Observations/questions on using a Record 050C plough plane

[Bodgers]

So I bought another plane (it is becoming a disease I think). It is a Record plough plane.

Looks to be in usable condition, most of the cutters have not been out of the packet since the seventies when it was new by the look of them.

I sharpened up a couple of bits and got ready to do some test cuts in pine. A frustrating 15 minutes followed where I eventually figured out that I wasn't making any progress due to a secondary depth stop type thing being only used for the beading bits. Once that was ditched, I was on my way.

I now switched to the real job at hand - some beech strips I have that I am using as a sort of cap for a tool wall/panel. Basically cutting a 9mm square rebate down each length.

Some observations...

- I badly need a workbench. A B&D workmate and a plough plane don't play well together. I found it very difficult stabilising the whole setup with the direction and force needed on this plane.

- The shaving build up is very annoying in this plane. It is basically clogged after 3-4 strokes. What makes this worse is there are so many ways to cut yourself on this plane whilst removing shavings. There are two different leading edge scoring blades and the blade itself, not to mention other sharp edges. I had blood streaming down my hand from multiple different small cuts in this little session.

- I was planing strips about 1.3m long and 25mm thick. I had real trouble finding a clamping technique that didn't result in the fence bottoming out on the B&D workmate. Not sure how that would be any better clamped on a proper workbench...you need full open access down one side that you are making the cut on, and with a narrow strip it allows no room to run the plane down the length of the work piece.

- this is hard work. It took me around 30 mins to put a rebate in 9mm X 9mm down these lengths. Blade was sharp, (600 grit, 1200 grit diamond stone followed by leather strop), but there is a weird kind of sweet spot with this plane where it only seems to plane smoothly when it is taking a pretty thick shaving, any shallower and it seems not do anything. But the depth of cut means it can dig in occasionally - sort of like the natural inclination of a chisel. I found the method of starting at the end of the work piece and progressing backwards essential.

I did have a fantasy of tongue and grooving some wall panels with this, but I think at 30 mins per 1m or so I maybe having second thoughts

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I have one of these too, and I do rather enjoy using it, despite its weaknesses.

The shaving ejection - or lack thereof - is quite annoying, with practice you learn to poke them out (with a pencil ?) and cut yourself less in the process ! Thicker shavings come out a bit better than thin on mine. I thought at first it was how I was holding the plane, putting my fingers in the way, but it seems to be inherent.

You could back off the spurs if they are not needed (like, most of the time) to reduce injury potential.

I've mostly done narrow grooves - around 6mm - and find it not too hard work, eased with candle wax. It is quite important that the two skates and the fence are parallel though; turn it upside down and eye up the fence and adjust to parallel, there is enough slop on the rods that you can't rely on it being automatically aligned well. For wide grooves is gets harder going - I'm not sure that the widest cutters >20mm are even useable ?

You might be able to take the fence off once the groove is started to avoid bottoming out ? I normally manage to clamp the wood with the end-vice and a bench stop just overhanging the front of the bench (so that the fence runs on the workpiece not the bench itself !) but all sorts of ingenious arrangements and jigs are possible.

 

[DTR]

I also have a Record 050, although mine's the earlier version with the enclosed metal handle. It's my go-to plough for anything over 1/4" width (1/4" or less I use a Marples 043, mainly because I have one )

I now switched to the real job at hand - some beech strips I have that I am using as a sort of cap for a tool wall/panel. Basically cutting a 9mm square rebate down each length.

Rebate or groove? While it is possible to cut a rebate with a plough, it's not the best tool for the job. The thin skate on a plough tends to let the plane tip over when cutting rebates (admittedly your 050 has two skates).

- The shaving build up is very annoying in this plane. It is basically clogged after 3-4 strokes.

Yep. I haven't met a plough yet that doesn't clog. I'll have to try my woody plough again, see if that's any better.

What makes this worse is there are so many ways to cut yourself on this plane whilst removing shavings.

Yep, although rebate planes are worse. I have a scar on my left palm given to me by a skew rebate. Planes with a fence are usually better as the fence partially obscures the blade.

There are two different leading edge scoring blades and the blade itself,

I wonder if this is why you found it so difficult. Are you using the two little nicker blades that sit inside the skates? There's no need to use then when planing along the grain. Their purpose is to make a clean cut when planing across the grain, otherwise the main blade will rip the grain out. IMHO though, they're not much good at that either. I prefer to mark the grove with a knife when ploughing across the grain.

- I was planing strips about 1.3m long and 25mm thick. I had real trouble finding a clamping technique that didn't result in the fence bottoming out on the B&D workmate. Not sure how that would be any better clamped on a proper workbench...you need full open access down one side that you are making the cut on, and with a narrow strip it allows no room to run the plane down the length of the work piece.

You need a "sticking board". It's just a board with a fence that the work sits up against, and a stop at one end. If you arrange the "bed" of the sticking board to be slightly narrower than your stock, then the fence will hang over the side.

- this is hard work. It took me around 30 mins to put a rebate in 9mm X 9mm down these lengths. Blade was sharp, (600 grit, 1200 grit diamond stone followed by leather strop), but there is a weird kind of sweet spot with this plane where it only seems to plane smoothly when it is taking a pretty thick shaving, any shallower and it seems not do anything. But the depth of cut means it can dig in occasionally - sort of like the natural inclination of a chisel. I found the method of starting at the end of the work piece and progressing backwards essential.

I did have a fantasy of tongue and grooving some wall panels with this, but I think at 30 mins per 1m or so I maybe having second thoughts

See the bit above about (not) using the nickers. Also bear in mind that the inside of the groove is usually hidden so the finish isn't that important.

 

[DTR]

Sorry, just noticed that Tony got in before I did.

Derek made a very fancy sticking board, I hope he doesn't mind me posting this:

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTo ... Board.html

Of course something much simpler will also work, it just won't be adjustable.

 

[AndyT]

Other people type faster, but here's my answer.

Not cutting, then cutting too thick is probably a symptom of going the wrong way of the grain. Try turning the wood end for end, if you can.

As for holding the work, you need a sticking board. Sounds more complicated than it is, but it's just three bits of scrap. Size it to suit your requirements. Start with a board longer than your work and wider than one part of the workmate top.
Screw a narrower piece along the whole length, back from the left hand edge, effectively giving you a rebate a little bit narrower than your workpiece. Put a screw at one end as a stop - don't screw it all the way down. Leave about 10mm sticking up.

Screw a batten underneath the wide board, arranged so that when you grip it in the workmate jaws, the left hand side of the work is free of the workmate.

With very long pieces you might need a nail at the other end to keep it under control. The trad method was the "bench knife". A search for that alongside Richard Arnold or Richard Maguire should find some pictures which will make more sense.

Hth.

 

[Tasky]

I badly need a workbench. A B&D workmate and a plough plane don't play well together.

I have an old, knackered, ricketty, second hand Workzone one (I assume that's Lidl or Aldi). Yes, a solid bench really does help!!!!!

There are two different leading edge scoring blades and the blade itself, not to mention other sharp edges. I had blood streaming down my hand from multiple different small cuts in this little session.

Do you have them sticking out quite far, or something?
Where are you placing your off-hand? On the fence, right?
You're not trying to push the fence inward, or twisting on the handle to force everything square/flush, perhaps?

I had real trouble finding a clamping technique that didn't result in the fence bottoming out on the B&D workmate.

F-clamp it to the face of the workmate top, so the working edge of the wood is flush with the edge of the workmate. Then you can run the fence along both.

Have you tried fitting a longer/wider wooden face piece to the metal fence, at all? Some people find that helps.

you need full open access down one side that you are making the cut on

Why?
Just work backwards in sections, unclamping and shuffling the piece along as needed.

Not the C, but perhaps this is of interest?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLKZ1RV6uUo

 

[Bodgers]

Thanks for the responses people. To cover the questions...

I am going along the grain, not cross grain. Along the edge. Although as Andy suggested, I could have been against the grain at one point, as I think there was a change in grain direction in one of the pieces as I was getting a little bit of tear out at one point. The difficulty here is that once the plane is setup, you can't really swap sides easily. I see Veritas have left and right rabbet planes - now I see why.

I have both of the little scoring blades in. The manually says it helps score the edge to prevent tear out. I have no idea if they are set right. I will try and raise them (or even remove), so they don't dig too much. I appreciate the finish doesn't have to be that good being on the inside - to be honest, in the beech, the finish isn't that bad actually, it is just the blood and effort that went into getting there!

I haven't added a wood fence yet, but I plan to. After a bit of practice, I didn't have too much trouble keeping it square, but I know this will help.

Thanks for the advice on the sticking board. I will see if I can throw something up. I was using two f-clamps at the back end (one in front of each other to try and stabilise left/right movement) but obviously with a long work piece and short workmate, I was doing a lot of re-clamping as I progressed down the length of the work piece with the plane.




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[NickN]

In my extremely limited experience:

For your groove/rebate along the grain you should definitely remove or lift out of the way the spurs or nickers - they are just for cross grain use and might even make it more difficult for what you're trying to do.

I recently made two 1.5 metre long 6mm wide 10mm deep grooves in pine and, using the Stanley 13-050 plane, it took about 10 minutes for each one. Obviously beech will be considerably tougher, so I'm not sure that your 30 minutes is *completely* absurd - yes it is hard work and yes it takes some time.

And as has been said, I found a wooden attachment to the metal fence made a world of difference in not only squareness but in making a smoother gliding motion, and preventing bruising or burnishing of the material being ploughed.

 

[Bodgers]

Again thanks for the responses on this.

These were the results, if anyone is interested...

https://youtu.be/GkduW_vMa3E

 

[Tasky]

I seem to recall someone mentioning that they lightly rounded off the edges of the irons, to prevent them tearing up the walls of the grooves.
Not sure if that's of any use, but I might try it on my own as I get horrendous tear-out even on something as basic as plywood.

 

[custard]

I get horrendous tear-out even on something as basic as plywood.

I suspect tear out on ply with a plough plane would be far worse than with solid timber.

There's alternating cross grain and long grain, plus the UF glue that's used to bond ply together is glass hard and will quickly blunt the cutter.

Working with ply is really a job for power tools and tungsten carbide tooling, specifically for grooves or rebates in ply (or MDF) I'd go straight to a power router.

 

[D_W]

If you're going to cut grooves in ply, you really need something more like a dado plane with accurately set nickers to score the wood and then lift it out.

Custard's right in general, especially with really hard plies that are abrasive and filled with glue, but you can get by with hand tools in them if you need to (expect to sharpen more, and expect something that doesn't really feel good to work).

I'm sure most peoples' reactions are "dado planes aren't made in ply sizes", which is true. However, some of them are close and the irons and nickers can be narrowed (as well as the soles) to work in ply - but you need to be capable of doing those things accurately and understand what's important in terms of design aspects in the planes so that you don't make a plane that jams in the cut, etc.

 

[AndyT]

I seem to recall someone mentioning that they lightly rounded off the edges of the irons, to prevent them tearing up the walls of the grooves.

I'd advise against that. Indeed, I reckon that on the forward sides of the cutter a nice sharp corner will help shear off the wood at the sides, like a mortice chisel does when you tilt it to break the chip.
You can grind a degree or so of relief behind the leading edges if you want, making the cutter trapezoidal in cross section. This is normal on the big old irons in wooden ploughs but I've not seen it on the little cutters in metal ploughs or combis.

 

[D_W]

I think I may have seen it on some small cutters, but I'd have to get them out to verify that. But, agreed - don't round over the edges on mortise chisels, and don't take the sharpness off of the side of plow plane (or rebate plane) irons. It's necessary, and sharper (with a little bit of relief) is better than less sharp. Groove walls will be much cleaner for it.

 

[Tasky]

I'd advise against that. Indeed, I reckon that on the forward sides of the cutter a nice sharp corner will help shear off the wood at the sides, like a mortice chisel does when you tilt it to break the chip.
You can grind a degree or so of relief behind the leading edges if you want, making the cutter trapezoidal in cross section. This is normal on the big old irons in wooden ploughs but I've not seen it on the little cutters in metal ploughs or combis.

That's about what I was imagining - Very light easing of the edge.

Also - Found the reference. It was Sellers, of all people...

https://paulsellers.com/2012/09/on-plough-planes-briefly/

"Because plough planes are enclosed on two sides, and they always run parallel to the edge of the board being ploughed,the iron penetrates the wood and as you move forward in the cut the leading edge of the iron is technically under the rim of the groove as it advances along the wood. A deep cut, one where the cutting iron protrudes past the skate markedly, say 1/32″ to 1/16″, then tears the rim of the ploughed groove leaving a ragged corner. When the plough engages reverse or short grain, the problem becomes exacerbated a hundredfold. To resolve this it use abrasive paper to remove the hard cutting corner pof the top side of the iron on both corners but I take care to keep this abrading to a bare minimum. I do the same to the underside of the oron too, as this ensures a smoother operation of the plough. This seems such a small thing but it makes such a big difference. I would point out that on the old wooden plough planes the irons actually tapered from front to back, which shows a well thought through development".


Will someone please buy that man a Spellchecker!!!

 

[AndyT]

Interesting. I respect Sellers' experience on most things but I struggle to see how what he says here makes sense. (Trouble is, whoever writes his blog doesn't always write 100% clearly. )
Does he mean to advocate giving the leading edges a little bit of relief angle (which is possible, as he makes the comparison with old plough irons) or does he really mean us to slightly round over those edges?
All I know is that I have always tried to leave those leading edges meeting at a sharp 90° (or 89°) with no rounding, and I have been happy with the results I have had. But then again, he has ploughed miles more grooves than I have.

 

[Tasky]

Does he mean to advocate giving the leading edges a little bit of relief angle (which is possible, as he makes the comparison with old plough irons) or does he really mean us to slightly round over those edges?

By my fae, I cannot reason...
It first sounds like he's very slightly softening the hard corner of the leading edge.
But then he explains how wooden plough irons tapered from front to back - I assume this means from leading edge to trailing edge?

He mixes front/back, leading and top...

But then again, he has ploughed miles more grooves than I have.

That sounds like such a euphemism!!! :wink: :lol:

 

[NickN]

He mixes front/back, leading and top...

Luckily, that issue would never cause any debates here on UK Workshop...

... said nobody ever. :lol:

But then again, he has ploughed miles more grooves than I have.

A quote from one of his latest blog posts is interesting in the context of that statement... "I took Karla, Izzy, Hannah and Ellie over for the first time just before the move and they are so looking forward to the new workspace.". (hammer)

 

[thetyreman]

3 things that may help you,

1/ flatten the bottom

2/ ease off the front and back edges with a turnip file then sandpaper, check that the depth stop is also flat and free from any edges that might catch the wood, sand them so they're smooth.

3/ sharpen the bevel to 35 degrees

today finally after months of frustration got my plough plane to work, the problem in my case was the base not being flat, it was disturbingly out of flat and had a huge hollow in the middle,

my record no 044 also had very hard edges that needed rounding off, also the depth stop wasn't smooth, it was definitely catching the wood and causing it to jar and not cut properly.

now it ploughs as smooth as the veritas, I'm quite amazed, was almost ready to give up on it, now it's like a different tool, it was a very simple and easy fix, I will now enjoy using it.