Mike Allen1010
01-05-2016, 2:23 PM
I typically use a block plane for final trimming/adjustment of small furniture parts like doors, drawers etc. I also use block planes to clean up the occasional small hollows in glued up panels when I don't want to remove a lot of the surrounding wood that would happen with a larger plane.The challenge is that without a chip breaker and with the sometime necessity of planing against the grain, I get tear out where I least want it – visible, and friendly areas.
I'm a big fan of Chris Schwarz - I've learned a lot about hand tools from his books/posts etc. Sometime ago he wrote in his blog about using a #2 hand plane, in place of a block plane for the kind of jobs I mentioned above. Although it took several months (there may have been a Schwarzian effect on marketplace?), I received my #2 from Lee Nielsen just in time to be a Christmas present.
Right away I realized that although the concept of a small plane with chip breaker was great, I couldn't really figure out a way to comfortably grip the plane. For my hand, the tote is so small and the space between the front edge of the tote and the depth adjustment wheel so limited that I couldn't wrap my fingers around the tote. I tried putting the heel of my hand against the tote and extending my fingers along the side of the plane which worked okay, but I just wasn't able to get a solid enough grip to get the control, and particularly the downward pressure needed for thin shavings in hardwoods that I was accustomed to with larger planes.
I made a replacement tote that was wider, taller and set back further on the body of the plane. Here's a picture of the new new tote and the original:
328621
This tote works much better for me as I can grip the plane more solidly and am now able to produce the kind of shavings and control I'm looking for.
328622328623328624
To move the tote back on the body of the plane I had to drill the hole for the threaded rod/cap nut that secures the tote to the plane body closer to the leading edge of the tote versus the original. to help compensate for any weakness this might create, I made the tote 1 1/8" wide, which is my preference for shop made Woody's. This required some narrowing of the front of the foot of the tote so that it fits between the raised lettering cast into the plane body and sits flush against the body of the plane. to get a solid connection between the the code and the plane, I drilled the hold the bottom of the tote with a slightly undersized Forstner bit and then used a gas outage to get a nice, tight compression fit with everything tightened up.
All in all I like the new tote much better and it was easier than I thought to make. The trickiest part was drilling the hole for the threaded rod. A drill press made this much easier, but I think it could be done just as easily by eyeball with a hand drill.
All the best,
Mike
I'm a big fan of Chris Schwarz - I've learned a lot about hand tools from his books/posts etc. Sometime ago he wrote in his blog about using a #2 hand plane, in place of a block plane for the kind of jobs I mentioned above. Although it took several months (there may have been a Schwarzian effect on marketplace?), I received my #2 from Lee Nielsen just in time to be a Christmas present.
Right away I realized that although the concept of a small plane with chip breaker was great, I couldn't really figure out a way to comfortably grip the plane. For my hand, the tote is so small and the space between the front edge of the tote and the depth adjustment wheel so limited that I couldn't wrap my fingers around the tote. I tried putting the heel of my hand against the tote and extending my fingers along the side of the plane which worked okay, but I just wasn't able to get a solid enough grip to get the control, and particularly the downward pressure needed for thin shavings in hardwoods that I was accustomed to with larger planes.
I made a replacement tote that was wider, taller and set back further on the body of the plane. Here's a picture of the new new tote and the original:
328621
This tote works much better for me as I can grip the plane more solidly and am now able to produce the kind of shavings and control I'm looking for.
328622328623328624
To move the tote back on the body of the plane I had to drill the hole for the threaded rod/cap nut that secures the tote to the plane body closer to the leading edge of the tote versus the original. to help compensate for any weakness this might create, I made the tote 1 1/8" wide, which is my preference for shop made Woody's. This required some narrowing of the front of the foot of the tote so that it fits between the raised lettering cast into the plane body and sits flush against the body of the plane. to get a solid connection between the the code and the plane, I drilled the hold the bottom of the tote with a slightly undersized Forstner bit and then used a gas outage to get a nice, tight compression fit with everything tightened up.
All in all I like the new tote much better and it was easier than I thought to make. The trickiest part was drilling the hole for the threaded rod. A drill press made this much easier, but I think it could be done just as easily by eyeball with a hand drill.
All the best,
Mike