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I'm even more impressed, rxh! Making-do is something I'm very used to, & my own drill-press has been 'pressed' into serving in many ways it wasn't intended for, but I reckon you've shown just how much a bit of thought & patience can achieve. The advent of a small metal lathe has relieved my...

Lovely, rxh! Looks like you have access to a milling machine & know how to drive it - wish I was so lucky.. I too would like to know what functions chariot planes were considered the answer to in their day. Jim Kingshott says he couldn't live without the one he made (coincidentally, also from...

Way to go! Can we see some pics when they're done? :) Cheers,

Righto, on with the show. Because I've ended up making so many gauges over the years, I've made a couple of tools to help get the job done: The tiny marking gauge, small brass square & small keyhole saw are for laying out and cutting the shoe- slot in the top of the beam hole. Careful as I...

Well Blockplane, if you have a lathe, try using a round beam - as I said, it seems to solve the perennial moisture-cycle problem... :) Cheers,

Being a hoarder of scraps I have plenty of material to keep me going for a while. Small leftovers of brass & precious wood make good raw materials for marking-gauges, & as my hoard was building up after a recent spate of plane-making, I decided to make a small batch of gauges using some bits of...

As MikeG says, the pressure of the cheeks of the handle can usually hold a saw blade firmly enough for normal use. There are few things more annoying than a loose saw blade! Frequently, you can't tighten the bolts enough because crushing of the wood over time, with many moisture cycles &...

Thanks Hattori, I was pretty pleased with it myself, but was brought back to earth by the last plane I finished which looks he part, but isn't functioning well at all. I have diagnosed the problem, the rear stuffing slipped back by a tiny fraction of a mm under clamping pressure when I glued...

As another who went through a frenzy of saw-making for about a decade or so, I did a lot of reading & searching around the topic. What I found about naming conventions for backed saws is that they vary from country to country & over time. Here in Aus., just about any saw with a spine will be...

Mike, I have to admit I can't answer the first two questions - I would be delighted to be informed by anyone who does know! As to the name, well, I think that is pretty obvious from the shape, I doubt they were used to make chariots. :) Their time in the sun was relatively brief. As far...

Andy, it's not an original idea, clockmakers use a similar technique, but instead of threading the brass rod, they hammer slightly tapered, oversize pins into the brass. I've tried that, too, & the pins lodge in there like they are glued, so the threading isn't really necessary, but it's easier...

I made a small one of these a few years ago. It's not a bad performer, but rather pint-sized (75mm sole length, 25mm blade width), and a little basic-looking: Since that time I've moved on to making screw adjusters, which I included on my second chariot plane. This one is a bit of a...

'Tis pretty, Hattori - a friend said it looks like alabaster. Now there's a challenge, how about an infill stuffed with alabaster?! :) It's quite a bit softer than the woods I've used for stuffing previously (about the same as Beech), but it didn't make the job much easier, thanks to that...

After a flurry of planemaking these last 6months, I had a tray full of odd-shaped bits of brass looking for something to do. A couple of irregular scraps of 1/8” plate about 100mm long by no more than 30mm wide had a vague resemblance to the side of a very small plane, so I decided that’s what...

Steve, my first few efforts were very basic. What you there here is 40 years worth of slowly getting better at it..... :) Cheers, Ian

The ones I make for myself are definitely all users, Tony, but I have traded or sold a few and I know of a couple that sit on a display shelf. That wasn't my intention, they were meant to be used... I made my first gauges about 40 years ago. At that time my tool budget was very tight and I...

Good point, Tony. Some sort of 'shoe' is pretty much essential under a metal locking screw or you will damage the beam. You can get away with direct contact with large diameter wood or plastic thumbscrews, but I've seen plenty of the simple type old Beech gauges with very deep wear grooves...

To put a tapered point on a pin, just chuck it in your battery drill and spin it at a comfortable speed whilst applying the file. Takes aboout 20 seconds to make a good point. If the material is too hard for a regular file, you can use a diamond file, but slow the drill down so you don't...

For the long grooves, I made a shallow cut with a small hacksaw, then filed these with a 4" DEST file. The circular grooves were made by chucking the thumbscrew in my wood lathe, spinning it very slowly, and applying the file in the desired spot as it spun. Um, no, the divot idea only works...

Cheers, Hanzo - sorry to hear of your travails, but sometimes life's upheavals lead to a better situation, so let's hope that is the case for you. I had a similar problem in how to keep my 'wedge levers' in place when using thumbscrews instead of a simple wedge. Adding a screw adjuster to a...