Going to try and make an infill plane

[g7g7g7g7]

I've been watching bill carters videos on youtube, reading his website and had a look at a few plane building and metalworking guides and I feel like I'm just about ready to have a bash at making one. I'm going to follow the principles behind the English Mitre Plane pattern but I am not going to bend the back right round, I'm considering attempting to dovetail the front, back, wedge clamp and sides together to the bottom. My first step I think is to find a reasonably priced 1 3/4 to 2" tapered iron that's never had a slot cut for a chip breaker. I have some roughly 2 1/2" wide under 1/4" thin mild which would be fine for a sole, some 1/8" ish brass already so it's not going to be a big expensive investment but it is going to be a massive timesink.

I'm going into this with the awareness that this probably isn't something an amateur should "have a bash" at but the worst thing that's going to happen is that I waste my time and a few quid on an old blade, as a break from the usual schedule rather than just running ahead and making a load of daft mistakes I'm going to attempt to share actual drawings and plans first and try and get some information from people here before I make a useless monstrosity.

Premise - A Mitre plane is for end grain, therefore it should have a low bed angle.
Problem - How far can I take that, how ridiculous can you go, is 15 degrees too far?

Anyway this is what I've got so far any criticisms are welcome.

https://imgur.com/gallery/q6Dvt

 

[Ttrees]

Is that an adjustable mouth?
I would be inclined to try bending the sides if it is brass your making them from...
Never done so though
If I'm not mistaken the well liked, departed Richard T made a mitre plane WIP on this forum.

Tom

 

[D_W]

Before you do a good plane, make a high angle single iron smoother of inch and a half iron size. Your first go at the dovetails may not go perfectly, but you'll learn a ton without sinking 80 hours into a nice plane.

I can give you measurements for such a first plane.

The second plane will go much better than the first.

I think infills are ideal for an amateur, they just require a bit of sweat and patience, but not much tooling.

 

[g7g7g7g7]

Not an adjustable mouth but a tongue and groove in steel. I think Bill Carter spot welds or solders these to keep them together whilst he's working, I don't have any welding or soldering equipment so was considering drilling, countersinking and peening a brass rod through it to keep it shut instead, but well aware I'll probably just smash all of it to bits.

I'd go for a wrap around but I don't have brass long enough and this is all about keeping costs low, I could make a miniature (2.5-3") higher angle as practice instead possibly.

I have to agree about lack of equipment needed being a big draw to the project.

 

[D_W]

Lots of bad things can happen bending brass (deformation, wrinkling, cracking. Stick to straight pieces for now.

I don't know what your inclination is for things in general, but the plane you showed I'd consider a reasonable challenge after 5 infills.

The small narrow smoother I suggested is about 6 or 7 inches long. I can take measurements, but it's what I'd suggest, because it's useful once in a while even though the first plane ends up being ugly.

If I have to plane something really hard that's small (like a thin ebony wedge that's sitting in some sort of jig), I get mine out once in a while. It's nice for that. Otherwise, it's a heavy little booger that isn't that comfortable, but I'm so glad I made it and didn't make a full sized smoother the first go.

I have seen other tutorials that suggest just taking two pieces of metal and dovetailing them together, but there's all kinds of things that you'll find out actually making planes:
* how the metal behaves when you hammer it
* how to clean up the pins and tails when they don't quite fit at first, and do it without creating gaps
* how the metal parts pinch together off of a peining block

even simple stuff like drilling. You've maybe drilled a lot of metal, but what about when you really don't want hundredth or two of wander - how do you mark the spots with limited tooling and then get an accurate hole where the mark was.

You'll appreciate it, and if you have great luck with the metal part, you can really hone in on the wood infill and get the fitting and shaping nice and have a decent usable plane in about 35 hours.

Just hammering two pieces of metal together leaves you knowing about 10% of what you'll want to know.

 

[D_W]

By the way, you can smash that T&G joint together tight just by making it a reasonably tight fit from the start and making sure that you close the pins on it firmly. It won't be an issue. The solder will hide the joint, but you can do that just filing the sides of the plane when you're done - it'll disappear.

 

[Bm101]

You're probably well aware of it already but in case you haven't seen it Jim Kingshott's book is well worth a read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Modifyi ... 0946819327

Good luck, looking forward to any progress reports!
Cheers
Chris

 

[D_W]

I realize "close the pins tightly" might be lost on some above. By that, I mean you can influence the metal a little bit with peining order and how hard you pein certain spots.

Measurements for the learning plane that I mentioned:
Length 6 3/4"
Distance from the toe to the front of the mouth (the mouth should be small, aim at zero and then open it as part of the build process to learn to do that - it's important): 1 7/8"
Width of the plane inside the sides: iron width plus 1/16th or a fat 16th for lateral adjustment (more than that, and the plane will look sloppy
Total height is about the same as total width
Sole thickness: 3/16" (no bedding block behind the mouth in mine)
side thickness: 1/8"
my iron is 3/16th thick (single iron) and bedded at 55 degrees.

No reason to make a single iron plane bedding lower than that.

I never did actually finish this one (it's still rough on the outside), but the plane itself works great on small really hard stuff where a full sized smoother is awkward.

If you wanted to have a plane that you could use, you can overstuff the back so that your fingers aren't constantly into the back edge of the iron.

 

[g7g7g7g7]

I like the size of that one, it's worth thinking about, the conflict I have is with the tooling required to make the lever cap so would stick with a wedge instead.

Did you make the blade yourself or is that a found one, I did come across an old single iron at a car boot recently but it was surprisingly thin and offensively priced.

Other than that there's a seller with some old stock Herring blades in a few different sizes as it's the only thing I'm purchasing for the plane a 1 1/2" for £7 ish or a 2" for £9 seems reasonable.

 

[D_W]

It's a hock iron, but a one-off that ron had at one point. It's 1 1/2 inches wide and 3/16th thick, but it's 5 inches long, which is unusual.

The lever cap is an easier type than usual. It's a slab of brass with groove in the front that the cross pin fits in. It's more easily tunable if you miss the mark a little bit with your drill holes.

I have some herring irons, but i haven't used them. I'd prefer something thicker for single iron, but you can do a plane like this with double iron and a wedge without too much issue. 3/16ths for the iron makes it easier to deal with the mouth (Because it's larger front to back) by giving you more room to file.

The lever cap screw is just standard fare from industrial supply. If I made this plane again, I'd make the iron, but I have made a bunch of irons and didn't know that it would be as easy to get right as it is.

 

[g7g7g7g7]

Got myself an old herring blade for this contraption, it's very heavy and much thicker than I expected which looks great so far, anyway that's the start of this process underway now I can get things going this weekend.

 

[D_W]

Good deal. Look forward to threads that end up with actual making!! They don't get a lot of comment traffic for some reason, but we all get better if we build and encourage each other to build.