks a little blurry, I guess because it's tapering away from the camera.

(don't look at the huge elephant eyes!! I may yet remove some more material from the cheeks of the plane to make them less fat and then lengthen them some.) If I was starting from scratch with no plane to copy, I might be inclined to set up my wear, bed and abutments on a paper pattern to make sure this triangle is of appreciable size.

[Pat Barry]

To fully understand what you write, I made this quick sketch. When cutting off the back of the plane and looking forward, I suppose you see something like this. Grey is the sides of the plane, brown is the wear, yellow the abbutments and light yellow the escapement.292032
Thank you Kees - this is extremely helpful

[Pat Barry]

292035
(don't look at the huge elephant eyes!! I may yet remove some more material from the cheeks of the plane to make them less fat and then lengthen them some.)
My understanding, if I recall George's previous commentary, was the eyes are there specificallly to provide you with finger clearance for clearing material that may become stuck, hence, why not make them a bit larger, rather than be worried about the "huge elephant eyes"? None the less - this is coming along nicely and I appreciate your thorough documentation of the process and learning points.

[David Weaver]

My understanding, if I recall George's previous commentary, was the eyes are there specificallly to provide you with finger clearance for clearing material that may become stuck, hence, why not make them a bit larger, rather than be worried about the "huge elephant eyes"? None the less - this is coming along nicely and I appreciate your thorough documentation of the process and learning points.

Well, it's just a matter of proportion and ugliness. If I correct them, it won't
have anything to do with functionality, it's more about disappointment that I didn't at least draw out the plane as it is and go from there to prevent overcutting them.

On a manufactured plane, those cheeks have less curvature and heft to them and are closer to a single plane from front of the abutment to the back of the escapement, leaving less material to deal with and making cutting a longer cleaner eye a little eaiser.

I left a bit too much heft and belly in the cheeks to get an optimal result and then fell into the classic trap of trying to improve something and instead just making it worse. I will say this much, most people are going to have the objective to make a nice working plane, and hopefully they'll be trying to make one that they enjoy using and that is effective with everything. The cosmetics and proportions are *much* harder to get nice than the functionality, and that's a good thing, I guess. I'd just like to have both, but I don't have enough experience to get there. I have a good enough eye to see when things don't look good, but not enough experience to know what method I could or should use to avoid them getting there.

Some people have no eye. I'm lucky enough that I have some eye for things. Some people have a good eye and are gifted they can create stuff that suits their eye right away (and in a way that suits others, too). George would be in this category, and inasmuch as these discussions turn into competitions and larry won't like this, larry's body of work is not close to the level of georges. We're in a contest here about plane design, but george is an instrument maker of the finest order -and of many different types, a jeweler, a machinist, a die maker, a smith of a lot of metals when needed (black, silver, etc), a gunsmith able to either machine or *hand make* functioning gun parts out of steel stock, a carver of the highest order, a restorer, conservator, fill in the blank wherever you want to go with it. And able to do all of that and tie together design and execution like few can.

That is precisely the reason that I get frustrated when people can't tolerate a little bit of arguing between parties on this site, and folks troll George. It shows a complete lack of respect for those of us who want to learn or know things that are not easy for us to find elsewhere, and the same would be true of larry if he were getting harrassed by the general membership (which would probably happen if he stuck around as much as george).

I get that a few people don't enjoy the discussions sometimes, because they put manners above substance and they can't look past posts that bother them, even though they are not directed at them. But for the aspects such as the simple stuff like the eyes in the planes here, when you don't know what you don't know, who are you going to ask? You can ask George and you will get a reliable answer on design, and if you need it, on execution. No manner minder in the forum is going to offer any such thing, and we could degenerate back to the days when this and other hand tool forums were just a bunch of people giving attaboys and "everyone's opinion is worth the same".

[David Weaver]

To fully understand what you write, I made this quick sketch. When cutting off the back of the plane and looking forward, I suppose you see something like this. Grey is the sides of the plane, brown is the wear, yellow the abbutments and light yellow the escapement.

292032
One comment that is, of course, obvious - I the taper into the side of the plane should be a bit more gradual. Shavings that are very fine may not escape the wear right away, but we don't care as long as they can be pushed up and out by subsequent shavings. Some folks like to use their planes on the skew, just out of habit, so we want a gradual taper of that triangle, as much as the "triangle" will allow. It's nice when the taper starts at the same level as the wear ends, it's cosmetically pleasing, but if it was an issue that the wear was low, that line could be moved up some if needed.

Of course, the mechanics of the wedge (being strong enough so that you don't break off a tip every time you handle it) and the fact that it needs to hold the iron down also play into this dictating that it can't be *too* gradual, or it'll just have to terminate in a sharp angle and that will be counterproductive, too.

My triangle is probably tapering from a little over an eighth to nothing over a span of half an inch or so down there.

[Kees Heiden]

Now I am starting to understand why the wear is so high in these old planes. Somehow you have to get the wear, the abutments and that all important little triangle, meeting in a logical position. High enough for the tips of the wedge to end somewhere on the bulge of the capiron, but certainly not higher.

[David Weaver]

>>the abutments and that all important little triangle, meeting in a logical position.<<

Yes, and that's exactly why I'd draw it out in a pattern if there was no plane available to copy. At least with a pattern, you can just place the pattern on the side of a blank and lay it out. If the pattern doesn't turn out right, you can just redraw it before the cutting starts.

[Kees Heiden]

Just looked back through the thread and I saw that I made a mistake in my first diagram. You tapered the abutments from the top down to that little triangle. From 1/4" to 1/8" I guess.

[David Weaver]

Kees, I did, but it's not enormously important. The first smoother that I made of cocobolo, I didn't do much of that. it's just an attempt to make the interior of the plane a little less chubby and provide some relief.

I may have tapered off a bit too much on the cheeks of my plane, at least compared to what I'd like, but once you remove it it's gone! It'll still hold the iron, I'd just rather have a little more left for ease of the wedge.

Anyway, my first smoother feeds fine, and the wedge prongs aren't even the same length on each side (my triangles were different sizes, both starting at the top of the wear but they didn't end up being the same length. I also cut everything freehand on that plane and had to do a lot of adjustment to abutments and the wedge to get everything right. Chiseling and floating the bottom side of the abutment is a good way to get a bellied abutment, so that wasn't really optimal.

A bellied abutment will obviously lead to a small gap at the critical area where the wedge and triangle meet, which isn't ideal. The cut could be biased so that the fit is engineered at the bottom and top of the abutment, but I don't want to do too much of that if it's not necessary. I haven't to this point, but all of the freehand fitting in the other plane did make things a little more sloppy than I'd like. You makes your cuts and you takes your chances, though, and the performance of the plane comes first - it was fine in the end. Better planning initially would've yielded a lot less work and better cosmetics. that's sort of a running theme here in terms of the the first and second double iron plane vs. what would be the 12th of the same design. Experience and repetition counts for a lot.

[David Weaver]

Where did I leave off? The eyes. Here’s a New York maker plane with nice eyes (Baldwin? I can’t remember). Look at these instead of the eyes on my plane. What I didn’t look at closely enough is that if you notice the escapement, the cheeks of the plane are flat, and there is no curvature on the cuts.

292117

So, I thinned the sides of mine a little and corrected the eyes as much as possible.
And then, it’s on to beveling the sides and front. I don’t know what production would be for this on a curved palne. It’s easily done on a straight one with a smoothing plane. I used a plane float. Anything more aggressive just tore out, and I don’t have anything to give up around the top of the plane here. The cocobolo pins the floats and the Nicholson shear cut files, it’s oily and it’s a pain.

292118

292120

Use your sense to figure out which direction the wood lets you cut. You might be thinking a spokeshave would be good here, but it’s a no no. It’s the quartered face of a cocobolo board more or less and little bits tear out everywhere.

Mark your bevels. You want to be careful and hit the marks, a wavy bevel looks terrible. These are half an inch tall and about an eighth deep at the top.

292121

[David Weaver]

Pare the bevels on the front and the back of the plane to the mark. Careful not to overcut into what will be a quick gouge cut.
You pick the gouge once they’re cut and just pop the cut at the end of the bevel. I have no clue about carving, so there might be a way to make this a lot nicer looking.

292122

292123

We’re at the point in this picture. I wanted two things, I want the back to be narrow and the front to be wide. I’m using the full length of the blank and could stand to have another half inch at the back, but I don’t have it. This is going to come back to bite me. Looks OK here (thinner with a curve a little flatter at the back would’ve been better from a design standpoint).

292124

But then when I round the back slightly, I just didn’t have enough length and it looks fat. I know some of you guys don’t care about this stuff, and if you don’t, then don’t worry about it.

292125

After looking at this, if I were redrawing the lines on this plane, the widest point would be between the escapement and the abutments, but further forward than it is. It would just look better. When you do that, though, you have to be careful and give yourself enough material to work with at the abutments.

[David Weaver]

Next order of business, we need to cut the mortise in the bed for the cap iron screw. This is a quick thing, just mark width, then give yourself a little extra width (remember the iron needs to have lateral adjustment, and if you did good work at the bottom of the mouth, it’s snug at the mouth and moving back and forth at the top of the abutments).

292126

You could figure out some way to mark this accurately, but I don’t do that. It’s not critical, it just needs to be the screw size plus lateral room for adjusting the iron.
Saw it left and right at your marks as much as you can with a dovetail saw and work material out like you’d mortise (bevel down). If you go bevel up, the chisel will dive into the plane and you’ll fight it. Bevel down is pleasant work because you’re cutting with the grain and not back into it.

292127

Make sure the cap iron can get all the way to the mouth when you’re done without the screw bottoming out on the mortise.
Looking down into the plane for curiosity looks good. You can’t see it here, but our triangles terminate above the cap iron, so we’re not going to run into wedge fingers projecting past the cap iron apex.

292128

Pardon the feet. I live on the edge by using chisels barefoot sometimes.
Anyway, this isn’t a purposeless look, either, it’s the first time the cap iron has been in the plane. It’s a check to make sure that both the iron and the cap iron will get through the mouth but be a tight fit – too tight and you’ll blow out fibers when you insert an iron.

[David Weaver]

Let’s have a look at the junction on a good plane. This is a mathieson jack plane. The abutments stay at a certain thickness and then taper down at the triangle. You’ll see a picture of the wedge later to get an idea of it. It looks nice.

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I haven’t thought about why my triangles are so much smaller, the matheison doesn’t have large mouth. I guess the wear is a lot taller.
Here’s where we are.

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Grab the wedge stock, and mark it to width and make it so that it just fits at the top of the plane.

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This plane tapers in toward the mouth, so this wood isn’t going to go in really far.
Mark your wedge stock (I used a prior wedge, but you should know what taper you used to mark your abutments from the beginning. I mentioned just under 3/16” to just under 5/8” over a 3 ½ inch length of wedge). That’s about where we are. I found a white pencil that works well on cocobolo.
Cut the waste off and then plane down to the line. A machinist vise is nice to hold the wedge stock to plane across the grain if the wood is really hard.

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I’ll plane a taper in from each end a little. Do this slow, you want to stop just before it actually fits down the abutment – the fingers can have a little bit of spring into the sides. Once it gets in suitably far, leave it up tight against the abutments and mark the stock so you can cut out fingers.
This has to be done without the iron in because there is no mortise for the other side of the cap iron where the top of the screw goes through.

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[David Weaver]

Here’s the fingers drawn on. I didn’t measure where I terminated the fingers, but you have two lines to think about. The one that’s drawn here where all of the waste removed , and then another one up about an inch and a half where you taper the wedge material to full thickness. It’ll make sense in pictures.

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Remove waste to this first line.

Here’s the picture sense with the mathiesen. You can see how they choose to keep the abutments full thickness and then taper off at the triangle and that’s it. You can see the taper transition in the middle of the wedge. Notice also that they have fingers that meet the abutment but the bottom of the fingers are much wider to get a good surface on the cap iron.

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Back to our wedge, mark the underside of the wedge to make room for the top of the cap iron where the screw comes through.
Cut a mortise here with a gouge if you have one. I guess you could do this with a chisel or power tools, but it’s quick and easy with a gouge.

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It’ll look like this after cutting. Make sure the fingers can reach the apex of the cap iron before you’re done here, and make sure nothing bottoms out. Again, you need room laterally for lateral adjustment, too.

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First test fit – not bad. We want the wedge to go in further, though, so we’ll have to thin it. The work we are about to do is where keeping a nice straight abutment will pay off.

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[David Weaver]

Be sure for all of this fitting work that you have the iron and cap iron tightened together and set as if you were using the plane to smooth. If you don’t do that, you might end up with a terminal problem.

I plane the fingers carefully, and check the fit every few strokes. You do *not* want to have an overly thinned finger at bottom or you’ll have a shaving trap, and you don’t want it overly thin at the top of the plane, either. Sharpen your plane before you do this work and keep the shavings light. You may have a tendency to plane off the end of a finger or under do it, observe what you’re doing and make corrections as needed. The sharper your plane is, the less chance you’ll have to bear down on it and flex a finger to plane.

I do this alternating between planing a few stroke and checking the fit until the iron is in as far as I’d like it to be. Tap the wedge firm at this point (as if you were setting the plane) and mark the wedge fingers.

By this process, I get to here.

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Mark the fingers and then pare to the marked line. You don’t have to remove all of it if you’re feeling cautious, this fit has to be decent but the wedge fingers can stand just proud of the abutments and still work fine.

Take care to make sure the underside of the fingers is supported or they will break out at the end, which is a toxic no-no.

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I have a decent fit now, just out of curiosity, I’d like to check the mouth.

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This shows just how fat the plane is.
Chisel or file or float the taper into the top of the wedge. Mind your lines. Everything after that point is cosmetic, so I didn’t take many pictures of it.
If your mortise on the bottom side of the wedge is irregular, you’ll see a half circle shape that doesn’t look too great appear as you’re doing the tapering of the wedge. Just take a round file (or coarse sandpaper on a pencil) and make it the shape you want by working perpendicular to the length of the wedge.
I like to clip the corners off of my wedges and file some facets onto the wedge. Don’t get carried away with any of that, though, you still need a fat flat surface at the top of the wedge to strike with a mallet.

[David Weaver]

It’s time to get a test shaving. If you’re irons not sharp or finished, do that. If you did all of the following:
· Got a good fit at the abutments with the wedge at the top and bottom of the abutments
· Bedded the iron properly
· Trimmed the wedge fingers fairly close to the abutment width
· Eliminated any interfering bits and pieces around the mouth

Then the test shaving should be a formality.
In this case it is. Heavy shavings with a Washita-sharpened edge yield something like this:
Nice bright finish on cherry. The shavings shown are just under 5 thousandths.

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This is inexpensive cherry. It’s not really dense and it’s very dull when scraped and extremely dull when sanded.
These shavings are straightened out because the cap iron is set close and they are thick.
Check the plane with full width shavings, the feed problems often will be at the corners. You can add camber to your iron later if you want.
Then check straight and shavings askew, and check with fine and coarse shavings. The only problem I have with a feed is with the plane very askew in an exaggerated way. I don’t ever use a smoother like that, so it’s not something I’m going to bother with. Skewed 30 degrees or whatever there is no problem with feed, and even when there is a bunch up, one through shaving pushes the backup right out (no need to take the plane apart).

You want the plane to feed in such a way that you never have to take it apart.
Thinner shavings. They don’t look that thin, so I laid one over a caliper box to show that they’re not as thick as the camera flash makes them appear to be. I don’t work with shavings that thin, but the really wispy shavings often cause feeding problems when thicker ones do not, so it’s good to try them.

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This plane is a joy to use. Despite some of the cosmetics, I’m pleased with it.

It weighs 3 pounds 6 ounces, just a few ounces above what I think is ideal for a 2” smoother, and this one is 2 ¼”, almost as wide as a 4 ½ Stanley, but not as heavy.
After some oil and wax, this is the final coloration. Notice how dark the front and the back end are – I cut those only to square them, they are otherwise the end of my turning blank. That’s just what happens when you’ve got limited stock.

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Final thought given all of the moaning and groaning. I could’ve gotten away from all of the design issues if I’d have done two things:
1) Looked a little closer at my English planes before cutting this thing up
2) Drawn patterns with the escapement and side mortises below the escapements (or whatever you’d call them) shown so that I could lay out the proportions I actually wanted. I didn’t do that. It would’ve resulted in a prettier plane. You can do it when you make yours if you want a better result. It’s less about the escapement and the abutments, etc, in this plane, those are a given, but more about where the outside of the plane was cut on the bandsaw.

[Brian Holcombe]

Looks fantastic, and that is a gorgeous finish on the cherry board with a 5 thou shaving.

[george wilson]

It looks great,David. I think the eyes are fine. What I like to see in eyes is when their top edges are parallel with the outside edges of the plane(after they get flared out,of course). A coffin smoother's shape offers a nice opportunity to sculpt the eyes in this manner,and still have all the edges in nice,elliptical curves.

[David Weaver]

I think I said this already, but I'll summarize the tools I used:
* regular bench chisels
* two paring chisels (for the bevels and a narrow chisel to clean up in the abutments and at other joints. Floats work nicely, but it's nice to let them do their thing and then clean out the corners with a paring chisel instead of trying to force them into corners
* The shop made push scraper
* a card scraper
* four planemaking floats - pull side float, push cheek float, bed float and edge float (the edge float could be omitted with a keyhole type saw like steve voigt mentioned). If you have nice working wood like beech, you could omit the floats entirely and just use chisels.
* bandsaw - but only to cut the profile, and I did square up the block at the beginning with an old chop saw - those were the only power tool uses and they could've been done without power tools.
* a marking knife or sharp pocket knife to scrape areas, like to clean up the eyes after cutting them across the grain with a gouge
* two gouges - I use the inexpensive japanese gouges that come in a set of 6. They work really well and are about $20-$25 each, IIRC and they give you a decent set of standard gouges to work with for junk like this if you're not necessarily going to be a carver matching sweeps.
* I used some mill bastard files to to drawfile surfaces on the plane, and since steve voigt mentioned the nicholson shear cut file, I used that for all of the surface finish on the plane, except the end grain. It did well on the sides and top, though.
* a sanding lap to get the bottom in plane quickly (you can flatten the bottom anywhere on a short plane like this, though), but scrape out the sanding lap marks on the bottom to remove any trash and to get to good solid wood. This is a good quick

I think the only things people won't have in their shops are the floats, maybe paring chisels (which aren't necessary, bench chisels could be used), and the nicholson milled tooth files (which also aren't necessary - you can sand if you want, I just don't love the look of a sanded surface).

If someone doesn't have gouges, that can be worked around, too, by cutting with a cheap round metal file and then sanding.

I personally think the plane floats are worth the average person having, they can be sold later, and they can be sharpened with the xx slim 6" files at the borg, mexican or otherwise sharpens them fine. The fact that they have lie nielsen written on them means that you might be money ahead buying them if you plan to sell them because getting people to buy a hand filed float might be difficult, and making one will probably cost at least $10 in files.

[David Weaver]

It looks great,David. I think the eyes are fine. What I like to see in eyes is when their top edges are parallel with the outside edges of the plane(after they get flared out,of course). A coffin smoother's shape offers a nice opportunity to sculpt the eyes in this manner,and still have all the edges in nice,elliptical curves.

Thanks George. I had to thin the sides to get the eyes as small as they are and move them back, but that's OK - they were too fat and the sides didn't need to be that fat in the escapement. It's hard to see eyes and details in dark wood, but they have a slight curve on the bottom as per your point last time that elements that are curved should remain curved and not trade back and forth between curved parts and straight parts.

[David Weaver]

One last caveat that sticks in my head for a rookie, since I'm basically a rookie - this is the second double iron plane I've made, and only the third coffin smoother. The first was a single iron plane that I really didn't have anything good to copy, and it turned out OK, but was a real disappointment compared to planes I use well.

That caveat is, once you have your mouth opened up, when you float or chisel anything, do not let your floats travel from inside the plane to out of the mouth. You stand a chance of getting a long split ahead of the mouth that you won't get out unless you plane off a fair amount of the plane bottom.

If you're tempted to take a stroke or two from inside the plane to out through the mouth with a chisel, scraper or float don't do it!!!.

[David Weaver]

Looks fantastic, and that is a gorgeous finish on the cherry board with a 5 thou shaving.

thanks Brian, that is precisely the benefit of a double iron and one of the reasons I push about it now. The plane is only washita sharp, the shavings thick, and for anyone dimensioning wood by hand, you can take those healthy through shavings off and essentially have a surface that can be finished. It might be a little less useful for someone taking off machine planer marks, but it's useful to me.

Moving up the ladder to something like a try plane, you can take shavings off full width a hundredth of an inch thick and get very little tearout regardless of grain direction. That's incredibly useful.

The double iron gets a lot of press in terms of smoothing, but it's cuts heaver than smoothing where it really shows its usefulness, protecting against tearout but allowing you the benefit of having a plane that's relatively easy to push and that will still leave a bright finish on softer woods.

[george wilson]

My sculpture teacher early on,told me to either make something round,or square,not square with half baked rounded off corners. The same applies to curves. Make them curved or straight. Don't mix the 2 unless it is just not possible to avoid it(and there are such instances). For example,the nice eyes on your New York plane with straight sides. Then,the eyes flow with the straight sides as they should. I have said that coffin smoothers offer the best aesthetic opportunity to design beautiful eyes.

[george wilson]

Ready to try one in solid black ebony? Very hard on cutting edges,hard on bandsaw blades,and chippy as all get out. Especially when it's over 60 years old.

[David Weaver]

Ready to try one in solid black ebony?

I don't think I could see marks in it!

I also don't think I'm at the point where I'm making a plane nice enough to blow through a $150-$200 chunk of wood.

I don't have any back lighting, just a little bit of overhead lighting. If I got the lighting out that I have that could be used as back lighting, I'd be too lazy to use it, anyway. That made seeing the marks in the cocobolo fairly difficult. The way it looks fuzzy (without necessarily tearing out) also makes it hard to see things like the bottom lines of the eyes. I guess a brush with mineral spirits would be useful, but I'm lazy, too.

[Steve Voigt]

Looks great, Dave. I'm impressed that it worked so well right out of the box, without a lot of fettling.
Any thoughts on the iron, now that you've had a chance to use it a little?

[Brian Holcombe]

thanks Brian, that is precisely the benefit of a double iron and one of the reasons I push about it now. The plane is only washita sharp, the shavings thick, and for anyone dimensioning wood by hand, you can take those healthy through shavings off and essentially have a surface that can be finished. It might be a little less useful for someone taking off machine planer marks, but it's useful to me.

Moving up the ladder to something like a try plane, you can take shavings off full width a hundredth of an inch thick and get very little tearout regardless of grain direction. That's incredibly useful.

The double iron gets a lot of press in terms of smoothing, but it's cuts heaver than smoothing where it really shows its usefulness, protecting against tearout but allowing you the benefit of having a plane that's relatively easy to push and that will still leave a bright finish on softer woods.

I've actually put this advice to work after you mentioned it in a prior thread (thanks for the tips, btw). I normally do not dimension by hand, but on two recent and rather large projects I did literally everything by hand short of cutting the slabs, and the wood to start was 12/4 so in many cases the dimensioning was significant. It is very helpful in that scenario to use a heavy cut for the bulk of the work. Where I put it to use most often was on my jointer plane, where a heavy cut and a good finish is leaving very little work for the smoother to do. It's not always feasible to cut the lumber with a saw, so in those scenarios it's great to be able to set the plane for a large cut and get to where you want to be quickly.

[Brian Holcombe]

I don't think I could see marks in it!

I also don't think I'm at the point where I'm making a plane nice enough to blow through a $150-$200 chunk of wood.

I don't have any back lighting, just a little bit of overhead lighting. If I got the lighting out that I have that could be used as back lighting, I'd be too lazy to use it, anyway. That made seeing the marks in the cocobolo fairly difficult. The way it looks fuzzy (without necessarily tearing out) also makes it hard to see things like the bottom lines of the eyes. I guess a brush with mineral spirits would be useful, but I'm lazy, too.

I am in the same situation with overhead lighting only, and found myself contemplating a surgeons lamp the other day shortly after marking some dovetails while holding a flashlight to see the line. However, after coming to my senses (sort of) I think I've settled on an articulating floor lamp attached to a low roller dolly.

[Derek Cohen]

Nice work Dave! Excellent result. I have been following the build with much interest. Great looking plane (I really like the eyes, and indeed the whole aesthetic) and it looks like it is performing as well as you hoped it would - could one ask for more?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Weaver]

Looks great, Dave. I'm impressed that it worked so well right out of the box, without a lot of fettling.
Any thoughts on the iron, now that you've had a chance to use it a little?

Thanks steve. I guess some luck must've been involved. I check the fit as I worked the abutments until the wedge goes from not engaged to tight pretty quickly (which I think only happens when it beds pretty uniformly). I also was much more attentive to fuzz and junk down at the wedge fingers and pared it all cleanly before trying anything. I have never been as careful before test as this, and never as attentive to the fit of the chipbreaker against the sides before.

But there could be a lot of luck involved, too. Making a shim and using it to create both the wedge and mark the abutments helped a lot, too - it was pretty close other than thickness of the prongs on the wedge needing to come down almost uniformly from front to back. I either don't have books about this stuff or never paid much attention, so the fact that you mentioned a spacer is what brought all of that up on this attempt.

The iron is typical english or vintage US kind of hardness. It's hard enough, but not overly hard. Rolls up a wire edge on the washita fairly nicely (one that comes off on a leather strop without issue), but has good toughness and seems to wear evenly (i planed with it more today).

In the past, I've had one or two that were a bit chippy, but not enough to warrant testing them ahead of time.

[David Weaver]

Nice work Dave! Excellent result. I have been following the build with much interest. Great looking plane (I really like the eyes, and indeed the whole aesthetic) and it looks like it is performing as well as you hoped it would - could one ask for more?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks for the nice comments, Derek. As a hobbyist, and not one with dozens of years of experience, one can't expect a whole lot more, I guess!

[Kees Heiden]

My compliments too! Damned nice work (for a rookie ;)). I've got one last request. Do you have some pictures from the wedge alone? I am not quite sure how you finished the tips exactly.

This thread is about as good as it gets. The amount of information is terific, nowhere is a double iron woodie explained as thourougly as here.
You've wetted my apetite to give it a go too (but it'll be next winter until my workshop is back in order again).

[Steve Voigt]

This thread is about as good as it gets. The amount of information is terrific, nowhere is a double iron woodie explained as thoroughly as here.


Agree with this, for sure.

[Pat Barry]

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Nice work David. Thanks for documenting it so thoroughly.

[David Weaver]

Kees. Here are two wedges. Mine and the mathiesen. I don't think the shape matters too much other than to notice that the wedge prongs are wider at the side contacting the cap iron than they are in the abutments.

The difference in shape obviously matches the difference in abutment shapes. I don't know if most of the planes I have use the style of the mathiesen because they're machine cut (i.e., the abutment width is straight and then tapers into the "triangle" rather than tapering the whole way and just more at the end.).

The mathiesen is a long jack, and I've never had occasion to really test its feeding because of that. It's a nice plane, though, higher quality than most (and it was cheap at an FTJ tool sale, cheaper than the iron for my shop made plane was).

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I didn't think when I looked at my wedge fingers, that they were that steep, but there are two ways to do the wedge, I'd think. Long thin taper like the mathiesen or gradual taper and abrupt end like mine.

The mathiesen wedge doesn't actually come to a point on the prong on the left, and it's very very thin. It's almost as if the abutments were not marked right. Nevertheless, the fit is tight.

If I make another plane sometime, I'll probably do that style next time - I think it looks nicer.

[David Weaver]

I know I said this already, but I'm going to say it again because I did something that made this more difficult. That is the order of opening the escapement and then cutting the plane out. I would instead do things in this order if I did it again:

* Cut the mortise and open the mouth
* work the bed down
*cut the abutments, etc and clean them out.
* mark the escapement lateral width on the top of the blank
* Mark the outside line of the plane, including the width of the bevel you're going to make
* cut the blank
* then widen the escapement

It'll be a lot easier to have even cheeks that way, and get eyes that are well cut

Once you saw out the curves on the plane, you lose the ability to have a square reference, so make sure every mark that has to do with square or length from the edge of the plane is there and finalized.

[David Weaver]

Nice work David. Thanks for documenting it so thoroughly.

Thanks Pat. As far as documenting, it's always nice to share something you learn before you forget it.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Looks amazing David, and especially looks like you can make it a primary user, which is the most pleasing thing about making a plane IMO.


I take back what I said before, a cross-pin is not more practical, just easier. Thank you for posting this.

[David Weaver]

Well, I don't know what is or isn't more practical in terms of planes with cross pins. I've only made metal planes with cross pins.

Certainly if someone doesn't want to do all of this stuff, you can build a plane with a cross pin (a wooden one) and a wedge under the cross pin without the tools that I've used (the floats just never are going to be inventory in an average shop unless someone is intending to make an appreciable number of planes). There is economic value in those floats for someone who is going to make a dozen or two planes and use them, and they have residual value.

But for one or two? Probably not.

I like to draw a little bit of heat (like the heel wrestlers did) pushing the double iron and saying things like "planes deserve to be cut by hand" or "planes deserve to have a nice vintage double iron set in them to look appropriate". Everyone can do what they want. I seem to have led steve into buying a subpar double vintage iron, but I can only assure everyone that if you buy 6, 5 will be fine. But there's merit in all of the different methods (laminated planes with 62+ hardness irons, japanese planes, metal planes, vintage planes with softer irons designed for natural stones) if people want to learn to use them, and merit in a quick plane for someone who doesn't want to trouble with all of these details.

FTR, it took about 10 hours for me to build this plane. I've never built a krenov plane, so I don't know how long it would take to make a nice one, but I'd bet it could be done in a couple of hours for a first one, and they'd probably never come apart. It would change a little if someone wanted a handle on their laminated plane, but even that could be harvested out of an old junk woodie and used as is.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Well Actually I can build a krenov plane is 1.5 hours total time or 4-6 hours depending on how much attention I give to the details, that is, I don't make cross-pins out of any wood anymore, I'll re-plane a piece to get the right grain direction and not runout - that can take a little time if using something super hard like Ipe. laminating 4\4 wood also takes time. but I think the planes can be just as good at the end if you have a good design. my point though was only about the cross-pin VS abutment, they both have their merits, as long as the cross-pin is stiff.


Regarding the floats, dounno I view something like 200$ for a small set from LN to be a good investment. and your probably right about that they hold their value.

[Steve Voigt]

I seem to have led steve into buying a subpar double vintage iron, but I can only assure everyone that if you buy 6, 5 will be fine.

?????
Must be another Steve. :)

I definitely agree though, that the majority of vintage irons will work great. The only vintage irons that haven't worked for me are single irons, in a specific application. I was trying to make a skew mitre--a low angle BD plane for shooting and end grain planing. The problem is that I needed to hold a low angle (about 25°) for the most brutal planing task (end grain), and the two blades I've tried weren't up to the task. I noticed that Derek Cohen had a similar problem with his strike block plane, so I think it's more the application than the irons. For a 45° or 50° BD plane, where you can sharpen at 30° or even a little higher, I've never had a problem with vintage. And the best vintage irons I've used are almost magical.

[David Weaver]

Oh...wrong person, then! I know that I made that big diatribe about attractive planes deserving attractive vintage irons or something that at least looks like one, and then someone was trying to save a crumbling iron here and gave up.

The one iron I had that was a dud was in an ohio tool coffin smoother that was such a bad plane I never had the chance to use it long enough to find out if the iron was OK. It may ultimately have been fine if I had sharpened it differently.

There's something satisfying about using a washita stone with the vintage irons, then thinning the wire edge with light pressure and watching it disappear on a smooth strop that shows scratch lines from the wire edge and then nothing but smooth once it's off.

[Steve Voigt]

It always rubs me the wrong way when people want to say that cross pins are as good as abutments. They're not. The Romans and Medieval Europeans used the pin, but by 1300 or so, the pin was already on its way out. It never completely went away, but abutments were used for the overwhelming majority of planes from the Renaissance until almost 1900, because they are superior technology.
The advantage of abutments is that they are long, so they provide a locking action parallel to the planing force. It doesn't matter that they are narrow, because there is no force that wants to make the iron flex across its width.
Conversely, a pin only has a 1/2" long section to resist planing force. If you think this is just as good, I invite you to cut down a drill press or lathe chuck so that the locking taper only goes 1/2" up into the arbor.
I can't see that a metal cross pin provides any advantage whatsoever. If the iron is sitting flat on the bed, and the wedge is sitting flat on the iron, then there is no force that makes the pin want to bend. A pine pin would probably work just as well as one made of stainless steel. The stainless is just wasted strength and weight, but will probably deform the holes in the plane's sides more quickly than a wood pin will.
There is no doubt that the abutments are trickier to make, especially with a double iron. So, if ease of construction (particularly with power tools) is the main goal, then yes, that is an advantage of the pin. But there is no performance advantage.

[Steve Voigt]

Oh...wrong person, then! I know that I made that big diatribe about attractive planes deserving attractive vintage irons or something that at least looks like one, and then someone was trying to save a crumbling iron here and gave up.

Yeah, that was my skew iron, but you didn't talk me into it--I've been buying up old irons for years.
Finding one or two duds hasn't stopped me from acquiring old irons, but it's made me a little more cautious--I now flatten, sharpen, and test an iron before I make the plane.
Your thread has inspired me to to get cracking on a small smoother I've been planning for a while. Sharpened up a 1 3/4" Buck Bros blade over the weekend and it tested very well. Really looking forward to trying to make the abutments a little cleaner than in my previous planes.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Hi Steve, I don't think cross-pins are just as good, they are not as far as holding power goes. but they have their marits as a "problem free system". I have made abutments, and didn't like it as much. the pins hold more than well enough and work-very well. a pine pin would hold, but might break, and I do feel a differance between a stiff pin and one made of a lighter wood. a tight fitting hole is important too.

a round cross pin is, however, totally inferior.

[David Weaver]

I like pins for a lever cap. That's the only time I've ever used them :)

So I shouldn't make it out like I've used a wedge. Three pins in lever caps so far. Well, one of them is a pin and the lever cap is free with a groove in the top, held in place only under tension.

The trouble with lever caps is if you don't have a really accurate setup and you're working by hand, you have a bed and a metal mouth that's cut and you have to tune the lever cap to the iron after the pin is in. If the lever cap isn't tuned well, the plane won't adjust properly.

I understand the abutments well now, and with a shim and a crisp sawn line, all I had to do was undercut them a tiny bit with a float this time compared to major work last time. I don't know if the pictures show it, but my fit of the wedge to the abutments is pretty crisp, and there may be just a bit of gap at the very end of the abutments, but the fit is still very tight just in from there. There's almost one stiff tap where the wedge feels like it's sucked in as soon as it gets tension on it. The first firm tap, no movement on the wedge in any direction, and the wedge doesn't advance much more after that.

I have at least one infill to make now, and maybe a few more moulding planes before making any more smoothers. I do haven urge to pig up another smoother iron or two on ebay, though I think I already have several. When a guy is out there selling cleaned up irons that need very little, with a matching cap iron for what is effectively $35 delivered from the UK, it's hard to resist getting more of them and storing them away.

[Matthew N. Masail]

I'm sure that well made abutments are a joy, like you describe, what I care about most is that the iron stays where it is and adjusts well. I'm still a youngster with this stuff, and I've never used a well made solid body plane.

[David Weaver]

It was a while before I ever did, either. At least of the double iron planes. But the problem wasn't that they weren't available, it was that I didn't know what to look for. Hopefully if nobody else other than Steve, Kees and I want to build them after this, it'll at least clue people in what to look for when they're shopping old wooden planes, and then after that, how to make the wedge if a new wedge needs to be made.

I no longer have most of the planes that I had trouble with, but the issue could've been as simple as them just needing a new wedge. The only ones that I'd conclude are poorly made right away have been the ones that have a properly set up cap iron but that clog right in the middle of the plane without cutting at the corners.

[Matthew N. Masail]

No doubt you did a great service with this thread. I don't feel up to it yet, but one day.

[Shawn Pixley]

Hopefully if nobody else other than Steve, Kees and I want to build them after this, it'll at least clue people in what to look for when they're shopping old wooden planes, and then after that, how to make the wedge if a new wedge needs to be made.

David, I don't know that I want to build one right now as I have enough other projects, but I can see myself building one in the next couple of years. This has been very educational for me. I'll likely build a Krenov plane first and then a non-laminated plane.

[Kees Heiden]

Always interesting to theorize a bit about plane designs. :D
The krenov type is typically a power tool plane. Making these laminations precisely with handtools only is a bunch of extra work. The professional planemakers from the past could make 5 to 6 mortised planes a day (!) with handtools. At best they had some kind of mechanical saw or a planer to help preparing the stock.

When plane factories started to use more and more machines, they didn't used the laminated design either, but choose special mortising machines. Making the abutments means extra work, so the Germans who still make a lot of wooden planes today, invested a lot of energy into developing planes with pins. There are two obvious problems with the pins. In the first place, the pin hole in the sides of the plane wears out over time. They increased and strengthened this area with a much lager bearing ring. The second problem is the groove the pin wears in the wedge. This was solved with a swiveling piece in between wedge and pin, to increase the surface area. In the last pictures from this article you can see how they made it.
http://www.holzwerken.de/werkzeug/hobel.phtml

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Kees

I've made planes in a number of different configurations: solid body with abutments, laminated three-part with abutments, laminated two-part with abutments, and a variety of solid and laminated bodies without abutments. I would rather make a solid body plane than a laminated plane - less work overall.

The one advantage of the laminated construction is that all the parts may be cut on a table saw. This will be preferred by those who find chopping/paring waste to be too daunting or too physical. I cannot imaging Jim Krenov falling into the latter categories, and so he must have seen it as a method of efficiency. I have one of the planes he built, and it is a solid worker. Then again, there was nothing dainty about his planes ...

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/The%20James%20Krenov%20Smoother_html_34926643.jpg

Those shavings came with the plane. Further, this plane is not suited to be used with a chip breaker, which came set 1/16" from the edge.

I see many "Krenov" planes on the forums built with steel pins for the wedge. I am certain that these planes do not last long. The essence of the Krenov design actually lies in the shape of the wooden pin, not the laminated construction. The pin is designed to rotate and lock flat against the wedge. It is also kept far away from the flow of shavings, not hindering their escape. Pins are OK as long as one side is filed flat and it is able to rotate (is not epoxied into position).

The other reason I think that Krenov designs are favoured by many is that some will find it daunting to fit a wedge into mortices. A pin is just so much easier (and, when correctly made, it does do as good a job). I have also gone so far as to replace the pins on a plane with cheeks/abutments: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/AddingCheeksToAKrenov.html

Another short-cut to abutments is to purchase the brass inserts used by Terry Gordon (HNT Gordon Planes). I used them but do not own any planes with them. They look easy enough to install, and they certainly work very well. A marvel of modern manufacturing ...

Terry build planes with both wooden and brass abutments.

http://www.hntgordon.com.au/images/shop/upload/ga55smootherweb.jpg

Returning to your link, I found it interesting that the leading edge of the chipbreaker in the diagram was marked as 90 degrees on what looks like a 45 degree bed (just in case you missed this).

http://www.holzwerken.de/werkzeug/hobel1.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Kees Heiden]

Yes, that's an interesting picture isn't it? I've lonked to it before. In the text the writer sais that the first goal of the capiron is to prevent the shavngs curling up in front of the plane, but instead straightens them out or even curls them backwards, so they aren't slipping in front of the plane. As a secundairy effect he describes the anti tear out function.

[David Weaver]

That plane has a short wear, just like my muji continental smoothers (which are probably a simplified copy of the euro designs, anyway, from the short wear to the lack of eyes).

I never liked the 80-90 degree cap iron setting, which we've discussed before. Maybe it has more merit for thicker shavings, I don't know. i don't like it for a smoother, though.

[george wilson]

With all due respect,I just cannot agree that the pin,especially if rotating in the hole,does as good a job as the traditional English style wedge. All that stress on the little pin in the hole just isn't going to last as long as the long bearing surfaces in English style planes. English style escapements have over 2" on each side of bearing surfaces against the wedge. And,those surfaces cannot start rotating and distorting the pin,and worrying out the hole.

A plus,though,is the relative ease with which loose pins can be owner replaced (though wear in the holes is another matter).

Remember the 16th. C. elaborately etched iron plane that used a cross pin? It was all iron,though,and strong due to the all metal construction. Probably little used,if any. We made a copy in sterling silver that was a gift to a large donor. I have posted it here before,but it's been some time. The original was a king's "gentleman's" plane,and is about 1/2 size.


Certainly the large rings and flat metal piece bearing against the wedge will help out a great deal to increase longevity,as Kees mentioned in later German construction. I still don't know if the advanced German style will last as long as the English type wedge construction. It is doubtful if any modern user would wear one out,in a hobby situation.

I don't know how durable those brass Gorton abutments are either. They'd better be pretty husky to not wear loose. That 1 relatively small diameter pin is going to at least loosen the hole in the wood,which it rides in,over time. Use of harder woods like rosewood for the plane's body will help. But,it's just inherently not as strong a design. It would be a lot more durable if the sides of the plane were metal. I have seen a few 19th. C. cast iron planes that obviously could be bought as bare body castings,and stuffed by the user. There is one such unused casting in a tool chest in the Williamsburg collection. And,I saw an identical plane completed by the owner,for sale somewhere. The little abutments,which were cast in,were very identical to the brass add on ones in the plane above. But,infinitely stronger,being cast integral with the plane's body.

The weakest spot in the English style wedge construction is just at the top of the body,where the wedge can start to split out the wood. I have minimized this splitting by slightly relieving the wood in the tapered mortise,so that the wedge bears more tightly against the BOTTOM of the mortise. The wood in the outer edges of the wedge over time,will compress slightly as it is hammered in repeatedly,making the wedge slightly tapered to fit the mortise. But the wedge wood will be stronger and more dense at the bottom of this mortise. It will still tend to distribute the load more tightly in the bottom,and away from the more delicate outside edge.(I hope this makes sense).

The advantage of the cross pin method is there is more room for the chips to emerge up out of the escapement.

I have made a few of the pin type planes,including that elaborate boxwood one I've posted here before(I can't remember WHY I made that plane pin type. I think I decided to add on the elaborate snail shell front knob later on). But,when I make that type,it is usually because I wanted the plane at once,and did not care to invest the extra time. I did not make pin type planes to last a real long time. One example of a pin type plane by me is a rounded bottom one I made for hollowing out cello size bowed instrument tops and backs.(Actually used for the fancy Viola da Gamba I posted here). I still have it,and can use it on arch top guitars,but its use is limited to those applications,not hard daily wear. Not that I subject my tools to that any more!! Too much hard daily wear on my skeleton already.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi George

I do agree that a pin is the weakest method (which is why I changed one pinned plane to a more traditional abutment style). A flattened round pin is a little less secure than a Krenov-style pin since the latter has more bearing area. The design, nevertheless, is weak - all depends on the ends that pivot in the cheeks, and I have seen some snap.

The brass abutments from Terry Gordon do a good job - there have not been any failures reported, that I know of. Further, the wood he uses for the body is like mild steel, and they are riveted through this. He has also changed his wedge from a "tap in" type to a "lever cap" type (he told me that this was in response to requests from the USA). No doubt these alter the dynamics.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[george wilson]

It helps Gordon's design that his brass parts appear to butt up against the front of the escapement.


I want some of that mild steel wood so I can stop paying for metal!!

I think we will be having Chris Vesper here in October. No doubt he will be wanting to make more knurls on my HLVH.

[Derek Cohen]

I expect to have Chris to stay in August. I will ensure he bring you some "mild steel" :)

Terry Gordon uses Gidgee as his basic wood. Here are comparisons with Macassar Ebony and Purpleheart:



Common Name(s): (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/common-name/) Gidgee
Scientific Name: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/scientific-name/) Acacia cambagei, A. pruinocarpa
Distribution: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/distribution/) Endemic to Australia
Tree Size: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/tree-size/) 20-40 ft (6-12 m) tall, 1 ft (.3 m) trunk diameter
Average Dried Weight: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/average-dried-weight/) 72 lbs/ft3 (1,150 kg/m3)
Specific Gravity (Basic, 12% MC): (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/specific-gravity/) .93, 1.15
Janka Hardness: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/janka-hardness/)4,270 lbf (18,990 N)
Modulus of Rupture: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/modulus-of-rupture/) 18,850 lbf/in2 (130.0 MPa)*
Elastic Modulus: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/modulus-of-elasticity/) 2,683,000 lbf/in2 (18.50 GPa)*
Crushing Strength: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/crushing-strength/) 10,150 lbf/in2 (70.0 MPa)*
*Conservative values based on strength group/bracket
Shrinkage: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/dimensional-shrinkage/) Radial: 4.0%, Tangential: 5.1%, Volumetric: 9.2%, T/R Ratio: 1.3





Common Name(s): (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/common-name/) Macassar Ebony, Striped Ebony
Scientific Name: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/scientific-name/) Diospyros celebica
Distribution: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/distribution/) Southeast Asia
Tree Size: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/tree-size/) 50-65 ft (15-20m) tall, 1.5 ft (.4 m) trunk diameter
Average Dried Weight: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/average-dried-weight/) 72 lbs/ft3 (1,150 kg/m3)
Specific Gravity (Basic, 12% MC): (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/specific-gravity/) .89, 1.15
Janka Hardness: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/janka-hardness/) 3,220 lbf (14,140 N)
Modulus of Rupture: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/modulus-of-rupture/)No data available
Elastic Modulus: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/modulus-of-elasticity/) No data available
Crushing Strength: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/crushing-strength/) No data available
Shrinkage: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/dimensional-shrinkage/) No data available





Common Name(s): (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/common-name/) Purpleheart, Amaranth
Scientific Name: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/scientific-name/) Peltogyne spp.
Distribution: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/distribution/) Central and South America (from Mexico down to southern Brazil)
Tree Size: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/tree-size/) 100-170 ft (30-50 m) tall, 3-5 ft (1-1.5 m) trunk diameter
Average Dried Weight: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/average-dried-weight/) 56 lbs/ft3 (905 kg/m3)
Specific Gravity (Basic, 12% MC): (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/specific-gravity/) .76, .90
Janka Hardness: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/janka-hardness/) 2,520 lbf (11,190 N)
Modulus of Rupture: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/modulus-of-rupture/) 22,000 lbf/in2 (151.7 MPa)
Elastic Modulus: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/modulus-of-elasticity/) 2,937,000 lbf/in2 (20.26 GPa)
Crushing Strength: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/crushing-strength/) 12,140 lbf/in2 (83.7 MPa)
Shrinkage: (http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/dimensional-shrinkage/) Radial: 3.8%, Tangential: 6.4%, Volumetric: 10.6%, T/R Ratio: 1.7



Look at the Janka differences. Makes your eyes water :)

Regards from Perth

Derek


Reference: http://www.wood-database.com/wood-identification/

[Steve Voigt]

Yes, that's an interesting picture isn't it? I've lonked to it before. In the text the writer sais that the first goal of the capiron is to prevent the shavngs curling up in front of the plane, but instead straightens them out or even curls them backwards, so they aren't slipping in front of the plane. As a secundairy effect he describes the anti tear out function.

It's also interesting that the stock is oriented pith side down, 180° from the usual.

[David Weaver]

I have no idea why they do that. The only thing I can actually ever remember reading in a planemaking book (I can only learn by making a few of something for some reason, and never remember and apply what I read) is that the bark side of beech is harder than the pith side, and thus should be on the outside of the plane.

For someone tuning a plane, I doubt it matters. None of us will probably wear a plane out on its first iron.

I had a very nicely made small double iron smoother that was 55 degrees, and I couldn't get it to feed right (probably because the wedge had shrunk, I don't know now - it's gone) and it was pith side down. Must've been shop made by someone, but one would've never known if the wood had been oriented the other way.

[george wilson]

I'm just kidding about wanting wood. Practically being driven out of the shop by it already,unless you have YEW,which I love!! I want to make a long bow.

[Steve Voigt]

I have no idea why they do that. The only thing I can actually ever remember reading in a planemaking book (I can only learn by making a few of something for some reason, and never remember and apply what I read) is that the bark side of beech is harder than the pith side, and thus should be on the outside of the plane.


Larry discusses it here (http://planemaker.com/articles_tuning.html). Short version: the hardness thing is a myth. The real reason is that the rings with the largest radius will be on the sole, so there will be the least amount of cupping there. I'd also add that if the bark side is down, the sole is more likely to become concave than convex, and I'd rather flatten a concave sole.

[David Weaver]

One last thought to all of this.

I've used the smoother some over the past week, but there is no denying that I cannot find a wood smoother of any type that is as easy to use as a stanley 4. To a guy sitting around with a washita stone and a grinder, the stanley 4 is the nearest thing to perfection one will ever find.

Bad wood (stuff that doesn't make a continuous chip) can still clog this cocobolo smoother a little, but the result is just to find some good wood and plane a stroke to push it out (or just ignore that it's packing, it eventually comes through without stopping the mouth - it's just annoying to not see a chip come up when you're planing). I'd imagine that's universal on any smoother that has any length of wear. It only happens on the tightest of settings on the cap iron, too, which is where you end up going when you're trying to plane junk wood without tearout.

I hope this thread manages to make it onto the list of user-made tools in the announcements section. If it doesn't, it'll disappear.

I've got another stick of cocobolo coming, I'll try a couple more of these, but I know that I'm not likely to make a match for the 4.

[Steve Voigt]

One last thought to all of this.

I've used the smoother some over the past week, but there is no denying that I cannot find a wood smoother of any type that is as easy to use as a stanley 4. To a guy sitting around with a washita stone and a grinder, the stanley 4 is the nearest thing to perfection one will ever find.

…

I've got another stick of cocobolo coming, I'll try a couple more of these, but I know that I'm not likely to make a match for the 4.

I agree with you, and it's the main reason I haven't made a smoother of this size. It really is hard to beat a 4.
I personally like the smaller sizes. The typical 18th century coffin smoother was more like 6" or 7" long, with a narrower iron. The old street smoother fits right in that range. So it's about the size of a Stanley #2. I have never heard anyone sing the praises of a 2, but a coffin smoother that size is very comfortable. So, if you are planning to make more planes, smaller might be an option worth looking at.

[David Weaver]

Bringing this back up - Prashun has given me a big assist and allowed me to take a few sticks of 16/4 beech off of his hands, so I can finally make some long handed planes.

At this point, a 28 inch double iron jointer and probably a 16 or 18 inch handled jack like a mathiesen jack that I have. Not sure if I'll build a try plane, as I have several that I really really like and would hate to cast them off.

I'm not going to belabor the board with a big long build like this coffin smoother thread, so I'll just add some abbreviated parts on here. Anything anyone needs to know to build a decent mortised double iron plane is already in this and steve's thread except for making an attractive handle.