Bronze casting infill plane WIP

[gasman]

sorry for the delays in posting
I only got bits and pieces done over the weekend but significant progress made nonetheless
I flattened the sole using 80G paper on my (flattish) workbench - no gaps against a straightedge

From my friendly light engineers up the road I got them to cut me off a chunk of phosphor bronze large enough to cut out the lever cap - but this chunk weighs just about 2kg so cost me £50 - however I will have lots left over

Then I cut a cardboard template and roughly hacked this bronze lump apart with hacksaws, drills, dremel cutters etc until I had this - then like Jimi I drilled the hole for the lever cap screw and tapped it before doing any more shaping

I missed out a few steps for this next bit - the adjuster - but it was all straightforward
This is a copy of the Norris adjuster so there was still one detail to add - the ability to tighten the 40 TPI thread with a little screw
So, I drilled a 2.5mm hole though the pivot piece, tapped it to M3, countersunk it, then cut a slot in the side and drilled the top half to 3mm so that it can be tightened then it was just a question of finding a countersunk M3 screw

A bit of careful measuring up etc and, again comparing the Norris I have... I drilled a 3/4" hole for the pivot piece to sit in

I did think about cutting out the rest of the adjuster recess on the mill once again but it was quicker and quite easy easy to do it with Forstner bits, chisels etc until I had this

The adjuster fitted quite well

Then I drilled a 7mm hole in the base of the hole where the pivot piece sits for the locating brass tube to sit in, but actually it was easier to enlarge this to 7.5mm and then epoxy the tube in so that it sat at the right angle

This whole thing had been something I had been concerned about but actually it was all quite straightforward and Richard thank you a fantastic way to fit the adjuster
Light at end of long tunnel I think??
Cheers Mark

 

[Biliphuster]

Locking very professional there.

 

[rxh]

More good progress. I think your adjuster will have very little backlash.

What is the bronze like to saw and file, compared with brass?

 

[gasman]

Thanks Richard
Bronze seems oK to me to work - probably only took me 15 minutes or so to cut out that piece from the circular cross-section. The disk sender cuts it at a reasonable speed and it seems OK to me. I wish I was able to melt down all the bits I have as I would have enough for another one and the rest - but I think the melting point of phosphor bronze is 1000C or so so that wont be happening in my kitchen anytime soon!
Regards
Mark

 

[n0legs]

Lovely job Mark =D>
Keep it coming, it's one of the things making logging in worthwhile.

 

[MickCheese]

Just found this. Don't know how I missed it but now subscribed.

Fantastic work and a really interesting write up.

Well done so far.

Mick

 

[gasman]

Got an hour done last night and started in earnest on the lever cap
milled it into roughly the shape I wanted

There is quite a bit of filing etc to do

And some work to do on the back to get a curved surface

Also cut the thread for the lever cap screw

Lots of work to do but the general shape is getting there

More this weekend
Cheers M

 

[gasman]

More progress this week - solved a couple of minor problems and all going alright I think
First I worked on the lever cap some more with files, a dremel, sandpaper etc etc

Meanwhile I needed to work on the lever cap screw. I only had some 1" brass rod which I did not think was meaty enough - so instead I used another piece of my chunk of phosphor bronze so marked out a 28mm circle

and cut a chunk off roughly with my trusty hacksaw

Then I drilled an 8.5mm hole in the centre of it, tapped that with my 7/16 acme tap and epoxied the 7/16" thread rod from earlier into it and left it overnight
Then it was just a question of knurling the end and tidying up

I polished up the lever cap on the polishing wheel - you can literally take it from 120G Abranet straight to the polisher

So here is where I have got to...

still need to do the following;
- tidy up the brass ends of the plane which are tatty
- make the infills fit exactly
- Tru-Oil the infills until they are glassy
- then epoxy them in place
- sort out how I am going to fix the lever cap in place
- polish the whole thing
- think about engraving my mark on it - the iron is better than I had feared and I think with practice I could do it with a Dremel etc - we will see
Thanks for looking
Mark

 

[AndyT]

How satisfying it must be to turn that lump of bronze into something so elegantly shaped and shiny!

Thanks for taking us along on your journey.

 

[Racers]

Very nice.

Are you doing chamfers on the sides?

Pete

 

[rxh]

That's a very good looking lever cap. It deserves the very best for its inscription. I thoroughly recommend Ian at Chalco to do this for you.

 

[gasman]

Thanks guys
I haven't decided Pete - what do you think? I think at the one not but I am easily persuadable.
Richard point taken about Ian at Chalco but I like the idea of doing it all myself. I am going to try over the weekend on a scrap of bronze and see how it is. If my wife says it is as good as the other one from Ian I will do it myself
Thanks again
Mark

 

[Racers]

Chamfers are traditional, I would do them but it's a lot of work and tricky to do.

Pete

 

[liamscanlan]

It's looking great. I greatly admire your skill and rate of progress. I'm still looking.... (for a bronze casting!) - this is inspirational, please keep up with the excellent photographs.

Liam

 

[AndyT]

I'm still looking.... (for a bronze casting!)

Liam

At the risk of repeating myself, https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/source-of-infill-bodies-or-kits-t42651.html

 

[liamscanlan]

Thanks Andy. I will call them tomorrow and see if they have any for panel planes...

Liam

 

[gasman]

I bought some centre drills from eBay and they worked brilliantly - here drilling the 1/4" holes in the sides of the plane

I had used the base as a reference to ensure the 2 holes were exactly opposite each other

Then started to make the corresponding holes in the lever cap - I drilled one side to 5mm

and then tapped it with a 1/4" 32 TPI tap

The corresponding die was used to cut thread in some 1/4" mild steel bar

I cut off longer than I wanted and roughly cut a slot in the end with a hacksaw so I could use a screwdriver to insert

Once one side was mounted I marked the other side and drilled that in the right place

All looking good? Unfortunately very definitely not, as my sunday morning evolved I realised how I had c****d up and that there was little I could do to repair the damage
Basically my original mistake was in the original machining of the casting - although the sides are flat, true and perpendicular to the base on the outside, I had not paid much attention to the insides which I think have mentioned before are not perpendicular - so that the infills are in fact slightly wedge-shaped with the distance between the sides getting smaller the closer to the sole.
That made it reasonably straightforward to sort out the infills - everytime I took off a bit I could get them in slightly further
Unfortunately for the lever cap this is a recipe for disaster.
When I filed the lever cap to fit I kept taking bronze off the sides so it would sit in the right place - but too late I realised that I had taken off too much so there was going to be a gap at the top.

It looks hideous to me - made worse actually by the fact that the left hand side is almost parallel sided but the right hand side is much more wedge-shaped - so the laver cap sits asymmetrically
So my options as I see it are;
1. accept the fault and live with it - the lever cap actually sits very robustly and holds the iron absolutely fine - even though the infills are only secured by friction at the moment
2. remake the lever cap - but it will need to be made asymmetrically with a sloping edge to the right side and a straight edge on the left which I wouldn't like either
3. Make the sides flat - but then I would have to start again with everything - new infills, new lever cap etc etc - not sure I have the stomach for that
4. throw the whole thing away - I did consider this briefly
I will ponder some this week - words of advice / commiseration / beratement welcome
Given this imperfection - I am also not sure I have the stomach for bevelling the sides but time will help calm me down!
Cheers Mark

 

[AndyT]

Mark,

I have looked closely at your photo of your 'hideous' lever cap, blown up on a 21" monitor, trying to find the horrible crevasses you say that it has.
They don't show!

I know that what you describe happens in most projects - as the person who made it, you see those huge, glaring faults. But everyone else sees the whole thing, as a beautiful, symmetrical, shiny object, not as an assembly of faulty bits!
So please, accept no 1, and enjoy having a well made fully functional plane, and if you go on to make a second one, that's the time to worry about getting an even gap all the way round the lever cap.

 

[liamscanlan]

Commiserations Mark. Not easy being a perfectonist, is it? DAMHIKT

However, certainly from the photographs it doesn't look bad at all. Would anybody notice without extremely close examination?
In any event, I thing what I would do is progress as planned and if possible use a reversable method for the rentention of the lever cap so that if/when the irk becomes too great and the time becomes available, you can take a leisurely approach to correcting the 'flaw'. I doubt it will have any great functional impact and you have the benefit of being able to use the plane until such time as you 'need' to do the correction. (I personally can't see the flaw in the photograph or the need to correct it!....

I still thnk it looks stunning. However, you could always start over (you have my address!)

Liam

 

[Racers]

File the edges of the cap so the gap is parallel to the sides bung in a couple of washers and forget about it.

Looks fine to me as well.

Pete