Plane till prototype

[Jason White]

Here's a quick and dirty plane till I smacked together with some scraps.

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Goal was just to get the hand planes off the workbench. Back leans back 20-degrees and rare earth magnets give it some extra stick. It hangs from a french cleat.

I'd like to make something better. Perhaps something with a drawer or drawers for assorted plane tools & accessories (extra blades, wax, brass hammer, etc). Anybody have a better idea?

Jason White

[steven c newman]

hmmm, maybe...
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Then close the doors when you are done...

[Dave Anderson NH]

I built this over 20 years ago and it works fine.

[Mike Allen1010]

I built this over 20 years ago and it works fine.

Oh Dave that's a beauty! How about some workshop pics? Got a feeling tour around your shop would be support helpful and interesting.

Cheers, Mike

[Mike Allen1010]

Here's a quick and dirty plane till I smacked together with some scraps.

467004

Goal was just to get the hand planes off the workbench. Back leans back 20-degrees and rare earth magnets give it some extra stick. It hangs from a french cleat.

I'd like to make something better. Perhaps something with a drawer or drawers for assorted plane tools & accessories (extra blades, wax, brass hammer, etc). Anybody have a better idea?

Jason White

Jason, thanks for posting your pics. IMHO tills are great way to store hand planes and make them readily accessible. I'm sure you will enjoy using yours.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Both Dave’s Saw till and plane till inspired my tool cabinet build a few years back. I hinged the plane till using dowels so that I could store rarely used items behind the big bench planes deck.

[Jason White]

Looks great! I think I'll steal your idea because I need to store my growing collection of chisels, too. Thanks for posting!


Both Dave’s Saw till and plane till inspired my tool cabinet build a few years back. I hinged the plane till using dowels so that I could store rarely used items behind the big bench planes deck.

[Jason White]

Looks wonderful. What are the knobs for?


I built this over 20 years ago and it works fine.

[Dave Anderson NH]

The knobs are for lifting the hinged sloped lids which hold the larger planes and spokeshaves. The attached picture taken during construction should make it clearer.

[steven c newman]

A better view, with the dust-proof doors closed up?
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Though there are a few with their own box to sit in....That wood bodied Jointer up on top...is 20" long.

[Richard Hart]

Keeping it very simple..just got an old dressefr from marketplace and I'm gonna use that for planes. (lay them on their sides).
What would be a good inexpensive dessicant for the draweers?

Keyboard is shot.

[Stew Denton]

Folks,

Nice tills, every one of them, and I like them all! Dave's has a beautiful display and very quick access to the planes. The workmanship on all of them is very nice. For myself, I hope to build one, but it will be closed to keep dust out, as I am always concerned about rusting. I don't know whether I want a glass front like Stevens where I can see the planes, or nice wooden doors like the one Joe built.

Stew

[Stew Denton]

Richard,

A dresser will keep dust, especially wood dust, out, which is highly desirable to me, as that is a big part of the battle to protect steel tools from rusting.

However, a dresser will allow for relatively a lot of air movement, and as such, any reasonable amount of desiccant will be quickly expended.

Based on long experience with desiccants, one thing that is clear is that any desiccant that is exposed to much air exchange in and out of a cabinet will very quickly be expended. By that I mean that it might be as short as only a few days in a dry climate like western Kansas where I went to college and graduate school, or like the Texas panhandle where I did applied research in chemistry for over 30 years. In a much more humid climate like the east coast area, the desiccant will not last long. A tool till that closes fairly tightly will do a little better, but even such will still have relatively a lot of air movement in and out of the cabinet. This compared to desiccation cabinets that I have used.

I have spent 50 years in laboratories using desiccants that run from being so strong that they will react explosively with water to those that have only moderate capacity. In graduate school I used a glove box costing several thousand dollars in my research, the goal of which was to keep oxygen and moisture from the air out of my chemical reagents. It was a high quality glove box, and had very high quality seals. This type of glove box is specifically designed to be able to protect the material inside the box from gasses that are in the air. At work used a cheap one ($1500) to keep moisture out of test samples of a very special product the plant made, and kept a continuous purge of extremely dry nitrogen going into the glove box to keep moisture out. Beyond this I did a lot of other work with desiccants and dessicators and desiccation cabinets....so been there, done that.

Thus, from a practical viewpoint, I know a lot about trying to keep stuff protected from even tiny amounts of moisture. Because of that experience, I would recommend that you use protective oil, wax, or some other way to protect the planes from rusting instead of desiccators in the chest. One other approach folks have mentioned on this site is a very small heat source in a cabinet type of till to keep things slightly warm so that moisture will not condense on things.

Still, the chest will still keep the wood dust off the planes, and that, from a practical viewpoint, is really all just about any till will do. So from that perspective, the chest of drawers is as good as the tills shown above. It also was probably quick to have, versus a lot of time building something, and probably relatively inexpensive.......both things I like a lot.

Sorry I can't give you a more encouraging report on desiccants, but long experience does not allow me to do so.

Regards,

Stew

[Tom Bender]

Here's a quick and dirty plane till I smacked together with some scraps.

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Jason White

Jason, Good start but I see a lot of wasted volume there. A little revision would move it at least 3" closer to the wall. And hinging the front would provide access to some space behind. You might want to add air shocks from an SUV to help lift.

[Tom Bender]

Stew, can we benefit a little more from your gray beard?

My basement shop has never had any rust problems. Not now with the house air conditioned and not in the several years when we had no A/C. How is that possible and what adaptations can others attempt?

The shop is in a very dry basement in a normal house on a well drained lot with partial shade. The house is fairly tight but enough air still manages to leak in that the appliances and people do not suffer from a lack of oxygen. This puzzles me.

[Jason White]

Great ideas! Thanks!!


Jason, Good start but I see a lot of wasted volume there. A little revision would move it at least 3" closer to the wall. And hinging the front would provide access to some space behind. You might want to add air shocks from an SUV to help lift.

[Tom Vanzant]

Dave, are the shelves behind the sloped panels used to hold additional seldom-used tools?

[Scott Clausen]

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It was obsolete before I finished it, but it was mostly a use up scrap wood project.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Yes Tom. Behind the larger left side is a complete Stanley #45 in original box along with some lesser stuff. On the right side shelves are at least another half dozen spokeshaves. Did I ever mention that I have a bit of a spokeshave problem?

[Jason White]

Did you use magnets with that? Any problem with the planes falling off?


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It was obsolete before I finished it, but it was mostly a use up scrap wood project.

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

Great Idea!

[Scott Clausen]

It was a figure it out as I went project. Yes I added some rare earth magnets to assist with the flat bottom planes and used wooden pegs for the odd shaped ones. Some of the magnets were set a 1/16 too deep and have a lighter hold but if bumped the smaller ones can release. If you look close there is a nice Stanley No. 8 hiding behind the Veritas LAJ on top that exceeded the space on the ramp.. The next version will have the slope for the larger planes with maybe a lip to secure the upper edge or lip and cubbies for the smaller ones. Need to scratch my head on oddballs like Stanley 45's so I will probably do a wood box like they used to come in. Maybe a shelf unit to store the wooden sash and molding planes I have started acquiring. I have started selling power tools and buying more hand tools.