Not yet finished, and I am making two identical ones:
Nice jobToday I made (or at least nearly finished making) four planes (based on an idea from a book):
View attachment 98918
Made out of beech, walnut and gauge plate. They're for ploughing grooves in box/drawer sides for a base. One day I'll get a plough plane, but most uses for it will probably be this and it would take me far longer to set up a plough plane than it would to grab one of these planes and plough a groove. They're in pairs so that I can pick the appropriate one for a given grain direction: two make 3 mm grooves, 3 mm deep, 3 mm from the fence; the other two are similar but replace all the 3s with 5s.
After a fair amount of fettling and getting them set up, I did some test grooves in a couple of offcuts of oak (visible in the picture). In those short lengths, it takes about 10 seconds to plough a groove. I doubt I could even find the right router cutter in that time, let alone set up a router, so I think these will get a fair amount of use.
They'll get a coat of oil once I've finished fettling.
I made some spare cutters in other sizes too (although I've only hardened & tempered the 3 mm and 5 mm ones). For some reason the 3 mm and 10 mm ones didn't make it into this photo:
View attachment 98919
Here's another view:
View attachment 98920
and an in-progress photo showing how they're constructed:
View attachment 98921
Nice job on those planes. Grab and go is good. I can see that being very handy if you use those settings on a regular basis. I have an old wooden plow and while it does a good job setting up is a fiddle.Today I made (or at least nearly finished making) four planes (based on an idea from a book):
View attachment 98918
Made out of beech, walnut and gauge plate. They're for ploughing grooves in box/drawer sides for a base. One day I'll get a plough plane, but most uses for it will probably be this and it would take me far longer to set up a plough plane than it would to grab one of these planes and plough a groove. They're in pairs so that I can pick the appropriate one for a given grain direction: two make 3 mm grooves, 3 mm deep, 3 mm from the fence; the other two are similar but replace all the 3s with 5s.
After a fair amount of fettling and getting them set up, I did some test grooves in a couple of offcuts of oak (visible in the picture). In those short lengths, it takes about 10 seconds to plough a groove. I doubt I could even find the right router cutter in that time, let alone set up a router, so I think these will get a fair amount of use.
They'll get a coat of oil once I've finished fettling.
I made some spare cutters in other sizes too (although I've only hardened & tempered the 3 mm and 5 mm ones). For some reason the 3 mm and 10 mm ones didn't make it into this photo:
View attachment 98919
Here's another view:
View attachment 98920
and an in-progress photo showing how they're constructed:
View attachment 98921
What steel do you use for the blades?
I guess you could use cheap 6mm chisels
Cheers James
The post mentions gauge plate, which is typically 01 tool steel.
I keep fancying making a wooden plane or two, being laminated those seem fairly straight forward, but imagine there’s a bit of fettling to get them performing well
Thanks Rorton, the top sits in the recess and you just lift it and turn it over.really nice, love how the top is hidden - does it pivot, or do you lift it by hand and rotate it?
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