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Yes, exactly. Mine already does that, effectively. The locking screw is the adjuster screw at the top of the mortise. The cap iron screw (fulcrum) is the barrel in the middle of the mortise at the front of the wedge. What I need to do is swap the wooden wedge for a metal one which is engineered...

All planes have the equivalent of a wedge, some kind of tensioning mechanism. I’ve toyed with various ideas but side escapement planes are very skinny and it’s quite a good system for skinny planes. But that’s the idea of the tensioning screw at the back - which works pretty well. Rather than...

I thought about that but in practice not really. A different pitch means the iron needs sharpening to a slightly different profile. Imagine a vertical iron and you’ll see what I mean. One thing it does well is the iron beds really nicely, which was something I was concerned about. It was more...

For what it’s worth… because I actually got it working today, here’s a few pics of a #14 hollow plane I’ve tried to design in metal. It’s been the mother of all rabbit holes, with all kinds of different designs in wood, plastic, metal across the last year. But I’m getting very close, it needs a...

Hi Steve I’d say it does. The metal engraving is fantastic (using a diamond drag bit), and as a router it works very well for cutting out shapes from flat stock, milling holes and chamfering etc. Obviously, without an auto change facility, the process is long winded, having to change bits and...

What will be a “next gen” no 14 round plane in resin. I’m doing the sole separately in a different resin. It’s getting complicated!

The final destination for my CNC machine, I’ve repurposed the camping equipment shelves 😎 I still need to sort out some drag chains etc for it.

I went through the process of “deciding” which machine to go for and ended up with self build. See thread in projects section. Pros Far more machine for your money (rattm motor) - more powerful, more rigid, closed loop motors, serious offline controller, proper VFD, 2.2kw spindle etc Moddable...

Some success with my CNC, for anyone who has been following that. Cutting brass end plates for my “next generation” of moulding planes went well. Engraving them will require more work though - several snapped bits. Most importantly, I have it cutting O1 for plane irons. Frankly I didn’t...

I had to post about this because it’s so unbelievably exciting. Making moulding plane blades is a pretty miserable business - it usually takes me a morning for a pair. So I spent the last 2 weeks building a CNC machine. I can now make plane blades out of hardboard. This is a #14 round, #4...

Thanks Ollie, yeah, basically working. Long way to go still though!

Myrtle is the wife’s cat.

My first GCODE. You may laugh but it’s been a long journey to get this far. I spent the day today mostly m ironing out issues with steps and related to the fact that it’s basically a metric machine, but I want to run it in imperial. 1 inch is 25.4 times 1 mm, which is quite enough to cause a...

That’s a really interesting point Phill, thanks. Yes, there are two packers, both of which could be designed out. Once I’ve got a bit further with it, I’ll look into that as I try to make it more rigid.

Well, it’s kind of done. All wired up and linked up today. Lots of glitches ironed out, but now all 3 axes, and spindle, the hand controller and the probe are doing what they should. Tomorrow I’ll try running some real Gcode. I might even try cutting out some wood or plastic plane blades. I...

Amazon is the go to place for reliable fast delivery, I agree. I’ve spent a fortune on their courier service on this project. There’s a basic EMI filter in my case, and much of the wiring has been done using shielded cables. I hope it’ll be ok. I’ve read about emi issues with Cnc and it seems...

Couple of steps forward today…. First, my shim stock came, so I made a shim for the carriage…. If it wasn’t for eBay, I’m not sure I would find 15 thou shim stock. It’s nice and tight now. Next, I wired the VFD, set it up, and got the spindle going. So, very nearly there. Unfortunately...

Back to the router itself, a few days ago I found an issue with it in that the carriage on the main ball screw was not correctly seated in the base of the gantry. I asked the supplier for some help and they fobbed me off, telling me it was a design feature and to add some washers. It isn’t, it’s...

I don’t know really, too early to tell. The control boxes that are factory made have the stepper drivers packed tight inside them so it’ll probably be ok. I can always add another fan circulating air through the box.

Little video showing all 3 motors now running. The wiring has all been pretty straightforward. I decided to use aviation plugs, which taught me how long it has been since I did some serious soldering. It needs tidying up a bit, some shields grounding etc but it’s gonna be okay. Spindle next...