Infill Mitre Plane Build (amateur hour), Help?

[Biliphuster]

A few months ago I picked up a mitre plane casting and have only now worked up the nerve to tackle it. I've never done an infill before, so all help and advice from those who have experience would be greatly appreciated. If it comes out 1/4 as well as some of the ones seen on here I'd be very happy.

I have only taken the beginning steps and have taken a little break to ask for some advice as to what to do next.

I started out by filing the protruding bolts from the bed and filing the rest smooth. I have no mill or lathe, so all steps are carried out by hand.

Then I fitted in a piece of oak for some practice. It was slightly tapered front to back, which I will have to be more careful about on the real thing.

Take it out and saw the wedge angle.

I had a play at being a gunsmith and tried soot fitting the front infill, not very well

At this point a realised the line drawn on the side of the casting as received was not the bed angle, but higher. I proceeded to file down th back to accommodate the blade without it bridging from either end of the plane. This required some bravery as I had to permanently alter the casting when I had no idea what I was doing. I also took the opportunity to clean up the inside and level the top a little. The mouth of the casting had been opened by someone on a milling machine but it was quite a rough job and they left some gouges inside down by the mouth, these are staying because getting them out would require widening the inside by 1.5mm each side by hand. Other than these the inside has cleaned up well, only a little more to do there, 60 grit sandpaper is very useful for this.

Mock up of the plane so far in practice wood. This highlights the many aesthetic shortcomings, the wedge is far too big and bulbous, the front infill is lumpen and misshapen and a host of other things I am sure jump out to those in the know. Very glad I did a mock up at this point. The bridge for the wedge needs another 0.25mm filed off to fit. I have not done this yet as there is not point putting the bridge in until I have fitted the permanent infill.

There is a bit more work to do on the casting, a couple of burrs inside to clean up and some final sanding to get some pits out but it's not too far off.

I have the wood I intend to use for the infill

A large billet of Partridge Wood. This stuff is weird, when I first tried to plane it, it basically exploded out of the plane leaving a surface that looked like the moon. I switched to my HNT Gordon (60 degree bed) and even that tore it out in ribbons. Reversing the blade to create a 90 degree scraper did the trick though, producing a glassy surface. It's incredibly hard and dense, just about the densest wood I could find, after oiling it should go nearly black and contrast nicely with the brass.

Having reached this far, I now have a few questions before going further.

Once I make the new infills, I plan on pinning them with silver steel pins peened over into slightly flared holes, will this work? I notice some people us tubes and pins to secure the infill, is this required? What is the supposed benefit?

I plan to attach the bridge with silver steel pins as well, would 3 pairs of 4mm pins into the 30x10mm phosphor bronze bridge be strong enough?

The current wedge has an included angle of 10 degrees. This feels a little fat, should I reduce it? This will also help make wedge Mk II slimmer which I wanted anyway.

Lacking a drill press, I have a cunning plan to drill the holes accurately to locate the bridge, but that can wait for now. I have a lever cap I can fit if it all goes terribly, terribly wrong.

Any help or advice, pointing out things I have missed would be most appreciated

 

[Racers]

Silver steel pins will take some peening! annealed steel would be much better or you could screw the infills in with shallow countersinks and file the head and slot off.
Like I did with my scraper plane.



I tend to make wedges 6-7 degrees for the best grip, I tip straight from Bill Carter!

Pete

 

[gasman]

Mmmmm that is so interesting. Many congratulations on taking on this job. I understand all too well how tricky these things are to start from scratch. I am in the 'middle' of a similar job though mine was a lump of gunmetal to which I am trying to sweat a steel sole on. When I say middle, I have started but am building kitchen shutters at the moment which means it is all on hold. Also the Aga is back on now which will make sweating the sole on much easier.
Your post has really stimulated me to get going again so many thanks for that. Questions, questions. Are you going to just stay with a wedge or had you thought of fitting a Norris or similar adjuster? How fine are you planning to make the mouth? Thats one of my biggest concerns how to get it really fine. The geometry involved is complex particualrly if the blade is going to be skew. Have you already got a blade sorted? If you haven't there are plenty you can find online or just get some ground flat stock, cut your own then there are people around who can harden it for you (or possible to do yourself). Where are you based? Blightly doesn't narrow it down much!
Very good luck to you - I am sure you have already read many of the threads here but these pages are a positive treasure trove of expert opinion
Regards Mark
Edited - just looked at the picture again and saw your blade -sorry!

 

[rxh]

I shall be watching this one with great interest. I agree with Pete concerning silver steel. Bright mild steel should be quite sufficient and will be much easier to work.

Yes, partridge wood is tricky stuff to plane. I used violin planes with toothed irons, scraper planes and scrapers for this example:

If you drive screws into it be sure to drill suitable pilot holes first and grease the screws.

 

[Biliphuster]

Thanks for the helpful advice, it's great to hear from those who have done this before.

I knocked up another wedge at 6 degrees and it looks a lot better, I will be going with that for the final wood.

On order is some 4mm bright round steel for pinning. which I realise is a better idea than silver steel.

I have started roughing out the partridgewood for the final parts and will update once I have made some more progress in that area.

 

[Biliphuster]

I have made some modest progress on this, though it has taken me longer than expected as the partridge wood is a bear to work and there was a fair bit more metal work to do.

After removing the test infills I finished filing and sanding the interior surfaces. They are not perfect but most of the lumps and bumps have been hidden.

I cut out the real infills and fitted them with some judicious filing.

I pinned them with two pins in each infill which I then peened over and filed flush. I screwed up one of the pins by filing it flush and then realising there was a tiny bit of movement left in it, so one side or the other would have a little circular depression in it. I ended up drilling it out and using a larger size pin in the hole, the hole ended up being slightly bent which complicated matters but the new pin is held very snugly indeed.

Getting the infill and the casting bed flat and in line took a lot of work mostly carried out with a big file. I was a degree or two off, as well as making the real infill too thick, creating a hump in the bed which caused the blade to rock. Plenty of filing and testing eliminated this and the blade now sits securely.

I am very glad I did this at this stage as once the bridge goes in it would become a lot harder. The infills were soaked in linseed oil over night before fitting and I think they have come out quite nicely.

As a test I dunked an offcut in water to see if it floats

Next up I have to make the wedge so I can fit the bridge and then smooth over the outside and flatten the sole. I think I am past the halfway point now and have certainly already learn't a lot.

Thanks for the advice so far as well, The mild steel pins were hard enough to peen, silver steel would have been a nightmare.

 

[n0legs]

Keep at it mate, looking good =D>

 

[Biliphuster]

Thanks for the kind words NoLegs, progress has been good on this and I am about 95% of the way there I think.

Next job and the biggest was to drill the bridge pins, this was a tad stressful as I didn't really trust myself to drill accuratley enough by hand. I ended up going through a pretty thorough layout and it worked quite well, at least no pins erupted out into the interior of the plane.

I started out by putting the wedge and a spacer block in, then laying the bridge on top

The spacer block meant I could repeatably put the bridge back in the same spot on the wedge. After than I drew on some lines marking the extent of the bridge.

Then very carefully measured down to see how far down the corners were

Measure down that amount on each line and mark, then join up with a line and make note of the angle to the top.

After that set the protractor to the compliment of the previous angle and draw the thickness of the bridge at right angles to the last line. Join the ends of those lines with another line which should be parallel to the first.

You are now fully lad out, and as long as you drill within the box and keep the drill straight, you should be ok. I spent some extra time making sure the top edges were flat before doing this as they act as a reference for the measurements.

The bridge pins were peened in, pleasingly the bridge came up quite close to the sides. I took a test cut to see if the whole endeavor had been for nought

Then I filed the outsides flush and game the thing a once over with some scotchbright.

I think it looks alright, but I am not finished yet, can you all see the mistake?

That's right, the blade is covered by the wedge so it can't be adjusted easily. My options seem to be

• Shorten or make new wedge
  
• Add sneck to underside of the blade (not enough room for this one)
  
• Order new, longer blade, with upper sneck (rather spendy unfortunately)

I haven't decided on what to do yet and was hoping to canvass some feedback before I proceed further. ANy advice appreciated.

 

[Racers]

If you have the wood make a new wedge, then you can keep the old one for when you get a longer blade.

It does look good!

Pete