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Richard Gillespie
10-13-2003, 10:44 PM
Today I started a project I should have finished one year ago. I'm making a canopy bed for my youngest son and his wife. As you have probably guessed, it's a wedding present and they got married last November. My wife always said if they gave out medals for procrastination I'd need a hand cart to move mine. I've got my reasons why I'm late, none good. Oh Well!!!

I started today by ripping the 12 quarter Ash into 2-3/4" by 8' strips for the legs. That was an experience with my skill saw. I had to stop midway, go out and buy a new blade. I noticed the old one smoking and checked the teeth. Needless to say they were shot. That was a good blade three years ago. I can just imagine how long that would have taken someone with a hand saw. Probably would have been faster than what I went through, come to think of it.

Anyway, I'll get to my question. Prior to surface planing the legs, I decided to take the bow and a little bit of twist out of them by hand planning. I used a # 5 and #7 Stanley. To check the twist, I used a couple of pieces of oak as references. After about two hours work I got one leg flat one side. I took a little more than 1/4" off the high point. The Ash looks great after planning. However, I'm wondering if there is a better combo of planes to use for this purpose.

I have been collecting CI planes and have about 20 of them This collection includes everything from a #3 Stanley to a #7 Stanley. Of Course, many of them aren't made by Stanley. I don't have a scrub plane unfortunately. I've considered converting one of the # 3's by grinding a radius on the blade. But I haven't "gotten round to it" yet.

Pedro Reyes
10-13-2003, 11:07 PM
Howdy,

Being a newbie, that is also how I would do it. I have a pair of #5 and a 7 that are my "workhorses" for dimensioning lumber, I enjoy that. I have not faced a task that justified purchasing a scrub, I've stayed clear from such projects so far. If there is a much better way of doing it (by hand) I'd like to learn as well.

r/

PAR

Jim DeLaney
10-13-2003, 11:48 PM
I don't have a scrub plane unfortunately. I've considered converting one of the # 3's by grinding a radius on the blade. But I haven't "gotten round to it" yet.

Take your worst condition #3 or #5¼, and move the frog back as far as possible to open up the mouth. The grind the blade to a radius where the senter will be cutting about 1/32" when the edges are just barely cutting.

This will make a very serviceable scrub - almost the equivalent of a 40½, for about a quarter or less of the price. Going diagonally across the grain makes short work of the high spots.

BTW, I mainly use a 40 for scrubbing, but prior to finding it, I used a junker quality 5¼, modified as suggested above. The 40 doesn't do any better job than the modified 5¼.

Richard Gillespie
10-14-2003, 7:31 AM
Jim Delaney "Take your worst condition #3 or #5¼, and move the frog back as far as possible to open up the mouth. The grind the blade to a radius where the center will be cutting about 1/32" when the edges are just barely cutting"

Thanks Jim :)

That sounds good to me. I took a Stanley Defiance #3 I have that is different in that there isn't a frog per say. The blade is held in a fixed position well back in the opening. It does have a blade height adjustment but doesn't have a lateral adjustment.

With the blade held in the wide open position I felt this would be a perfect candidate. I ground the blade as instructed and now I have a scrub plane. It hogs wood off real quick.

Rick