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View Full Version : jack plane blade 'hook' bent/crooked



Adam Ingamells
11-07-2018, 1:32 AM
I haven't been able to find out what this part of the plane is called so I'm calling it the hook for now. That is the hook that the plane blade hangs on attached to the depth adjuster (circled in picture 1).
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My problem seems to be that it's not parallel to the plane sole (pic 2 exaggerates the angle). I'm not sure when or how this happened but I can't get a straight plane blade now no matter how i adjust it laterally. I've tried bending the hook straight with pliers but it's too strong for that. I've tried leveling it out with blu-tac which worked but not for long as you can imagine. Aside from sharpening my blade on an angle I'm out of ideas!


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I've come to you more experienced wood workers for help. Thanks!

Jim Koepke
11-07-2018, 1:46 AM
The part is often called the yoke for the bottom part that rides on the depth adjuster nut. The top part is sometimes referred to as a pawl. They are usually a bit on the sloppy side. It shouldn't matter if it is out of square.

In the image it looks like the frog isn't sitting square. That may be the root of your problem.

jtk

Bruce Haugen
11-07-2018, 8:03 AM
That yoke looks fine to me, too, and I agree with Jim that the frog is out of square.

glenn bradley
11-07-2018, 8:25 AM
They are referring to this relationship:

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The pawl needs to have a bit of slop to allow lateral adjustment. Therefore the shape and out-of-square condition of the pawl is not a problem. Some are overly loose and require a lot of free-spin of the depth adjusting knob before engaging when changing directions. This can be bothersome to some but, dose not effect alignment of the cutter to the mouth.

Steven Harrison
11-07-2018, 8:49 AM
The frog looks like it's sitting really far back too. If it's too far back the iron will hit the mouth and deflect instead of sliding on the face of the frog when it's extended.

Jim Koepke
11-07-2018, 2:27 PM
The frog looks like it's sitting really far back too. If it's too far back the iron will hit the mouth and deflect instead of sliding on the face of the frog when it's extended.

Good point Steven. It kind of fooled me since it is a Bedrock type design. None of my planes are Bedrocks.

jtk

Adam Ingamells
11-08-2018, 11:10 PM
Hey Everyone thanks for your thoughts. It's great to know the pawl isn't the problem. Also explains a lot because i couldn't think of how it could possibly have gotten bent anyway!

I thought I'd excluded all other causes and it did improve when I changed the shape of the pawl with some blu-tac (looks like it's not called that in USA but it's adhesive putty). The frog was actually the first thing I fixed as I had noticed it wasn't straight but the problem persisted. After your comments it's clear the frog is the problem.

I've since gone back and found that the locking screws alone (left and right) weren't keeping it in place. If I tighten the depth screw (middle) that seems to stop the frog moving so that's good. It's not quite back to working how it used to though and now I've noticed the right side of the blade rather than sitting too far forward may be too far up. I can't find any bends in the blade or chipbreaker though. Next thing I'll check is the part of the frog the blade rests on with my square.

My only explanation is that I made a shooting board and have been doing a lot of shooting lately and therefore heavily straining one side of the plane. The chipbreaker even got damaged on that side (the steel is crinkled in one spot at the end so i need to fix that too). But this issue of not being able to get the blade straight started before the chipbreaker got crinkled.

I will report back

p.s. I will move the frog further forward and try that too. I feel like the frog has always been close to that distance from the mouth but maybe I'm imagining things.

Thanks
Adam

Jim Koepke
11-09-2018, 1:20 AM
Adam,

Try taking the chip breaker off the blade and then set the blade on the frog above the bottom of the frog. The blade should be able to slide down an out the bottom of the plane without touching the plane body. It is okay for the blade to rest on the edge of the mouth, but it should not be lifted off of the frog by it.

jtk