Can I make my own shoulder plane??

[brett gallmeyer]

So here is the deal....
I have been slowly aquireing more and more hand tools. I've been looking for a while for a good deal on a router plane and especially a shoulder plane. I've decided I will make my own router plane using the witches tooth method ''allen wrench for blade.'' I've been contiplating on making my own shoulder plane. Every time I try and win one on my favorite auction site they allways skirocket in price.
So.... I started a job in a cabinet shop about three months ago, but thats a different thread to come. My primary job is running a massive 5 cutterhead moulding machine. I also custome grind all the knives for different profiles. We use M3 steel for these knives.
Could I ue this steel for a plane? It is about 1/4-3/8 thick. 2'' long, I can cut it to any width and grind any angle on it. I'm really looking for some feedback on this steel along with any plans or advice.

thanks ahead of time, brett g.

[Mike Henderson]

If you're thinking of making a shoulder plane out of wood, the problem is to get the low angle of the blade - the wood may not be strong enough to allow you to make a low angle shoulder plane out of wood.

As a trade-off, you can buy a wooden dado plane (in almost any width) on eBay for a few dollars. You'll probably pay more in shipping than you will for the plane. You can use this for trimming the cheeks of a tenon, but you'll have to use a chisel to trim the shoulders.

The dado plane will allow you to trim the cheeks all the way to corners with the shoulders.

If you're going to machine it out of metal, you can certainly make a low angle shoulder plane.

Mike

[If you decide to do it in wood, make the blade bevel down (most metal shoulder planes are bevel up). That will give you a lower effective cutting angle. You should be able to build a 35* plane which is a lower effective cutting angle than most low angle block planes.]

[Bill Houghton]

and can offer just speculative response to the larger question.

Of course, you can make your own shoulder plane. People do all the time. When you do, you're making tools, not purely working wood (may be some woodworking if you make a wooden or an infill plane). So it's a question of whether this time investment or some money investment is worth more to you, to get ready for woodworking.

Not everyone uses a shoulder plane, by the way - some folks get a chisel really sharp and pare with that. I've been slowly learning how powerful a well guided chisel is.

[Zahid Naqvi]

If you have not made wooden planes before I suggest you try your hands at a simple smoother first, such as the Krenov style laminated plane. I have made several wooden planes, but I just can't make a good shoulder plane. As Mike said getting a stable low angle (a necessity for a shoulder plane) on a wooden plane is not easy. The problem I kept running into was that the ramp (the incline on which the blade rests) bends when you insert the wedge because the wood (purple heart in my case) has too much flex.
On the other hand a rabbit/dado plane is not that hard because it is a high angle plane, but then you can't really use it well on shoulders. Still you can make almost all other plane types out of wood and they will perform quite well.

[Floyd Mah]

My vote is go ahead and give it a try in metal. My first plane was a shoulder plane. Made it out of some steel from OSH. I used a drill press to rough out the sides. A coping saw( and several blades) to cut out the dovetails. The ramp wasn't especially difficult--used a mill file to bring it close to the final angle. Used some brass rods to cross-pin the sides. It turned out to work really well. The finish wasn't perfect, but I learned a lot from actually doing it. It weighs about 4 pounds, which makes it cut without much effort. The throat is really tight and I can get whisper-thin shavings. I now own some more sophisticated metal working tools, but for making a dovetailed shoulder plane, the only tool, which I didn't have then, which would have made the process much different, is a metal-cutting bandsaw to do the rough out work. The rest of it is layout and filing. The blade is for a Record plane. Nothing fancy, but still very sharp. Oh, as for plans, I just looked at some pictures and made up my own design. I think that working in wood requires more skills for a first plane than a metal plane, but that's my opinion.

[Dave Anderson NH]

M2 or M3 high speed steel are both suitable for plane blades. Our Aussie friends often use it for plane blades because of the really tough and abrasive woods they use. The upside of HSS is that it wears longer and is more abrasion resistant then either A2 or any of the carbon steels. It also is virtually impossible to draw the temper (hardness) out of the blade by sharpening on a grinder. While carbon steels and A2 will soften between 350-400F which is easy to do on a grinder, the HSS varieties retain their temper up to almost 1000F. A blued edge on HSS does not matter.

The down side of HSS is that it is harder to work and harder to sharpen unless you use diamond stones and diamond paste. One other major drawback is that because of the hardening-quenching-tempering cycle, it almost always has to be done by a professional shop. The standard schedule for HSS requires a preliminary soak at 1350-1400F for a minimum of half an hour followed by a full heat at 2300F+. It also requires an immediate double temper. These numbers also vary by cross sectional area.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

you can use brass or aluminum for the sides and steel for the sole. The brass and alum you can cut on the TS or my hand. You can also skip the pretty dovetailing and just use interference fit dowel pins and screws. A reamer and some dowel pins is an easy and cheap way to get a perfect fit that won't ever move.

For the innards you can make a chunk of maple or other hard wood that slips in nice and slick.