Infill Smoothing Plane WIP - now complete with pics.

[Aled Dafis]

Hi,I’m still waiting for delivery of the Small Smoother sole plates, so I’ve finally got back onto my large smoother project, and have made some progress this week.

In building this plane, I decided to try out a different assembly technique, of screwing the sides of the plane to the sole, much in the way that Karl Holtey and Ron Brese do.

The length of the sole will be 215mm (8 1/2″) and the 6mm (1/4″) thick iron is 60mm (2 3/8″ ish) wide, set at a 50 degree pitch. The sole is made from 10mm Gauge Plate, and the sides are 5mm Brass. When I finish, I envisage this plane to weigh around 7 - 8 lbs, so it’s going to be a hefty bit of kit!!

Here’s a few pics of where I’ve got to so far.

The rear sole plate is my second attempt, as I managed to break two taps during the threading operation - this method of assembly is definately high risk! I’m unsure as to whether I’ll use this assembly method again, at the moment the risks far outweigh the gains.

The screw heads will be slighly countersunk, and then peined, before being filed and lapped. This “should” result in an almost invisible joint - here’s hoping!!

I’ve ordered a fine tooth bandsaw blade from Workshop Heaven, so the next job will be to cut the sides to shape, and then start thinking about shaping the lever cap, which incidentaly will be cut from a 12mm thick billet of brass. You’ll notice from my first picture that I’ve already made a lever cap screw, but I might tweak the design a little again, I find the flat face a little boring.

I hope to get a little more done this week.

Cheers

Aled

 

[newt]

Aled, why dont you cut the brass sides with a band saw, if you have one, I do.

 

[Chems]

He said he is going to once his new blade arrives from Workshop Heaven.

 

[newt]

Aled Chems, serious brain fade did not read properly thought you were going to saw by hand.

 

[Chems]

I suffer from that 24/7

Smoother is looking good, will be very attractive once finished I would think.

 

[Aled Dafis]

Hi, it’s been a while but I have made some progress on my large smoothing plane.

I’d never made a plane handle before, so i decided to have a go with an offcut of beech, before commiting myself to something a little more interesting. I’m not quite sure what wood to use yet, but I’m thinking that a darker wood would look good against the brass sides, Walnut maybe? Bubinga? Cocobolo? Your comments would be most welcome. Also, where can I get hold of such small pieces of these timbers? I guess that woodturning blanks would be a good bet. I’d also like ideas as to what to do with the front bun.

The iron is yet to be hardened and tempered, but that shouldn’t take me too long. It’s massive, at a full 6mm thick, so chatter shouldn’t be much of an issue.

The lever cap is held in place using spring loaded pins, as Jim Kingshot documented in his book “Making and Modifying Woodworking Tools”.

Although the plane looks almost complete, there’s still a lot of shaping, tweaking and lapping to be done, I’m probably no more than half way through the build at the moment. Getting the infills to fit well is going to be quite a task!

Cheers

Aled

 

[Mr Ed]

That looks really promising Aled - for a man only a few planes into this you're turning out some very professional looking work.

Wood choice is personal, but I favour the darker woods as they look better to my eye.

Cheers, Ed

 

[Karl]

That looks like a really nice piece of work Aled - looking forward to seeing it finished.

Cheers

Karl

 

[bugbear]

The rear sole plate is my second attempt, as I managed to break two taps during the threading operation - this method of assembly is definately high risk! I’m unsure as to whether I’ll use this assembly method again, at the moment the risks far outweigh the gains.

What percentage thread height are you targetting?

BugBear

 

[newt]

Aled, are you going to use quarter sawn wood to reduce the effect of changes across the width of the plane?. I think a dark wood would look best against the brass. Yandels stock turning blanks in a number of exotic wood species.

 

[Mikey R]

Aled, are you going to use quarter sawn wood to reduce the effect of changes across the width of the plane?. I think a dark wood would look best against the brass. Yandels stock turning blanks in a number of exotic wood species.

Just out of interest, has anyone here considdered acrylic impregnated wood for toolmaking? I thnk the Blue Spruce tools use this stuff.

I dont know of anyone in the UK doing acrylicised wood, but Larry Davis at galleryhardwoods.com in the US does. I think I remember him saying he can do boards up to 50mm think, maybe more.

Yo could even get the wood dyed in the acrylic, so you could have any coloured infill you like. Just a thought. :?:

 

[newt]

Mike I think that is a very good tip.

 

[Aled Dafis]

Anybody know of a wood impregnator in the UK?

(No dirty comments please)

(Well if you must, PM me)

Cheers

Aled

 

[Aled Dafis]

The rear sole plate is my second attempt, as I managed to break two taps during the threading operation - this method of assembly is definately high risk! I’m unsure as to whether I’ll use this assembly method again, at the moment the risks far outweigh the gains.

What percentage thread height are you targetting?

BugBear

That may have been one of my problems, I was going for a full thread i.e. drilling a 4.2mm hole for M5 screws. I would have been better off drilling a 4.4 or even a 4.5mm hole.

The other problem I think I had was that the taps were no good. If I go for this assembly method again, I think that I should invest in good quality taps, or even go for a spiral flute machine tap in order for it to clear all the swarf out of the hole. Lots of lube also helps.

If you have any more advice, or can point me towards a good resource on drilling / tapping i'd be glad to hear from you.

Cheers

Aled

 

[newt]

Aled, SKF I believe are very high quality, but are not cheap. I would still drill at 4.2 which is correct for 5mm I.S.O. metric course thread. Blind holes are always risky but you have something in your favour the depth you can drill. I would drill 5mm or even more deeper than required that will give you some lee way if chips get compressed. Lots of lub and back off every 2nd whole turn. Have you a compressor, as this will reduce risk by blowing out swarf say when you are half way (be careful of your eyes ). Also you do need to by at right angles in both planes, trying to correct an error once under way is often fatal with that size of tap.

 

[Boz62]

Aled, are you using the full set of three taps - Taper, Plug, then finally Bottoming? That is really the only way to do blind tapped holes consistently, particularly on hard steels. I'm afraid I'm even more cautious and do 3/4 turn forward, 1/4 turn back - it's a natural rhythm with a tap holder. After the taper tap, the plug and bottoming taps go in much more easily, so it's usually not too laborious.

I'm really enjoying watching and learning from these projects with a mix of mechanical and wood engineering

Boz

 

[Aled Dafis]

Yes Boz, I used the full range of taps, but I may have been a little light on the lube on the first few holes.

My technique is also to go about 3/4 turns forward and 1/4 back, so that shouldn't be the problem. I think that the cheap taps were mainly to blame. I'll have a go with better taps next time.

Cheers

Aled

 

[Aled Dafis]

Well, I've finally completed the plane. July was absolutely frantic at school so I didn't get much done, but August has been a bit quieter.

I decided to go for Ebonised Walnut for the infill in the end, for the simple reason that Walnut was the only dark, close grained timber that my local supplier had in stock. I'd never tried ebonising before, but it really is frighteningly simple, and I think that it turned out pretty well. The finish on the wood is a few coats of Danish oil followed by a little wax.

The vital statistics are:
Sole length - 215mm (8 1/2")
Overall length - 235mm (9 1/4")
Iron - 60mm (2 3/8") wide by 6mm (1/4") thick
Pitch - 50 deg
Mouth opening - about 3 or 4 thou (pretty dammed tight)
Mass - 2.8kg (6lb 4oz)

And just to prove that it works, here are a few shavings.

Cheers for looking

Aled

 

[Blister]

Man :shock:

That's the mut's nuts

Very nice 8)

 

[wizer]

Agreed, very nice. Are you selling this kit Aled? Do you have a price worked out yet?