A simple box...(a slow and lightly updated thread)

[Bodgers]

Separate and aside, I finally opened the lv shooting plane that I got last week and sharpened and tested it. It's fantastic to say the least. If I'd have gotten it first, I might have built a infill panel plane instead of a shooting plane.

Trying to match it is going to be a real challenge.

That's sort of made me feel a bit happier about what I have recently done...

Finally bit the bullet and ordered the same plane yesterday. Lee Valley are out of stock until late Feb now. Not a problem for me as relatives won't be bringing it across until late March. I went all in, and got the PMV11 blade.

Totally over kill really, but it will be interesting to see how good it is.

Need to start thinking about a couple of shooting boards for it...

Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

 

[D_W]

Just use a simple shoot board to start. The plane is so good that it doesn't really need all of the gadgetry and tracks that most people bling it up with.

In my earlier days, I would've scoffed at the idea of paying $350 for a shoot board plane, but it's looking pretty inexpensive compared to the effort involved in the infill in this thread (it's a more sensible thing than building the infill, unless you can build the infill well enough that you could sell it for a premium).

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

I've posted this review before, but the timing is that some may want to be able to read it, either again or for the first time. It compares the LV/Veritas Shooting Plane and LN #51, and the different blade steels available.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReview ... Plane.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[D_W]

The only complaint I have about it is that the iron still gets dull. Plus, it may work better than my infill ends up working, and that'll be like a kick in the pants.

In the front.

I've got a mild interest in making an iron out of O1 and tempering it really hard. My last infill smoother has an untempered O1 iron from stjamesbay tool co. I'll temper it at some point, but what surprises me about it is that it doesn't really seem to chip. It is almost completely resistant to most stones, though (extremely slow even on something like shapton).

I might like to try making an O1 iron like that for this plane, and I need to take another look at why the white suita that I tried this iron on turned black so fast (generally expect abrasion to be a little bit slower). It could just be a favorable match for the stone - it doesn't feel soft, but the same stone doesn't want much to do with the untempered O1 iron from stjames bay.

(of course, that untempered iron sharpens no problem on diamonds - I'm just a bit surprised that it doesn't chip more easily).

 

[D_W]

This picture is behind now - I've actually got the plane mostly peined, but didn't take pictures.

I ran into a problem, though - a fairly considerable one. In making the cross strap (which I'm doing just with hacksaw and files), I realized that there's really no great way to drill a 20 degree hole (that isn't time consuming, like making a jig to hold the drill in place - it's just not that important), so I solved that by drilling the hole through perpendicular to the sides and then (because I have a good quality jobber set), just grabbing the sides and tugging them until I'd angled the hole 20 degrees. This makes an oval hole that's much larger than the ends to be peined on the cross strap.

Structurally, it's not really an issue. The cross strap is already tight enough, and the peining doesn't need to be perfect, but between that and undersizing some of the end pins on the cross strap, there is zero chance that I can pein the hole shut with those pins.





The cross strap really deserved to be made better, but I'm not selling this plane and I really didn't want to make two or three patterns to get it perfect.

I intend to try to melt some brass and dribble it onto the gaps and then pound it in before I pein everything.

There will be other challenges with this - namely that after the peining, I may have to remove enough material at the tail side of the plane (to get square to the bottom) that gaps will appear. We'll see.

Compared to making a plane with everything square, this really isn't pleasant work.

 

[patrickjchase]

I solved that by drilling the hole through perpendicular to the sides and then (because I have a good quality jobber set), just grabbing the sides and tugging them until I'd angled the hole 20 degrees. This makes an oval hole that's much larger than the ends to be peined on the cross strap.

In my experience that's a good way to go from having a good quality jobber set to having a beater-quality jobber set . There's no way I'd be caught dead doing that to my Chicago 550s or 150ASPs.

I'd probably file the hole in that situation.

 

[D_W]

As nicely as these bits cut, I'd never choose filing (though you still have to do a little bit to get things together). These are sort of run of the mill USA made bits ("gold strike" brand), but they're so sharp that it takes almost no pressure for them to cut with that move. I do it to open the mouths, too.

I think they're probably about $10 a bit for broken bits, but only something like $65 for the whole jobber set of 29 at a hardware store in Ephrata, PA (they're a little more on the internet most of the time). Really spectacular, and when you're going to build things with limited tools, sometimes you have to push it a little bit.

Of course, you do that trick at the top of the flutes close to the chuck, and with very little pressure.

The flutes on these bits will cut you just handling them - really a poor man's treat. If I build more than one of these, I'm going to have to rethink this step, though. It was really miserable work fitting that plate and I don't like that I'm guessing now as to whether or not I'll be able to close the pein. The brass is 360, so it's peinable, but the amount of movement that you can get away with is limited.

I will post the results when done. If I made five of these planes, the fifth one would be pretty nice, I think.

 

[D_W]

I looked at pictures of the drills you're talking about. They're from a local company here. The 150s are a coated version of the drills that I have - different maker, of course, but they're a little more coarsely finished. I don't have any cobalt bits to compare (no need for them).

I believe the "gold strike" brand are made by Montana/Norseman - their flutes are absurdly sharp.

Of course, I learned this trick on cheap bits, and broke them with some regularity (which isn't really an issue - if you break $10 worth of tooling making an infill plane, it's no big deal - the plane is more important than the bits), but so far would say that you could cut 50 plane mouths with one norseman bit and still be money ahead vs. foreign bits. The moment one catches in your set and you think you're going to handle it with a bit of pressure to get it out, you'll be bleeding.

 

[D_W]

(by the way, my local engineer friend is also horrified by these senseless acts of tool abuse and complete lack of organization. In my opinion, too much thinking about a project like this can just convince you that it'll be too difficult to do without significant tool outlay. The only real concession in this project is the area around these holes - it will ultimately not be round even once it's peined, will not be perfect in shape, but I'll be *very* lucky if that's the only concession. Doling out the dollars and space for a mill setup is out of the question. )

I did learn on this go that vixen files are something i want to keep on hand in quantity (and the ones that screw to body shop holders are often available for $5 or $7 each NOS on ebay. The steel removal rate with them is spectacular, and they're flexible and resharpenable if they to manage to get above the above price.

 

[patrickjchase]

I believe the "gold strike" brand are made by Montana/Norseman - their flutes are absurdly sharp.

Montana/Norseman make good stuff, and charge less for it than Chicago-Latrobe.
The basic 29-piece set of C-L 150ASP-TNs (split-point, heavy-web HSS with TiN coating) is close to $300, and I'm not saying what I paid for my 118-piece set. I have a set of black-oxide HSS Norseman wire-gauge bits (#1-#60) and they've been very good bits.

As you say one of the nice things about shopping from reputable suppliers is that single replacement bits are readily available, so bashing on a single bit like that really isn't the end of the world .

If you keep increasing your metalworking then a set of Cobalt bits might be a good investment. It's not going to matter for the 1018 that you're using in the shooter, but they hold up a bit better if you start mucking with wear-resistant stuff (like, say, tools steels even when annealed). IMO one under-appreciated feature of Cobalt bits is that because they rely on bulk material properties rather than coatings for durability they work as well after resharpening as when new.

 

[D_W]

I saw a set of those somewhere yesterday for about $130 without the tin coating, but can't find it now. They weren't split point. I don't really get their pricing vs norseman, but they're a local company (Kennametal) and a much larger operation with bigger customers.

I'm guessing a grand for the cobalt bits in 118 pieces. My buddy here who is an engineer also loves the bits, but I'm too much of a cheapskate for something like that. I envisioned sharpening the has bits I got with some frequency (they are the cheapest norseman set), but haven't had to sharpen any of them yet. Strange how it's cheaper so far to beat decent bits than it was to beat the cheaper ones.

 

[patrickjchase]

I saw a set of those somewhere yesterday for about $130 without the tin coating, but can't find it now. They weren't split point.

That's about what the basic 118 deg chisel-point 150s in black-oxide coating go for: https://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Latrobe- ... B000LDH1LC. They're good, solid M4 HSS bits.

The 150ASP (split-point, 135 deg, heavy web) adds some more cost to that, and then the TiN coating adds more still, and pretty soon you're up to almost $300: https://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Latrobe- ... dpSrc=srch

If you want expensive check out some taper-length bits. I actually have a set and they cost an arm and a leg.

My experience is that the top-end makers like C-L and Cleveland produce a somewhat more accurately finished bit than makers like Norseman/Viking. I've had to reshape some smaller Viking bits a little before they were up to snuff, and the runouts etc. are just a touch higher. The differences are subtle compared to the gaping chasm between either and the $19.95 Chinese box 'o bits though.

Cheap bits are expensive in the long run as you say.

 

[D_W]

Not only are they expensive, but I struggled with them getting them to side cut, and never knew that I should be abusing good bits instead. I'm going to make a few bench plane irons at some point in the near future now that I have good bits to abuse.

As for the better bits above and beyond the norsemen, I figured the cost in Kennametal's products is in the fine bits (not necessarily polish, but in perfection in dimension, etc). I don't have a drill press good enough to use them, and can't be trusted with such things, anyway. My motto is get something close and then smash it with a hammer (peining). I have my work cut out for me on these brass bits, though - I've never even attempted anything like them, and there will be no way to completely cover up the evidence. I'm still a piker, and sometimes you have to suck it up unless you're willing to spend the bucks for a mill and bits that will drill on an angle. that's something I'm not willing to do. No more skews, I think - at least not in infills. I can make a tidy straight plane.

 

[D_W]

In between peining and screwing around over the weekend, I went through my infill rack and noticed that a bar of soap on a rack above my infill planes had somehow melted and dribbled down, getting soap (hygroscopic) against the soles of a couple of planes. None received any serious trouble, but one was this spiers coffin infill.

It had a lot of shallow pitting along the sides but was in pretty good condition, and someone listed it poorly and I got it on ebay for $125 or so last year, with the ward parallel iron. Absurdly cheap. I sort of thought now that I have gotten good at filing fast, I might file off the pitting, so I did that, and also buffed off the finish to redo it and even it out.

A total of about an hour's worth of work, including running a deburring wheel over the rusty iron and cap iron, and then hitting them with 220 on a felt pad to remove evidence of the deburring wheel.

https://s13.postimg.org/5104fh553/20180220_215424_1.jpg

https://s13.postimg.org/5104fhcuv/20180220_215414_1.jpg

https://s13.postimg.org/n3t76po53/20180220_215404_1.jpg

 

[D_W]

And shootenstein, partially peined.

https://s13.postimg.org/h2vi9oyyv/20180220_215706_1.jpg

 

[D_W]

By the way, re: the question earlier about using a punch. I did use a punch this time on the ends of the pins and tails, but then after using it for the long spans of pins and tails, went back to using a hammer for those. For the length of the tail against the socket, if those are cut relatively accurately, they'll close just with flat face strikes from the hammer. If there are gaps, then punch use might be necessary.

There are two steps to follow that:
1) start removing the material from the pins and tails (I will be doing that this weekend before fitting the infills, and then doing the final work on the plane)
2) if you see gaps developing, use the ball side of a relatively large hammer (so as not to have deep marks - bigger hammer, bigger radius, shallower marks) and tap any appearing voids shut. Not too deeply, though - the depth of the tapping needs to be removed to have a strike-free surface - it should be part of the draw filing and lapping process, and not create a bunch of extra work. Forcing yourself to remove too much metal is a good way to also find more voids appearing at other pins and tails. They usually just look like pinhole size and are easy to close.

Final surface finishing of a plane (draw filing and then sanding) will make the pins and tails disappear if they are void free.

Not too deeply, though - the depth of the tapping needs to be removed to have a strike-free surface.
https://postimg.org/image/dw0yq0h2r/

both planes in this picture are dovetailed, but no evidence exists to be seen on either one. The infills are also tight and gap free on the overstuffing (except for a bit of damage on the spiers). That's no great accomplishment on my plane - it's new. But for the condition of the old spiers to be so good is really a testament to the materials and workmanship. It (the spiers) is a dandy to use, too. I don't generally like coffin smoothers, but an infill coffin smoother is a completely different animal.

 

[D_W]

With purple heart infills. Some of the hardest purpleheart I've found.

They'll be trimmed flush with the plane body later. The front is loose until the mouth is set.

https://postimg.org/image/fnslmcsz7/

 

[D_W]

https://s13.postimg.org/v9xcm6f07/20180225_131833.jpg
https://s13.postimg.org/mrnwhrg6f/20180225_131917.jpg

Rear infill trimmed and pinned, starting to clean the unneeded rubbish off with a vixen. Everything seems to lead to a cut or metal splinter. Opening the mouth to size is next.

 

[memzey]

Looking good David. Definitely some blood and sweat going into this build! Can’t wait to see the first end grain shavings it makes.

 

[D_W]

Interesting problem occurred last night when I peined the brass plate into place. It pulled the center of the sole up a significant amount. Possibly 3 Or 4 hundredths of an inch.

That leaves the chance that small voids will be exposed on the joints at the bottom, and those will be glaring.

Plus, it's going to be an enormous amount of physical work. Steel soles don't lap well like cast iron. They're gummy on a sandpaper lap, so spot filing is going to be the way.

On the bright side, the right side is nearly dead square to the sole, for now at least.