Built a jointer plane

[chris carter]

While I've been going through dog hole / hold fast chaos in another thread, I took some time to build a jointer plane; something I've been meaning to do for a while now. It's a laminated plus cross-pin design made from red oak. I have a jack plane I made a year ago that I love so I basically duplicated it, only longer and with some small modifications. This one was easier because first time around I didn't own a spokeshave to shape the handle or do the champfor on the curves of the body and had to do them with files (ugh). And just that I have way more skill than last time around. Total length is 26" and it takes a 2 3/8" iron. It has two irons, one will stay straight for jointing boards together and the other will be cambered.
IMG_20180624_160026.jpg
IMG_20180624_160039.jpg
IMG_20180624_160054.jpg

[Dan Hulbert]

Very nice. Looks like you're on the slippery slope of making many planes.

[Richard Hutchings]

Looks great! Did you choose oak for added weight? I'll bet it's hard to stop that from moving forward.

[chris carter]

Very nice. Looks like you're on the slippery slope of making many planes.

Thanks! It does appear I'm on the slippery slope. This is my third with my 2nd being a pair of 1/4" grooving planes. This jointer was part of my missing core arsenal so hopefully I'm now covered and will not get distracted from actually making STUFF instead of TOOLS for a while.

[chris carter]

Looks great! Did you choose oak for added weight? I'll bet it's hard to stop that from moving forward.

Thanks Richard. I used red oak because it’s cheap, durable, and I use it a lot so I’m comfortable with it. It weighs in right at 6lbs. I’ve only done some test boards with it, but it glides effortlessly.

[Flamone LaChaud]

...hopefully I'm now covered and will not get distracted from actually making STUFF instead of TOOLS for a while.

Good luck with that. Tools are STUFF too.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Looks very nice. Are you fitting it with metal-body plane irons? I can't tell for sure, but the iron looked like a Veritas. Is it PM-V11?

[chris carter]

Looks very nice. Are you fitting it with metal-body plane irons? I can't tell for sure, but the iron looked like a Veritas. Is it PM-V11?

Yes; it's a Veritas 01 blade made for a metal body plane. It's what I put in my jack plane I made and works absolutely fine - when I built that one I didn't really know the difference between an iron designed for a metal body plane and a wood plane. This time around I looked, but had a hard time finding the right size iron designed for a wooden plane new. It turns out Veritas has exactly the iron I need and long enough too. Oh well. It works flawlessly in my jack so I have no reason to believe it won't work perfectly in this one, and it's worked fine thus far. Maybe in the future I'll try the Veritas wooden plane iron, but I'm not trying to make a historically accurate plane - just something that works well. As long as this does what I need, I won't bother.

[Steven Mikes]

Looks great! Time to make some flat surfaces.

[James Pallas]

Your plane looks great. I was wondering how you decided on the placement of the iron and the tote? Im definitely not being critical of your work in asking this question.
Jim

[Jerry Olexa]

Nice results.....Good work!!!

[chris carter]

Your plane looks great. I was wondering how you decided on the placement of the iron and the tote? Im definitely not being critical of your work in asking this question.
Jim

I actually thought a lot about the iron and tote. For the iron, I looked at a lot of jointers and the location is all over the place. I finally decided on not less than 1/3 from the front and not more than 2/5. I eventually figured that anything in that range would work fine. My understanding is that the further back towards halfway you go, the better the job of flattening because of registration along the sole at the expense of control. However, the closer to the front the easier it is to control (think about trying to drive a bus from the front vs. the rear). I think Derek Cohen made some posts about this somewhere that were helpful to me. Ultimately the plane body is 26” and the mouth is 9.5” from the front…. So 36.5%, smack dab in the middle of 1/3 and 2/5.

As for the tote, I made a jack of essentially the same design and I felt like I wanted the handle just a tad forward, so I made it a tad forward. It’s far enough away from the iron so that I can easily whack it with a hammer, but close enough I can get plenty of index finger on it while planning if I need to “point” in the direction I’m planning. Here’s a picture with a four finger grip for reference.

Can I just say though, there is NOTHING like a handle sculpted to fit your hand. It’s almost as good as my wife’s chocolate chip cookies, but not quite.

Hmmmm... seems I can't find the option to add a picture, but my index knuckle is ¾” below and maybe a half inch back from the top of the iron.

[James Pallas]

Thank you for replying Chris. I was guessing but thought you may have reasons for your design. Well thought out. It should work very well for you.
Jim