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Thread: Outside the box thinking

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2019
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    Outside the box thinking

    Jim Koepke's recent post about a way to make a stopped groove using a combination plane (thanks, Jim!) got me thinking about other possible alternative uses for tools in general and the combination plane in particular.

    When I start a mortise, I always have to take a little bit of time lining up the chisel's edge to the marks I made with my mortise gauge. It doesn't take long, but a little bit of time lining things up before each starting chop does add up.

    So, it occurs to me that I could use my combination plane with a blade matching my chisel to make a shallow stopped groove (no modifications needed to the plane's typical plow set up) that matches my intended mortise and lets me chop the mortise more quickly and accurately. Setting the fence on the combination plane should take me about as long as setting my mortise gauge, and one or two passes should do it. Even if the chisel and combination plane blade aren't perfectly matched, it should still work fine as long as they're reasonably close. Someone else must have already come up with this (after all, it's effectively the mortise-in-groove from frame-and-panel construction) and maybe it's even common knowledge, but I can't say I've ever read anything about such a trick so I thought it worth posting.

    Thoughts? Am I over-complicating this? Other ideas for outside the box uses of tools that I probably haven't considered?

    Thanks in advance.

  2. #2
    This should be a great thread - cant wait to see what others think up.

    For me, it's easier just to start the mortise with a chisel. But if you have a bunch to do, as you described, I can see it could be worth the time to set up the combo plane.

    Finally, there are more ideas on making stopped grooves in this thread from last year. LINK I finally came up with my own way to do it with my plow plane, described in post #12. (As you can see, Im no stranger to overkilling a problem either. )

    Fred
    "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

    “If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

  3. #3
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    As I answered Jim in the thread that this came up in originally, I typically use the technique of creating a "track" with a plow plane or the 45 for my longer hand chopped grooves on the legs of my frame and panel construction pieces. My plow plane/45 cutters are an exact match for my mortise chisels and the chisels are quick to fall in to the shallow groove left by pre scoring the track. My plow plane fence does not travel real far from the blade, so the 45 (with a longer fence extension) gets used a lot for this. I started out using the pre-mortise gauge line to set up the plow/45 to, but now tend to just go straight to the plow/45 plane. Usually, my grooves need to be centered on the leg, so the setup is not too involved. When the rails that make up to the legs are of a narrower dimension than the legs, the plow plane fence setup will not work for the leg groove anyway, so I set up the other to use as a gauge line. I don't mind chopping mortises, but it does speed things up when I have two long grooves to chop per leg.
    David

  4. #4
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    Apr 2015
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    Bay of Plenty, New Zealand
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    110
    Using a Stanley #39 dado plane as a shoulder plane. Much better on my arthritic joints.

  5. #5
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    Mar 2015
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    SE Michigan
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    I use my good hand stitched rasps to remove calluses from the heel of my foot sometimes. Does that count?

  6. #6
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    Okay, who has a paint can opener they used like a chisel to clean the bottom of a mortise?

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  7. #7
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    I've been waiting for a boutique tool maker to come out with that on Jim. One with an exotic wood handle and a special sharpening jig/gizmo designed just for that tool. In different mortise widths and different lengths. In different steel types. Bevel up and bevel down.
    David

  8. #8
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    Okay, who has a paint can opener they used like a chisel to clean the bottom of a mortise?

    jtk


    That would be Paul Sellers. I tend to use the other end...to open my bottle of Guinness....aka..."Church Key"
    Last edited by steven c newman; 10-20-2019 at 12:21 PM.

  9. #9
    A Microplane peel grater (sometimes sold in woodworking supply stores) does a good job for me--I try to be careful to replace it in the kitchen drawer.

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