I like to think of myself as a fairly experienced woodworker, but there are lots of things I've never made. One of them is a wooden plane. So, although I have a few already I thought I'd see what it's really like to make one myself. I have the instructions, and I have some wood.
The instructions are in John Whelan's book, "Making Traditional Wooden Planes" and I've decided to start with a bullnose plane, because it's small and because the mouth is open until closed with a bit of brass, so it should be easier to make.
The wood is from an old plane. Don't worry; this one is absolutely knackered:
It's been used as a scrap block for chiselling on, and is also peppered with holes. I've killed off the woodworm.
So the first job is to expose some decent wood inside. As shown by Jim, an old Burgess 3-wheeler bandsaw is one way to do this - it's at the full limit of its cut here:
I finished off the last bit of the cut with the Huntley Oak saw (another of Jim's recommendations)
A little planing
and a little more sawing, and we have a useful block of well-seasoned beech:
The front needs to be cut at 80 degrees:
which leads to this - a bit uneven, but most of this surface will disappear and I was nervous of getting the cut right first time, so I was cutting away from the line, hoping to trim up to it later.
As the front is open, cutting the mouth starts with a pair of parallel cuts. I've made notches with a chisel to locate the saw, which once again is shy of the line:
The next job was to remove the wood between the saw cuts. I started doing this with a chisel and mallet; I could take off fairly thick chips but it was hard work:
To try and speed it up a bit, I thought I'd try boring a couple of holes:
This sort of worked, but it's really important to angle the holes right to avoid scarring; here you can see how I got one hole a bit wrong:
After some more paring this mostly disappeared.
The next job was to cut out the abutments for the blade and wedge. I used a nice stiff Japanese keyhole saw, but a turning saw or coping saw would have been suitable as well.
This was followed by lots of slow and careful chiselling.
The iron I intend to use is a double one, so I needed to cut away to accommodate the head of the screw that holds the cap iron on.
First step was to drill a shallow hole - I used a 7/8" centre bit
but this didn't cut very cleanly on the slanting grain, so I switched to a more modern Forstner bit:
This was then followed by hours more careful chiselling, checking and adjusting.
By this time it was becoming clear that it's far more efficient to get the sizing right first time, saw in the right place, and not need to do so much extra trimming.
The most efficient cuts were done with a big paring chisel; a flat rasp was very useful as well.
This is how far I have got today:
It's very far from being a thing of beauty, but an interesting exercise which is increasing my admiration for people who can do this properly.
Meanwhile I need some wood for the wedge, so it's time to attack this old cherry log again:
That's all for this year - stay tuned and see how long this little project takes me!
The instructions are in John Whelan's book, "Making Traditional Wooden Planes" and I've decided to start with a bullnose plane, because it's small and because the mouth is open until closed with a bit of brass, so it should be easier to make.
The wood is from an old plane. Don't worry; this one is absolutely knackered:
It's been used as a scrap block for chiselling on, and is also peppered with holes. I've killed off the woodworm.
So the first job is to expose some decent wood inside. As shown by Jim, an old Burgess 3-wheeler bandsaw is one way to do this - it's at the full limit of its cut here:
I finished off the last bit of the cut with the Huntley Oak saw (another of Jim's recommendations)
A little planing
and a little more sawing, and we have a useful block of well-seasoned beech:
The front needs to be cut at 80 degrees:
which leads to this - a bit uneven, but most of this surface will disappear and I was nervous of getting the cut right first time, so I was cutting away from the line, hoping to trim up to it later.
As the front is open, cutting the mouth starts with a pair of parallel cuts. I've made notches with a chisel to locate the saw, which once again is shy of the line:
The next job was to remove the wood between the saw cuts. I started doing this with a chisel and mallet; I could take off fairly thick chips but it was hard work:
To try and speed it up a bit, I thought I'd try boring a couple of holes:
This sort of worked, but it's really important to angle the holes right to avoid scarring; here you can see how I got one hole a bit wrong:
After some more paring this mostly disappeared.
The next job was to cut out the abutments for the blade and wedge. I used a nice stiff Japanese keyhole saw, but a turning saw or coping saw would have been suitable as well.
This was followed by lots of slow and careful chiselling.
The iron I intend to use is a double one, so I needed to cut away to accommodate the head of the screw that holds the cap iron on.
First step was to drill a shallow hole - I used a 7/8" centre bit
but this didn't cut very cleanly on the slanting grain, so I switched to a more modern Forstner bit:
This was then followed by hours more careful chiselling, checking and adjusting.
By this time it was becoming clear that it's far more efficient to get the sizing right first time, saw in the right place, and not need to do so much extra trimming.
The most efficient cuts were done with a big paring chisel; a flat rasp was very useful as well.
This is how far I have got today:
It's very far from being a thing of beauty, but an interesting exercise which is increasing my admiration for people who can do this properly.
Meanwhile I need some wood for the wedge, so it's time to attack this old cherry log again:
That's all for this year - stay tuned and see how long this little project takes me!
