making a wood plane

[Ron Petley]

I am wanting to make, from wood, a 7 inch smoother plane and a scraper plane of about the same length. I was going to use 3/16inch 01 steel.
Can anybody tell me the lenght of the blade, as well as a height of the plane.
Thanks Ron

[Casey Gooding]

Ron,
The two measurements basically depend on each other. The length of the blade for the most part determines the height of the plane. However, there are variants. Are you planning on a Krenov style, low slung plane?? Or, perhaps, a more traditional higher plane with a longer blade.
Maybe find some pics of the type of plane you'd like to make and post them here. Then we'll help point you in the right direction.

[Johnny Kleso]

About 5"-6" is good for a woody blade but 7" is standard..

For a old style Coffin Plane 3"-3 1/4" high is standard..

[Ron Petley]

I am having trouble posting photos, seem to work sometime and other times not, but however. I have a book by David Finck, very detailed but he seems to have left out these 2 measurements,. So yes they are Krenov style planes.
I thought I would make the blade and chip breaker first since I will need that to fit it to the plane. Thanks Ron.

[Johnny Kleso]

PS:

If your using 45* as your angle to find lenght of blade to top of plane use 1.414 ? is plenty close enough if not exact my memory is getting bad as I dont do Trig much any more

Times 1.414 by the hieght of plane body and you get lenght of blade at 45*

IE: 3" x 1.414=4.243 (4 1/4")

Say you want blade 2" above body
IE: 5" x 1.414=7.07 (7 1/16")

[Ron Petley]

Thanks for the help, I should be able to figure it out from here.
Cheers Ron.

[Dustin Nickerson]

This might help...

How To Build 3 Basic Hand Planes

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/woodworking/1273456.html

Here is another link

http://www.handplane.com/