Robert Norman
04-27-2015, 6:57 PM
I had a couple hours yesterday between storms and dad duties to give this a shot on some scrap wood. Being my first attempt ever at anything with truly critical tolerances I fully expected to make kindling. So I started with a 2x4 scrap of the infamous borg whitewood. I used mainly the ideas from John Whelan's book and the LN DVD by Larry Williams, which I obviously need to watch again.
The main ideas were to:
1. have some dang fun
2. figure out any hindrance with my current (limited) tool set
3. learn like I do best -- the hard way
So I started with this iron:
312424
It's 1" and I have a 1" hollow to pair with, which I also used to copy dimensions from. I like the design but failed to notice that it's a fat 3/16" thick, as opposed to 1/8. I cut the mouth at 3/16 per the book and on-hand hollow failing to notice the extra thickness. So having squared the donor wood I laid out the mortise, bed and mouth and cut the relief area first. I did pretty well on the layout, not so hot on actually following them! The book suggests cutting the bed and mouth on a table saw. I'm not comfortable with that on my little dewalt so I sawed by hand.
312425
The cuts weren't terrible by my standards, but here's where a jig is a necessity. the junk in there is shavings from test fittings and fiddling with wedge and bed tuning. The mortise on the other hand was terrible. I'll be working on that on more scrap.
312426
Remember how I said the iron was thicker than expected, by opening the mouth more with a float I got the expected result of ruining it. I've seen a lot of old planes with this blowout as well, probably from people doing the exact same thing and not correcting the true problem with choking.
312427
Here are the 2 paired up
312428
The plane actually functions so I know this is something I can do, just not very well yet. But I did accomplish the goals of learning what went wrong and what to do better and that I don't need stuff, I need practice. And to watch Larry Williams' DVD again and to learn when I'm rushing something to stop. I'm only at this for a year now for a couple hours a month at best but the biggest lesson to date is to stop when I'm about to half ass something and ruin hours of good work.
I will finish this one this week too see what other dangers lurk in the chamfering, wedge finial shaping etc.. but it was fun to at least having taken that first step on a journey of a 1,000 miles.
The main ideas were to:
1. have some dang fun
2. figure out any hindrance with my current (limited) tool set
3. learn like I do best -- the hard way
So I started with this iron:
312424
It's 1" and I have a 1" hollow to pair with, which I also used to copy dimensions from. I like the design but failed to notice that it's a fat 3/16" thick, as opposed to 1/8. I cut the mouth at 3/16 per the book and on-hand hollow failing to notice the extra thickness. So having squared the donor wood I laid out the mortise, bed and mouth and cut the relief area first. I did pretty well on the layout, not so hot on actually following them! The book suggests cutting the bed and mouth on a table saw. I'm not comfortable with that on my little dewalt so I sawed by hand.
312425
The cuts weren't terrible by my standards, but here's where a jig is a necessity. the junk in there is shavings from test fittings and fiddling with wedge and bed tuning. The mortise on the other hand was terrible. I'll be working on that on more scrap.
312426
Remember how I said the iron was thicker than expected, by opening the mouth more with a float I got the expected result of ruining it. I've seen a lot of old planes with this blowout as well, probably from people doing the exact same thing and not correcting the true problem with choking.
312427
Here are the 2 paired up
312428
The plane actually functions so I know this is something I can do, just not very well yet. But I did accomplish the goals of learning what went wrong and what to do better and that I don't need stuff, I need practice. And to watch Larry Williams' DVD again and to learn when I'm rushing something to stop. I'm only at this for a year now for a couple hours a month at best but the biggest lesson to date is to stop when I'm about to half ass something and ruin hours of good work.
I will finish this one this week too see what other dangers lurk in the chamfering, wedge finial shaping etc.. but it was fun to at least having taken that first step on a journey of a 1,000 miles.