I need help building Hollow and Rounds

[ronald mccormack]

hi all, Im a new member here and this is my first post. Ive gotten interested in moulding planes and have been doing inernet reshearch and have purchesed larry williams DVD on making side escapment planes as well as todd herllis video and matt Bickfords book " mouldings in practice". Larrys DVD is the method im holding to
and so i have started making planes. I have runn into a couple of problems though and was wondering if i could get some advice from the knowledgeable woodworkers here.

1.) i have noticed that the mortises sizes as listed on larry williams dvd are somewhat larger then the bit sizes of the mould plane blanks that i recieved from Lie-Neilson tool works. how imoortant is this. Should the bit be very tight in the wedge mortise or have room to move around, possibly for adjustment.

2.) I use the cutting block method to cut the escapments and everything seems pretty square, but when i go to bedd the iron i have been noticing the that the irons are canted. this is hard to describe, on the blind side of the bed it looks tight but on the escapment side the iron is lifted of the bed by a fair amount. when i knock of the marked high spots the contidion persists. is the bed out of square, possibly the wedge. could it even me the irons. I have noticed that the irons ive gotton have bent tangs, and dont sit flat on a granit block, i flattened them best as i could.

3.) how tight should the wedge fit in the mortise. for instance the first set of planes i made the the wedge was so thight that it took so much force to knock out the iron that that created some bending of the iron. i assume this is too tight. am i right? is there a happy middle ground required for the best performance of the plane.

I hope all that made sense and i apreciate any help I can get.

[Frederick Skelly]

Hello Ronald. Welcome to the Creek! Very glad to have you join us. Ive just finished Bickfords book and Im looking forward to reading the responses you get.

Hey, just so you know, this is a relatively new forum on the Creek and it doesnt seem to get as much attention as our Moderators were hoping for. I suspect you will get a whole BUNCH of responses if you just move this post to our Neanderthal Forum here at the Creek. Thats focussed on hand tools and there are several very knowledgable guys who read and post there. (Not that theres anything wrong with posting here - I just think you might get more responses on the hand tool forum.)

Anyway, I look forward to seeing what your question draws out of our gurus, and to seeing your finished planes.
Fred

[David Weaver]

hi all, Im a new member here and this is my first post. Ive gotten interested in moulding planes and have been doing inernet reshearch and have purchesed larry williams DVD on making side escapment planes as well as todd herllis video and matt Bickfords book " mouldings in practice". Larrys DVD is the method im holding to
and so i have started making planes. I have runn into a couple of problems though and was wondering if i could get some advice from the knowledgeable woodworkers here.

1.) i have noticed that the mortises sizes as listed on larry williams dvd are somewhat larger then the bit sizes of the mould plane blanks that i recieved from Lie-Neilson tool works. how imoortant is this. Should the bit be very tight in the wedge mortise or have room to move around, possibly for adjustment.

2.) I use the cutting block method to cut the escapments and everything seems pretty square, but when i go to bedd the iron i have been noticing the that the irons are canted. this is hard to describe, on the blind side of the bed it looks tight but on the escapment side the iron is lifted of the bed by a fair amount. when i knock of the marked high spots the contidion persists. is the bed out of square, possibly the wedge. could it even me the irons. I have noticed that the irons ive gotton have bent tangs, and dont sit flat on a granit block, i flattened them best as i could.

3.) how tight should the wedge fit in the mortise. for instance the first set of planes i made the the wedge was so thight that it took so much force to knock out the iron that that created some bending of the iron. i assume this is too tight. am i right? is there a happy middle ground required for the best performance of the plane.

I hope all that made sense and i apreciate any help I can get.

Welcome to the forum ronald. I think making the h&rs is very rewarding, and it gives you great planes for not much money. I'll give you my responses to your questions.

1) it's fine that the mortises are wider than the shank of the irons. That's what you want, actually, for ease. If they were tight up there, you could have a bind - you almost certainly would somewhere. I make my own irons, so I don't know how thin they are, but I've sized mine a fair bit narrower than the mortises. Not sure how much, because I eyeball them.

2) How many of these have you cut? The tendency will be for the saw to move away from the block and cut back into the body of the plane. Or maybe I have that backwards. Whatever it is, I'd say light pressure on the saw and major focus on holding it tight against the guide block. If it helps, you can start the cut in the guide block, but mark square on your blank and ditch the guide block after you get your cut started and follow the guide block. Light pressure on the sawing, and slow if needed. My first few were off a little bit, too, but it didn't affect the function of the plane in the end. I wouldn't worry about the tangs being a little bit bent - when you put the wedge to them, they'll flatten out. You never know what larry or LN has done on purpose, either.

3) The wedge should fit tight. If you're using LN's irons, you should be able to drive the iron out a little bit and then loosen the wedge without damaging it. I taper mine (inaccurately - with a belt sander and a jig) to make adjustment easier, and haven't had any wedges really hold tight except for the first two planes I made where I didn't taper the iron. Did your plane sit for a while before you used it? A little less tight is idea. Let experience be your guide. Set it tight enough to stay put, like to where the wedge no longer advances plus a couple of light taps.

[ronald mccormack]

Thank you for the responses guys. I've made three pairs so far and as of the post ha dent actually tried any of them. I had to build a forge to heat treat the irons and figured I'd wait and do a bunch at a time, plus my floats. I made those myself.
Dave i think you were right about under cutting the escspment. Anyway i installed the irons snd tried them out. The results are decent, im getting alot of choking on most of them but . They cut. Iam having a hard time getting a light cut, its heavy or nothing and some have some chater but i figure itd a matter of tweakinh every thing. Any suggedtions on this process of refining the fit. Whsts causing the choking.

[David Weaver]

For choking, check the following:
* that everything the wedge fits against it does so tightly. That is, the fit between the wedge and the body is tight laterally and on top of the wedge, and the fit between the wedge and the iron is tight, especially at the initial point of contact
* that the wedge itself isn't all of the way right down to the point of cut - there needs to be a little bit of relief so that the point of the wedge is up from the cutting edge (check pictures of some of the new make planes to see how much)

If the planes are feeding only heavy shavings, it's either a bedding problem, a sole flatness problem or a lack of sharpness. Check the sole of the plane with a straight edge or steel rule or something of the sort and make sure it's flat. If it is, check how the iron is bedding and ensure that it's bedding against the sole all the way at the bottom of the iron. If that's OK, too, check the sharpness of the iron and its clearance (to make sure there's at least 10 degrees of relief between the iron and the cutting surface)

I guess you may also want to check the profile of the iron and make sure it matches the sole well when sighting down the plane and advancing the iron out of the plane sole. If it doesn't match well, you could also get an issue where it seems like it cuts inconsistently.

As you'll find, you get better at building them once you've seen where they have typical problems, and you'll see where the fit counts and where it's cosmetic.