I decided to make a shoulder plane.
The method was from Robert Wearing's excellent book on Making Woodwork Aids & Devices - pieces of mild steel riveted together, with infill and wedge from a scrap of old mahogany.
These were the materials:
Sequence is to roughly cut out the two sides, clamped together with a few screws and nuts. File to shape, and rivet together using 10mm square stock in between. This shows one side with the sole (still in one piece) a lower slope and an upper piece to hold the wedge.
Here I am filing the central hole, having drilled out the shape.
Countersink the holes, rivet the pieces together, then file the rivets flat.
Carefully file from the centre to open up the mouth, checking with the blade in place to keep it nice and tight.
Here's the finished thing:
I enjoyed doing it, and learnt several things:
You can make a useful plane with basic tools, even if it's 35+ years since you did school metalwork.
Make the rivets about 3mm overlength, not 2 - most of mine were not properly filled up when I filed them smooth.
Leave enough clearance for the blade to go in to the assembled plane and turn round in the opening - I had to shift the upper steel piece and also bevel the edges of the blade.
It took me a long time, to make something functional but crude - the hours of work that you get in a second hand example for £50-100 now seem very good value!
Andy
The method was from Robert Wearing's excellent book on Making Woodwork Aids & Devices - pieces of mild steel riveted together, with infill and wedge from a scrap of old mahogany.
These were the materials:
Sequence is to roughly cut out the two sides, clamped together with a few screws and nuts. File to shape, and rivet together using 10mm square stock in between. This shows one side with the sole (still in one piece) a lower slope and an upper piece to hold the wedge.
Here I am filing the central hole, having drilled out the shape.
Countersink the holes, rivet the pieces together, then file the rivets flat.
Carefully file from the centre to open up the mouth, checking with the blade in place to keep it nice and tight.
Here's the finished thing:
I enjoyed doing it, and learnt several things:
You can make a useful plane with basic tools, even if it's 35+ years since you did school metalwork.
Make the rivets about 3mm overlength, not 2 - most of mine were not properly filled up when I filed them smooth.
Leave enough clearance for the blade to go in to the assembled plane and turn round in the opening - I had to shift the upper steel piece and also bevel the edges of the blade.
It took me a long time, to make something functional but crude - the hours of work that you get in a second hand example for £50-100 now seem very good value!
Andy
