Deeper fence on tongue cutting woodie.

[Jake Darvall]

Thought this may be of interest to someone.

Just an addition to a old woodie to improve stability.

Its the second one from the right in the picture. I was repairing this old fella whose origional little fence was cracked up. Ended up taking it off all together and adding another fence. Its just that rebated redwood. I've screwed it to the origional body.

Anyhow, I've made the fence deeper. See how its deeper compared to the little fences of the planes beside it ? ....... makes the plane easier to keep in the vertical to maintain a square cut I've found.

Good for when you start to daydream uno. A little thing. But the little things can make a difference eh.

[Jim Becker]

Jake, I'm not really much of a Neander, but I have to say that this little modification of yours makes practical sense. Good joinery demands accuracy and if that deeper fence helps keep the tool properly oriented when working the edge, it's a good thing.

[James Mittlefehldt]

Hmmmmm. Got me thinking, a dangerous action on a good day, and it occurred to me that I could maybe take an old woodie I have and perhaps desecrate it a bit.

It is a dado plane with a skewed blade, and of course it works fine for working inside the requisite sized dado, but not so good say for a rebate or rabbet. So maybe if I drilled a couple of holes in the body, and put a couple of pieces of threaded rod through them with a washer and nut on each side, I could make several fences that would allow for varying widths of rabbets or at least to clean them up as I donèt, as of yet have a plough plane, though I do have a Stanley 78 sans fence. Suppose I could work out a fence arrangement for the 78.

I really should not let my mind wander like that.

[Jake Darvall]

Thanks Jim....... if its easier to maintain accuracy then the whole process is sped up uno. Helped make tongue and grooven by hand surprisingly quick.

The same principle helps I think in other applications where your working an edge where you can take advantage of support from the wide portion of the stock by deepening the fence......uno pressuring the fence low with a couple of fingers from your supporting hands locks the whole plane in the vertical.

like..umm, edge jointing with a long plane....all the combination planes, work well with deeper fences. Stanley 45's, 50's, 55's etc.....Have to be willing to forget the whole collectors hand tool thing though when it comes to modifying a ' beautiful old tool ' :D ........hard at first, but theres more pleasure in using a tool than just owning it for me. And if it pulls it weight the better eh.

***
Hi James. I've given that idea some thought too. Haven't had need to try it though. I have a few hanging about. Be easy enough I'd say. And worth it, assuming the bedding of the blades rigid.....some I notice warp a bit. A bedding problems hard to fix (firewood)....but a lot of them are fine.

Can easily square up the sides though since their made of timber.

That skewed blade, plus one of the nickers, and the depth stop, and an add on fence is essentially a rabbit plane that'll work well accross grain too.

I wouldn't use the 78 fence though which has just a single bar. The reason being, especially after adding a deeper fence, is that the fence flexes in use, killing accuracy......so whatever fence you use, I'd say its important to be able to lock it up at two points.......and of course the
thing sits square to the sole, and runs parallel to the blade nicker line.

The stanley 289 has the same problem with a flexing fence I reakon.

Anyhow, have a good weekend. :)