Moulding Plane Blade coming loose

[GCS-Creations]

Hello!

New here and fairly new to woodworking really. I never enjoyed it at school, but I recently realised that the reason for that probably lay by the teachers I had, not the wood!.. I started turning acrylic fountain pens a while ago and really started to enjoy making things myself.
Though not a UK resident I thought I'd sign up here as I found quite a few topics about moulding planes with knowledgeable answers here and besides, my first language is english.

So - I received two planes I bought on a certain site a few days ago. I knew that one would be in need of more attention than the other with an iron that is a bit pitted and will need a bit of patience getting right again, but that one actually turned out to perform fairly decently. With that I mean to say that it cut and I managed to get a profile.

The other one however cut well at the start, then had a 'catch' which loosened the blade. Since then the blade will not stay put anymore and will wiggle itself free with every pass, and I simply can't figure out why!
Thought a video explains it better

I did notice two things inspecting the plane:
1. There seems to be a bit on the shoulder(?) that looks like it has been shaved off (by use?) over the years:


It looks like is starts getting wider at the red line I drew.


2. There's a crack up here, which I'm not happy about at all and might very well be the culprit?.. Considering that it looks like there is some dust in there I suppose it's been there for a while. Any suggestions on fixing this?


the images all should enlarge when clicked.

Mind, I'm absolutely new to planes really and I don't think I've used one before as far as I remember!

Next up: What kind of wood should I be looking at to use with these kind of planes?

Many thanks,
Geoffrey

 

[Racers]

You have a **** of a lot of blade sticking out, try slowly advancing it until it just cuts, and give the wedge a good tap every time you adjust the blade.
Make sure its sharp as a sharp thing and pick nice straight grained wood.
Some where is inevitable on a moulding plane.

Pete

 

[D_W]

1) someone did that intentionally, probably because there was a lip there that would otherwise get broken out by advancing the iron. You can ignore that.

2) Pull the crack up a little bit without breaking it off, slip thin CA glue into the joint and then clamp it tight - all with the wedge and iron out of the plane. Then cut a bevel in the front of the top going back toward the wedge, perhaps a couple of millimeters. It's unsightly, but it should take away the leverage point that is causing the chip to lift from the top of the plane.

3) that is an artifact of plane making (assuming you're talking about the mouth being wider at the higher areas of the bed. The further down the bed goes at certain parts of the profile, the narrower the mouth will be at that point. The bed of the plane and the "wear" opposite that wear are two planes (geometrically speaking) that would eventually intersect if the sole of the plane was lower. No worries, it's not a sign of wear or damage.

 

[GCS-Creations]

You have a **** of a lot of blade sticking out, try slowly advancing it until it just cuts, and give the wedge a good tap every time you adjust the blade.
Make sure its sharp as a sharp thing and pick nice straight grained wood.
Some where is inevitable on a moulding plane.

Pete

Yeah, I realise that now! I was trying to get it to 'stick out' the same far everywhere and then forgot about actually checking how far it's really poking out. However, no matter how far it did stick out it 'retracted' again and again.
Did sharpen it today, as best as I could with what I've got here, 400, 600, 1200 grit & micro mesh. Can't shave myself with it, but I hope it'll do!

1) someone did that intentionally, probably because there was a lip there that would otherwise get broken out by advancing the iron. You can ignore that.

2) Pull the crack up a little bit without breaking it off, slip thin CA glue into the joint and then clamp it tight - all with the wedge and iron out of the plane. Then cut a bevel in the front of the top going back toward the wedge, perhaps a couple of millimeters. It's unsightly, but it should take away the leverage point that is causing the chip to lift from the top of the plane.

3) that is an artifact of plane making (assuming you're talking about the mouth being wider at the higher areas of the bed. The further down the bed goes at certain parts of the profile, the narrower the mouth will be at that point. The bed of the plane and the "wear" opposite that wear are two planes (geometrically speaking) that would eventually intersect if the sole of the plane was lower. No worries, it's not a sign of wear or damage.

2 - I'm wondering if it actually has been glued already in the past, I can't manipulate it at all, and driving the wedge in also doesn't seem to change it in any way.
I'll upload a drawing of what I think I understood you suggesting before I take any action!

3 - The mouth seems to get wider at the "bottom" - nearer to the work piece. Combined with point 1 shavings get caught in there (or got caught, that one time it worked!), and getting the iron to rest on it is a bit tricky since that results in the iron being misaligned.

Is it me or does it seem to be pretty hard to explain? :roll:

 

[ED65]

If the split is stable you don't need to worry about it. It's just a cosmetic issue then.

If the iron's profile doesn't quite match the wood then it may indicate that previous sharpenings have slowly changed the shape. Fixing this is doable, but tricky, and it's a ton of work as you have to leave the lowest spot and remove the highs which is nearly the entire edge.

 

[AndyT]

Often, over a century or two, the wooden body of a plane will shrink. This can spoil the close match between the profile of the iron and the sole, with the result that it is impossible to get the iron protruding just enough along the entire edge. As Ed65 says, you can reshape the edge but it's a lot of work, with diamond files, slip stones or abrasive paper on sticks.
In your case there's an extra complication, as you have only just bought the plane. So you probably have no knowledge of how it has been stored. Was it indoors in a cool dry workshop, or outside in a leaky shed? It's possible that the body needs time in your location to stabilise. The fact that the wedge is not locking up nicely might be because of this. (Or it might be because the crack has changed the shape of the mortise.)

So I suggest that the first thing you should do is store the plane in your own workshop, assembled but with the wedge loose, for a few months so it can settle down. Then have a careful look at how the parts fit before removing any steel or wood.

 

[ED65]

Good advice ^

And when Andy says a few months take that literally, not "It's been a few weeks, that should be enough, I'll go check on it now..." (been there, done that). Even on something with much less beef in the wood like a marking gauge it can take more than a couple of months for it to reach equilibrium with its new surroundings.

 

[GCS-Creations]

Often, over a century or two, the wooden body of a plane will shrink. This can spoil the close match between the profile of the iron and the sole, with the result that it is impossible to get the iron protruding just enough along the entire edge. As Ed65 says, you can reshape the edge but it's a lot of work, with diamond files, slip stones or abrasive paper on sticks.
In your case there's an extra complication, as you have only just bought the plane. So you probably have no knowledge of how it has been stored. Was it indoors in a cool dry workshop, or outside in a leaky shed? It's possible that the body needs time in your location to stabilise. The fact that the wedge is not locking up nicely might be because of this. (Or it might be because the crack has changed the shape of the mortise.)

So I suggest that the first thing you should do is store the plane in your own workshop, assembled but with the wedge loose, for a few months so it can settle down. Then have a careful look at how the parts fit before removing any steel or wood.

Will do that and will be back here in a few months!
Suits me well too, I'll need this one for a coffee table project but I don't yet know how to tackle it. I've got the legs but nothing else and roughly know how it should look.
A few more months of thinking won't harm.

 

[GCS-Creations]

"I'll be back here In a few months" I said.

Andy, you were absolutely right, the blade locks up nicely now.

I do still have one issue with it though, shavings still get stuck at the blade, after one or two passes it won't cut at all anymore.
I'm sure this is a easy-ish fix, but I don't want to do anything wrong obviously!







I was wondering if the wedge not having a nice tip anymore might have something to do with it? If I think "aerodynamically" it's definitely not the best shape to let shavings pass through.
Thoughts?

Thanks for your help (two years ago!), I hope everyone is fine and this this topic bump is allowed.

Cheers,
Geoffrey

 

[AndyT]

You could well be right. The tip does need to be carefully shaped to deflect the shavings.