Dovetailed Infill - First Fumblings

[Richard T]

Second attempt; what a side should look like:

And retaining the full 5mm (apart from light grinding with flap wheel).

The other one is nearly finished. Now to concentrate on the frog block before I put it together.

 

[jimi43]

Boootiful work there Ricardo!!!

Hey...any chance of some close ups of the compound aspect of the dovetails...so that those of a soley wood disposition can see how this complicated joint would prevent the separation of the peined sides once done...for centuries to come..

Jim

 

[Richard T]

Yes Jim, will do. I'm going to concentrate on getting the tails in the sole cut before I set about the compounds, having studied all the pictures and writings I have found all over again. Then I've got to think about making a form to hold it while peening. I s'pose for a 2 - 1/8" iron sized plane I could use the same form over again ... question is, would it be easier/ possible to make one form in two halves and lots of different width spacers for in the middle an bolt 'em together or make a form for each width ...

 

[jimi43]

Is the frog part going in at the time of the assembly or afterwards...I can't quite picture how you are going to do that bit?

If after...how about a hardwood former...hardwood clamp side?

Does that make any sense?

I take it you have this diagram:

Can you post any links for research you may have....it would appear that you have done quite a bit of digging!

Cheers

Jim

 

[Richard T]

Since the shed and I have thawed out a bit I've been back in there doing a bit of nibbling.
The frog plate question has been answered by Peter McBride on page 6 of his Bench Rebate making demo

http://www.petermcbride.com/planemaking ... ebate6.htm

He has just used 6mm plate riveted through the sole. So that's just what I'm about to do. I've cut the plate out and found some 8mm round bar. Now is the point that I decide what angle this smoother is to be - as it's English and I'm not from Yorkshire I suppose it had better be 47.5 degrees. (Wish I had a degree symbol on this keyboard.)
Also now comes the decision about how much lateral movement to allow, and wonderings about why it's nessassserry at all? I've often wondered why, if the blade is sharpened square would it need to held anyway other than straight?
Anyway, what with this iron being an old'un and tapered, it is going to get looser as it is sharpened away, so maybe it's best to start off quite snug.
I'll try and get some photos took tonight.

 

[goldeneyedmonkey]

(Wish I had a degree symbol on this keyboard.)

I had to find out how to do this when I read it! Type 0176 whilst holding down Alt key °. Looks like nice work on the plane build as well

Cheers _Dan.

 

[Alf]

Alt+Shift+8 on a Mac, fwiw...

 

[AndyT]

On the question of 'why have lateral adjustment?' I think the answer is that, as a general principle, it's easier to make something adjustable than it is to make it absolutely accurate.

If you make the blade fit exactly, and then your sharpening is the tiniest bit out of square, you're stuck. But if you allow a little room, a gentle tap can make the shaving evenly thin all the way across.

Possibly also to allow for the whole thing not seizing up in the cold.

 

[xy mosian]

If you are jointing the edge of a board and manage to get a slight angle(out of square), set the blade high on one side and run the plane over it again to square the edge up.
xy

 

[Richard T]

I finished the sides yesterday and started on the joints on one side of the sole. I got it to bite in last thing last night, but I have to say, it's harder than it looks.
I have finally got round to getting a blue marker pen and a proper scriber. This is narrow enough to get in to the 5mm deep joints and I couldn't have done without it. There's another essential item to add to the list of kit.
So I had my really accurate scribed lines to work up to - worked up to them; nowhere near. Worked into them ... worked through them ... it was a long, slow process of taking off minute amounts then checking for fit. It would be very easy to end up with too much taken from one side of one joint and not enough from the other, but with all that constant checking I think it's going to be ok.
One thing is sure. Next time I will cut much steeper angled tails. It has been a real pain to have such tight corners at the tops of them. Although I got out all I could with a knife-profile Swiss file, they are always going to be rounder than the corners of the "pins" that should be fitting into them, which of course can easily be got point-sharp. Pictures to follow this evening.

Thanks for the tip off Dan - but when I do that, I get this

Andy, Yes I s'pose a wide blade is much more likely to get off square and lots harder to square up in sharpening than a narrow blade that is held fixed in a plough plane for eg. It's all academic for this plane of course due to the tapered iron but I just want it to have less play than the Veritas which has the habit of making several crazy side trips en route to its destination.
Xy - I've heard of people talking about this as an option, but I can't say I've ever had the need ... probably I just haven't done enough planing to have made quite all of the mistakes there are yet - although it feels like it sometimes

 

[goldeneyedmonkey]

Thanks for the tip off Dan - but when I do that, I get this

, don't do it across the top of the keyboard, do it on the NumPad on the right, and check whether 'Num Lock' is on. °.

 

[Richard T]

Ok ... ° =D>

47.5° Wayhey!

 

[xy mosian]

One thing is sure. Next time I will cut much steeper angled tails. It has been a real pain to have such tight corners at the tops of them. Although I got out all I could with a knife-profile Swiss file, they are always going to be rounder than the corners of the "pins" that should be fitting into them, which of course can easily be got point-sharp. Pictures to follow this evening.

Hey it's going great.
Would it be herecy to suggest taking the sharp corners off the pins? After all with all that peining going on nothing will show.

xy

 

[Richard T]

Ok, after half an hour of trying, I can't stay online long enough to get the pictures into the post so I'll have to try tomorrow.

Xy - If I didn't clean the corners of the tails out, they would have had no problems taking the sharp corners off the pins.
Got them quite a bit cleaner today and have had it all the way together.
Here's hoping for a better Virgin.net service tomorrow .... :evil:

 

[Richard T]

Ok, let's see if this works any better now...

Well, now photo bucket is playing up. This is not the picture I elected to attach :roll: but at least it shows both sides cut out, the back half of the sole half cut out, the frog plate blank and my proper scriber and mini cold chisel.
I'll consult the brains of the opperation and hopefully get more photos up soon.

 

[Richard T]

Right. Here's both sides and sole exploded fashion

and here how the first dovetails married up.

Though it doesn't look it, it's not in very far. Much fettling yesterday has cured this.

 

[jimi43]

Well Richard...that is a wonderful piece of work.

I think that some here know how difficult it is to do normal dovetails with no gaps in wood....but I think that few here have done complex dovetails with internal angles and would therefore not know how difficult this is.

I have only done it in brass and that was difficult enough...but to do it in steel takes pure skill and a lot of balls!

I applaud you for taking on the challenge and multiple encores for the success you have had so far!

Bravo buddy! That is some class work there!

Jim

 

[Richard T]

Thanks for the kind words Jim. But in my experience brass is harder to cut and shape. Mild steel is after all pretty much pure iron and it's really quite forgiving to a twit with a hacksaw. ( I wonder if anyone remembers an Adam Heart Davies programme that featured a battle between an iron and bronze sword - iron sword got badly dinked by bronze sword...) So although I'm looking forward to using brass or bronze, er, I'm also not.

I should say here, before I forget, that another thing I will do next time to save a lot of work is to buy bright steel plate rather than black. I know it's all going to be ground/filed back a lot anyway before I'm finished but all the marking shows up so much better through blue ink on a shiny surface. I wouldn't have thought it, but it does.

And just to side track a bit, when I started to think about making a dovetailed plane the kind I wanted to have the most was a coffin smoother a la stereotypical Norris. But I thought for a first attempt, a straight sided smoother would be easier. As I progress with this it is becoming more apparent just how much harder it would be to do this with curved sides.
My mind starts to wander into all the extra steps needed - sides need to follow exact contours of sole, so make (cast) form to shape red hot sides around? Or make batch of soles all held together in vice to form batch of sides on? Maybe ... maybe cold pressed ... I wonder how Norris did it.
Also to hold formed sides for dovetail marking/cutting wooden forms would be needed in the vice. One could have a reference line on it to take square to each joint line on the side ... there's just so much more to do and to boggle the mind.
I might have missed one but I haven't noticed any modern maker attempting it.
One day .....

 

[Richard T]

As I have the camera girl on duty all day, I thought I'd try and get some more explanitory cutting - out photos.

The other side of the sole draw filed smooth, blued and held in vice with piece of scrap pine supporting the side which is clamped down with a Carver to same piece of pine. About to scribe.

Having scribben, including square lines down to the depth line, I made hacksaw cuts just inside the outside angled lines. Then all the way along leaving less than a blades width between cuts and stopping short of the depth line.
Then the trick is to start to bend the first straight strip to and fro until it starts to fatigue.

Then it can eventually be broken out sideways. now the chisel can be got in (just, may have to break two out in some) and used to cut at the base of the stack of plates.

This is the fun bit. As more come out the chisel can be lowered and it gets easier and quicker.

Until we come to the corner triangular chunks which can be sawn out with a sideways strung hacksaw.

Lovely. Now lots of filing. Rather puts one off making a 28" jointer :shock:

 

[MickCheese]

Richard

Looking good and nice clear pictures.

Mick