Cutting floating tenons and dowels wit bead plane.

[Jake Darvall]

Found another use for a bead cutter other than prettying up edges.

Floating tenons are all the rage at my place at the moment http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/images/smilies/rolleye.gif

This is how I've been doing them lately, this time with a record 50.

With trued timber, with its thickness spot on, just depth out the bead one side.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/apricotripper/1t-2.jpg

Then just flip it and do the other side.....end up with this sort of thing.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/apricotripper/2t-2.jpg

Then you just rip it off on the table saw.... if you've got a dodgy table saw like mine you may be inclined to overcut then creap the thickness spot on to the mortise width via the thicknesser.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/apricotripper/3t-2.jpg

That makes a nice fit to match the mortises cut off my horizontal mortiser (just an old shopsmith)

Here's another thing I tried.......Making dowels. Essentially the same process. Seen it done in the manuals, but never really had a need to do. Actually, don't need to do it now really. Just showing off uno. http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/images/smilies/rolleye.gif

From that 3/8" floating tenon I just thicknessed some scrap a little wider.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/apricotripper/4t-2.jpg

Then just bead one side first then depth out bringing that little bridge of timber there as thin as possible. You just slowly raise the depth stop between passes......the fear of course, is that this little bridge will get too thin and the skate will break through and the plane will crash....and you'll swear....and the dowel will be torn up...and you'll have to do it again, like I had to do (never show the stuffups eh. http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/images/smilies/happy/biggrin.gif )
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/apricotripper/5t-2.jpg

Anyway when I dared not go any further, I just sliced it off with a knife and trimmed the little line off with a block plane.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/apricotripper/6t-2.jpg

What you could probably do anyway, if you fear its not perfectly round, either because the blades not sharpened right, or whatever, is just make this beading process with the plane a preliminary step to using say a doweling plate.....ie. whip them up close to perfect with the plane, then nock them through the plate. Just an idea.

You gonna have to address the profile of the blade......From the factory they don't seem to be ground right, to form a perfect half circle.....a lot of them anyway.

Basically, due to the 45 degree bedding of the plane you must sharpen this curved profile elongated.....ie. you've got sharpen it egg shaped in order to cut a circle. ..... easy to work out, thankgod........its just the square of 2 times the radius.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/apricotripper/7t-2.jpg

eg. a 1/4" blade (cuts a circle with a 1/4" diameter) has to be sharpened back about 4.5mm (3.17 x 1.41)

Hope that made some sense.

[Tim Leo]

Basically, due to the 45 degree bedding of the plane you must sharpen this curved profile elongated.....ie. you've got sharpen it egg shaped in order to cut a circle. ..... easy to work out, thankgod........its just the square of 2 times the radius.


oops...I think you meant the square root of 2 times the radius...

[Jerry Palmer]

I think if you just got em close and knocked em through a dowel plate you be good to go.

Jake, sometimes I think you got way too much time on your hands. :D Great idea for the floating tenons.

[Jake Darvall]

Ta Tim. My mistake. square root of 2 times radius. Its just worked out from that old math triangle I learn't back in school. uno, when the oposite and adjecent sides equal 1, the hypothenuse equals the square of 2 (triangle with a 90 and 2 forty five degree angles). And by my visualisation the adjecent is the same as the radius, and the bed's 45.....

:confused: Too much time on my hands Jerry ?...:D ....maybe. Don't know. I do wish I had more time though....;)

Its not as impractical as it looks uno..... Those floating tenons are quick to cut. With the blade sharpened right now, they'd be finished using the plane straight off the shelf, while one is still messing about trying to install the equivelent router bit.

I have a makeshift router table.....with a flush bit, and an ogee, and a straight bit. Thats it. If I had to buy a router bit for every cut I wanted I'd be out of pocket 100's of dollars. Money I don't really have.

I know you can buy dowels from the shop. :D . But sometimes you want dowel made from a particular timber. And its certainly a quick way of obtaining it.....or at least as preparation for a quick pass through a dowel plate.

[Jerry Palmer]

Best five minutes I ever spent was drilling a 1/4" hole through an old plane iron. I generally just cut me a piece long enough and a hair over 1/4" square, whittle a bit of a point on it and drive it through the hole in the plane iron. Pins for wooden hinges, drawbores, what ever. Use some scrap from the wood I'm working on and it matches right well. Of course even the pecan and mesquite here don't hold a candle to some of that timber down under as far as hard and knarly. ;) Gettin em started round sure helps I bet.

I got a bunch of bits for my tailed router, but most stuff I can do with hand tools quicker than changeing out a bit in the router.

[Philip Edwards]

Some great tips there Jake. Many thanks!
Phil:)

[Jake Darvall]

Nice of you to say Phillip. Ta.



Of course even the pecan and mesquite here don't hold a candle to some of that timber down under as far as hard and knarly. ;) Gettin em started round sure helps I bet.


yeh ,,,,thats what we Australians say all the time....because , uno....we're tuff !...just like our wood ! :rolleyes: :D ....but (if we can avoid using these timbers.....we will !

Be honest, I've never seen pecan or Mesquite.