# Making an infill plane - copying the master (lots of pics)



## Aled Dafis (19 Aug 2008)

Hi there, here is my account of making an infill plane based on the Holtey 11-SA. I had thought of making something larger - say an A13, but as this was my first attempt at infill planes, I thought I'd start on something smaller and gradually work my way up to a 28" jointer :roll: :roll: 

The first seed on the road to making and using infill planes was planted a good few years ago, at the Axminster show, where I had a long chat to Konrad Sauer and tried out some of his planes. Although Konrad's planes were way out of my budget, I was in awe, and knew that I wanted tools that performed and loked this good. A few months later i became aware of a guy called Karl Holtey who also made amazing planes, but were even further away from my budget. These guys have become my planemaking gurus.

If we skip a few years, here we are today

Having studied Karl Holtey and Konrad Sauer's website http://www.holteyplanes.com http://www.sauerandsteiner.com, and read a fair bit in magazines and on the web about infill planes, I set about creating a plane based on the Holtey 11SA 
http://www.holteyplanes.com/11sa.htm.

To start off, i pinned two pieces of 4mm thick gauge plate together and milled the dovetails in the sides of the plane using a 60 degree cutter in the school's milling machine - being a teacher really does have some good points.






I then market out the positions of the tails on the sole (5mm gauge plate) by clamping the sides and sole to an angle block.





And then proceeded to cuth them, again on the milling machine, with the vice swiveled to 30 degrees.



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After a little fettling with a three square file the sides and sole were fitted together. 





In case you're thinking that I'd measured incorrectly, the pins and tails are intentionally 2mm too long in order to facilitate the peening/peining of the dovetails together.





Here is where I got a little excited and proceeded to prepare the dovetails for peining, and then peined them together before riveting the support block to the sole. This mistake cost me a lot of time and also would have resulted in a lot of money in the swear box if I had one :x :x This over exitement also meant that I forgot to take photos of this process - sorry.

Here's a pic of the shell cleaned up. In hindisght, cleaning the peining at this stage was a bit of a waste of time, as I gave the sole a light skim with the milling machine at the end anyway, so I could have left it all until then.





Here's a pic of the support block that should have been fitted before peining the dovetails. The holes are there to take three pieces of 3mm silver steel for riveting to the sole. The pitch of the plane is 60 degrees, so the block was milled to this angle.





I then proceeded to open up the mouth of the plane using a 3mm cutter in the milling machine, but the combination of a very brittle tool and a very heavy handed operator, it broke almost immediately, so i was forced to drill out the mouth, hacksaw the waste, and then clean up with a thin warding file making sure at this stage that the moutrh was too tight to let the iron through.





The infill wood I chose to use was African Blackwood for two reasons, the first being that it was very dense, anwould add mass to the already hefty shell; the second reason being that I actually had a few bits of Blackwood of about the correct size laying about under my lathe. 

Some of you may be aware that African blackwood is so dense and hard that it's very difficult to work with hand tools, and is very prone to tearout, so instead of treating it as a piece of wood I thought of it more as an engineering material, and sized it again on the milling machine. The bed angle, and the escapement ramp were both cut to 60 degrees.










The infills were then fitted into the shell and riveted in place using 5mm silver steel, 1 in the front "bun" and 2 in the rear infill.

This is where the project got exciting, and where I again forgot to take photos - sorry again.

I then inerted another pin above the mouth to take the lever cap as Karl holtey has done with his 11-SA, but my attempt was a complete disaster, in that as I peined the relatively thin 5mm rod, it buckled by about 3mm - again more money should have gone in the swear box - so I had to remove it and rethink my plans, the Holtey plane has a brass sleeve around the pin, bringing it up to say 10mm diameter. Eventually I decided to go with my original plan of a 5mm rod, but I had to make a little jig to supprt it during peining. The second attempt was far better.

I the went about making the lever cap and knob from brass, and the iron from gauge plate. I don't have any pics of the making, but this is how they turned out.





After giving the plane a quick skim on the milling machine to get some dings from peining out, and a lot of time lapping on wet and dry I was nearly there.





Now just to fettle the mouth so it was about 2-3 thou and we were ready to make some shavings.















Sorry for such a long post, but I hope that it inspires someone else to have a go. I know that I relied heavily on the milling machine in my school workshop, but this plane could have been made entirely with hand tools, it just would have taken a bit longer!!

Thanks for reading

Aled


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## Paul Chapman (19 Aug 2008)

That looks good, Aled. Well done =D> 

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## Karl (19 Aug 2008)

That looks excellent. 

I noticed a link on Philly's site (www.phillyplanes.co.uk) for Ron Brese planes - he does a kit for an infill plane.

Cheers

Karl[/url]


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## seanybaby (19 Aug 2008)

Very nice Aled =D> 

I would like to make something similar, but don't have the metal working skills. Maybe one day :roll:


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## Harbo (19 Aug 2008)

Very nice but how does it cut - we need to see some shavings?  

The latest ones now have an adjuster and you will need to make a green baize bag for it.

Rod


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## woodbloke (20 Aug 2008)

Harbo":3aenx6yp said:


> Very nice but how does it cut - we need to see some shavings?
> 
> The latest ones now have an adjuster and you will need to make a green baize bag for it.
> 
> Rod


...and if you're not in the 'know' :wink: that's a gloat :lol: - Rob


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## Aled Dafis (20 Aug 2008)

I had guessed, jammy pipper!!


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## bugbear (20 Aug 2008)

Aled Dafis":20tc5yxw said:


> The infills were then fitted into the shell and riveted in place using 5mm silver steel, 1 in the front "bun" and 2 in the rear infill.
> 
> .
> .
> ...



Wow. The 'net does have a lot to answer for - I sometimes thing the whole planet is making infills!

Coupla' points/questions;

Is silver steel a good choice for riveting? I know it's available in handy machined sizes, but I'd have thought it a little hard, even in its annealed state.

I know Ian Dalziel recommends using a round nose punch for peining, as opposed to hammering directly. I think this technique came from Mr Holtey, back in the day when still did dovetails. This greatly reduces the chance of "dings". Alternatively, a simple copper or brass peining shield can be made.

(damn - just searched for Ian's website and it's down - anyone know anything?)

BugBear


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## Ian Dalziel (20 Aug 2008)

bugbear":2kmuzd17 said:


> Aled Dafis":2kmuzd17 said:
> 
> 
> > The infills were then fitted into the shell and riveted in place using 5mm silver steel, 1 in the front "bun" and 2 in the rear infill.
> ...



Hi Paul, i do drop by occasionaly ....unsure whats happened to my website ......hosts havent returned my emails .......

silver steel is too hard to 'drift' and will cause unnessesary stress on your plane. if you do use a ball pein hammer ...mask off the surrounding area with at least 2 layers of masking tape......this will reduce any accidental bruising. long nose punches can give better control of the area being peined ....light accurate blows with a small hammer are sufficient.

Karls new plane is almost out .......his adjuster is cracking...and his new knurling was quite frustrating to do to get right ...


Ian


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## Aled Dafis (20 Aug 2008)

Bugbear

I was just about to post, but noticed that Ian had jumped in front of me - cheers Ian.

The dings on the plane were entirely my fault, and could have easily be avoided had I used a couple of strips of masking tape and a little more care.

As regards the Silver steel, I must bow to Ian's far superior knowledge, but I must add that the accurate dimensions of the rod fit very well in a reamed hole, and that the ammount of flow required was minimal, as I used a three square scraper to open the holes as opposed to a countersink bit. After the cleaning and lapping process, the rivets completely dissapeared. Only time will tell how the increased stress will affect the plane.


Cheers for your comments.

Aled


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## Harbo (20 Aug 2008)

Rob - the real gloat is what I paid for it!

It's a complicated story and a bit unfair to tell on the net but I was very lucky?

Ian D - I emailed you a while ago - did the message get lost?

Rod


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## TrimTheKing (20 Aug 2008)

Harbo":3li7mlor said:


> Rob - the real gloat is what I paid for it!
> 
> It's a complicated story and a bit unfair to tell on the net but I was very lucky?
> 
> Rod


Go ooooooooon, I love a good luck story.

Mark


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## Ian Dalziel (20 Aug 2008)

Harbo":6uy5glqk said:


> Ian D - I emailed you a while ago - did the message get lost?
> 
> Rod



never got the email Rod ........the site caused me loads of hassle with spam and my filter was set to high ...can you resend

cheers

Ian


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## Evergreen (20 Aug 2008)

Aled

A very impressive piece of workmanship. And your pics are pretty good too.


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## Aled Dafis (20 Aug 2008)

Evergreen

Thanks for the compliments. The pics were a bit hit or miss, photographing shiny materials is really difficult. The later pics were taken on my Canon EOS D350, so the technology helped a lot.

I'll try and take some shots of the plane in action tomorrow - I've asked the wife for a hand in the workshop tonight for a tricky glue up, so if things don't go to plan I may be sleeping there tonight. :? 

I'm going to the westonbirt on Saturtday or Sunday, so I'll bring the plane along if anyone's interested.

Cheers

Aled


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## karl5005 (26 Aug 2008)

bugbear":65jpgb4x said:


> I think this technique came from Mr Holtey, back in the day when still did dovetails.
> BugBear



I still do!


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## Aled Dafis (26 Aug 2008)

Karl 

May I be the first to welcome you to the forum. I'm really quite chuffed that my humble little plane has spurred you to join. I really hope that you stick around, as your input would be most useful to many of us. 

I hope that you're not offended that I used your plane as a starting point for mine, I suppose that we must all start somewhere, and your work along with Konrad's really gives me a standard to aim for - yes I really do have some way to go yet. :roll: :roll: 



Speaking of Konrad, I met him on Sunday at Westonbirt, and he too has had a look at this thread, and seemed quite excited to see the plane :shock:, but unfortunately I had left it at home. I can't imagine the pressure of having a great maker (and genuinely nice guy) assess my work. 

Needless to say Konrad was a true gentleman and was very complimentary about what he'd seen on the web - he would say that though, wouldn't he. I spent a while chatting with him, and mentioned that I'm considering making a small shoulder plane next, so he promptly dismantled his stunning shoulder plane for me to examine, and offered a lot of advice. Konrad's small coffin smoother really made an impression also, and if I had the spare cash, that would have definately come back with me to west Wales - Waka, you really are a lucky pipper!!!

While I'm wittering on about Westonbirt, I also spent some time chatting to Bill Carter, who was also a true gentleman, not to mention a fantasic planemaker, his work is truly remarkable!!! I'd seen pictures of his cupid's bow dovetails, but actually seeing them in the flesh was something else, and to think that he's done a 36" jointer with them. :shock: :shock: 

All in all I had a great day!

Aled


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## karl5005 (28 Aug 2008)

When I made my first plane there was only Bill Carter around in the UK, who I found to be very nice and helpful. I had a lot of help from serious Norris collectors who I met at the tool auctions, unfortunately they are not all here today. Most of my learning came from doing restorations on original planes. I was very fortunate to met a surviving ex-Norris apprentice. 

It is always nice to talk to someone who has built a dovetailed infill plane because then you have joined a very special club, I wish you the best on many future projects - keep up the good work.

k


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