Questions about metal shoulder plane build

[AndyT]

As Nabs said, we had a discussion about laminated irons. Here it is - eight pages of it, and pretty well mannered and informative it was too.

laminated-irons-again-t108019.html

The relevant point for your purposes is that with a plane iron like your old Ibbotson one, it will be hard steel up to just shy of the bottom of the screw hole, with probably the whole thickness being hard steel up to that point. (There were tools where a surface layer of hard steel was welded to a backing layer of softer metal, but your iron won't be like that.)

Incidentally, I have posted pictures before showing the stock of shoulder plane irons in Bristol Design - the majority of these were made by cutting down old stock bench plane irons.

(Ignore the thin iron below, made from a hacksaw blade - that's what I was replacing.)

(You might also enjoy the thread where this picture appeared, where I was restoring a shoulder plane - a-rusty-sow-s-ear-t81175.html - and Mr P's attempt to cut down a plane iron - can-i-cut-a-block-plane-iron-down-to-fit-t89930.html.)

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

If the iron proves too badly corroded, I have a few kicking about that are not really good enough to sell, but somehow too good to scrap and would be better than the one you have, just let me know and I'll post one up to you,

Cheers,

SOTA

 

[Ttrees]

Thanks for the help folks
I'll see how I get on with the ones I have, and give the bevels a grind.
No time to look at the threads, but I'll give them a good read later
Tom

 

[Bm101]

Missed this thread so far Tom.
Have enjoyed reading it.
Just a proper goofer in my shed Tom when I (rarely) get any spare time, you'll be far more experienced than me and I wouldn't dare to offer advice but I would say have a go at the O1 iron. I've done a few now and while I'm a million miles from being knowledgeable about the process I've managed to create a blade that keeps an edge, will sharpen and seems to retain it like most other edges I've used.
(*choosing.words.carefully)
And I've enjoyed doing it.
If you have access to some variety of firepit, an old paint tin would do tbh and perfectly feasible, a hairdryer, a tin of water/oil etc, an oven and a foil tray with a bit of sand you're set.

My first plane 'conversion'. Nothing to boast about. I'd do many things differently but that's the deal isn't it? The iron is good though. It works better than the original and I'm a tiny bit happy about that. I made a better plane than Stanley managed. That's not a bad shout for a first try granted I used their casting. :wink:

It works ok on mahogany.

I only post it to encourage you if that's not too pushy! I hope not.
Latest one is a bullnose iron.

They are all far from perfect, just reckon you should have a pop!
There's summat about it that just appeals. I'd guess it'a a very old thing in the psyche. Fires and that.
Cheers mate
Regards
Chris

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

- on fires - I've annealed quite a few more defunct files than I will probably ever have a use for as a flimsy excuse for a good fire - there's something exceedingly wonderful in a very primal way about the whole thing, also when a hardened file is transformed into one that can be cut with a hacksaw, it has to be the work of sorcery, with the fire-maker the arch sorcerer!

Tara a bit,

SOTA

 

[Ttrees]

I have some old files but I am such a miser that I won't give up on them yet... :roll:
One wonders if annealed files would be softer than a vintage iron for scribe/scrimshaw work?
I would then feel better about putting my name or a symbol on the iron, as there isn't too much place elsewhere on the plane to do this.
Can't say you folks aren't encouraging ! =D>
Thanks again, Don't hold me to this, but I might be back with some daft questions on the subject
Tom

 

[Ttrees]

Hi again
Just seen this method of etching tools, it looks fascinating and easy to do..
famous last words
Looks like you could possibly do a negative of an image so you could have a proud image/name
I wonder if you could make a fine image with it though, has anyone tried etching here?

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmRrS_tlD5k[/YOUTUBE]

Cant seem to figure out how to embed videos
Link...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmRrS_tlD5k
Tom

 

[Trevanion]

Cant seem to figure out how to embed videos

You don't need the

 part of what you typed, all you need is the [youtube] brackets. You don't use the full youtube link you instead use the part I've highlighted and underlined in bold in this link:
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[/url][b][u]YmRrS_tlD5k[/u][/b] which is the identification code of the video.

So you type in your [youtube] brackets and add the part after /watch?v= part of the URL which is YmRrS_tlD5k between the pair of brackets.



[youtube]YmRrS_tlD5k[/youtube]

 

[Ttrees]

Thanks Mr Trevanion
I've been wondering and trying to do this for a good while...
even to the point of watching how to videos!
I could barely believe it worked this easy, it seemed too good to be true.
Now this saves a lot of effort 8)

Onto the etching part, I just might have to try this, I would love to put some sort of celtic symbol on the iron, as the shamrock design is allready taken up, another thread I must make of it, if I get it down, well if it works atall
Thinking of shortening one of my files now
Thanks
Tom

 

[Ttrees]

Hello again
Been doing some wore work on this...
Decided to grind the bevel of this old Thomas Ibbotson & Co. Sheffield iron, and the hard steel laminate is a decent thickness
I was researching what the symbol is on this iron with no luck
One here suggested that it was a stirrup, but on an old Ibbotson publication the symbol is referred to as "the eye"

Drilled out and chiseled with a ground steel nail so I could fit a junior hacksaw blade in, before the big hacksaw blade

Some more work with the ground steel nail chisels, two widths used for these bridge holes to get the wee file into

I'll come back when the cuttings done

 

[Ttrees]

Got those holes enlarged with some needle files, and ground two others down for the job

and cut up some stock for the bridge

And learnt not to file to the line of the top of the "escapement ?" if that's the correct term...
I should have left at least a millimeter or two to do later
It might be OK, but at the moment, it looks like will take some of the lines away from the of the plane
I hope I get away with it

Marking for the tenons, gonna clamp things down anymore I do this, like I should have done whilst marking out the sole

Some more cutting on the bridge

Tom

 

[Ttrees]

Back again
Got the bridge made and fitted

and started work on the dovetails for the bridge

After which was the double dovetails...
I found a flat needle file to be necessary, all the while thinking I was taking a bit of a chance with these acute angles, since I never done this before...
but no guts, no glory I suppose :lol:

Onwards to the assembly....
I should have made some quick inserts before doing this, as it caused some warpage of the sides from the bashing together

This was the result of a design fault from the the get go, as it was then I knew, why those Miller planes had their soles sweated on,
instead of being dovetailed
Where was Big Billy C when I needed a hug ? ..................... :lol: :lol: :lol:

Since it was banjaxed now, I soldiered on with the only thing what kept me going.... for there was at least some curiosity left
to find out how this peining business would go, bash bash bash with not a care left in it

This was really easy, I thought the mild steel would put up a fight
No surprise that the other wee bit broke off also, aswell as the iron support kept lifting up, as the peining moved it further and further.
The now deformed dovetail of the sole meant the support could not go back in place again.

With a bit of added frustration I began wreckless grinding and filing of the dovetails
I was surprised how well the bridge went, as it was totally invisible everywhere, at least that was a plus

Knocked off those iron supports, they would have been no good as they were.
I allready have a cobbled together rebate... steel sandwiching a wooden sole, which pushes the wood out from behind the iron when advanced.
That's not gonna happen again.

Time to take out the big gun.

Tom

 

[Ttrees]

Hello again
Apologies for the lengthy sabbatical, only back to work on this recently.

I found I was getting a lot of variables upon attempting to get to this next step.
The Startrite's table would more than likely have done the job here, but found nothing close to that
at the the metal shop...
Multiple granite stove hearth offcuts, nor Elektra Beckum bandsaw table did suffice, as I found both had big discrepancies when attempting to take measurements.
So much so, that I was reading massive variations up to 1mm "out" in places on this plane, and I knew that wasn't the case, not that its anyway perfect or anything, but it aint that bad.

This science lab top material was quite a bit out also, but I could work that, as I don't have any knowledge of bodge working granite that's this far out of whack.
Now I can lay my engineers square and slide it against a precision aluminium block without showing light, all over the plate....good enough.

Got the iron cut and lapped on the diamond stone, I was surprised how easy the majority of the vintage iron cut with a hacksaw, using a thin grinder disc for the hardened part.

I was gonna spring for the Veritas straight edge, but I thought I might get it somewhat closer with this aluminium beam, so I bought some feeler gauges, as I will need these in the future anyways.
I managed to get this plate within 0.05mm, with only a teeny area less than 0.10 which has a bit of red marking.
I probably should have bought some Prussian blue paste, as marking lines all over the plate, over and over in alternating directions thousands of times took forever and a day. :roll:

I used the other end of the plane iron to scrape this stuff, so it wasn't a waste of time lapping the back of the iron afterall...
Using a block to register square to the oil stone, an 01 plane iron makes a great scraper, and will cut any humps you've been trying to eliminate off your oil stone as a upshot
Makes a case for having at least one non pre-war plane iron.

Surface plate ranting over, back onto the plane.
I changed my mind about the Miller design, as I liked the feel of the plane as it was..
Unfortunately, somewhere along the line I decided to chamfer the edge, which I regret...
I think it was when all was going wrong after the peening , even if I did want it, it goes too low.
Oh well, next time I suppose (hammer)

Learning to be done yet!
Upon filing down the sole to expose the mouth, I was surprised how much you can take off the ends even when focusing in the middle.
Using a square block to rest the file upon, it encourages one not to skew the file so much...
This has to be remedied by filing perpendicular to the length, I had to change wooden blocks because of the file wearing it...

I was surprised I was able to keep the file square this way.
Being a right handed filer, whilst keeping the block in my left hand, I only had accurate results working the left side of the plane, grasping the block around the toe of the plane.
On a longer plane, it wouldn't have been easy atall.
I had to go to the other side of the bench filing in this manner, awkwardly leaning over the bench,
as I'm not so good filing with my left hand/holding block with my right to file close to the heel.

Onto the bed now.

Using much the same technique as before, not getting this right makes whats named "the Azimuth error"... notice the previous picture, the mouth partially opened, but not in the middle which means
I have a bump in the middle.
The plane iron needs to be touching on the edges of the bed to be secure... rinse and repeat.

Doing this produced a bit of a hollow along the length of the bed, as my farmers own file couldn't get down tight enough to the mouth, it being so tall, I needed a thin wide file for this job.
As a result my plane iron is resting on the leading edge, when I file this away so its resting on the whole of the bed, I hope the mouth doesn't get too large
Here's how things are at the moment

 

[Bm101]

Looking good Tom. Great read. Good to see your progress and the ups and downs laid bare. Thanks for sharing I'm really enjoying the build, love to see planes being made by hand. =D>
Cheers
Chris

 

[Ttrees]

Hello folks, got a bit side tracked with other things, and only got the workshop back to normal now.
Haven't worked with any timber in here for a long time.
Since no plane thread WIP is complete without obligatory shavings at the end, I wanted to actually
use this plane on a project....
As it turned out, the window I had thought needed some work fitted without fuss, so didn't get the chance to play with my new toy :roll:

I wanted to come across like it was an invaluable tool that I really needed :wink:
and not another plane that rusts in the press, I won't mention scrubbing the rust off the thing, just an hour ago :lol:

Anyway to recap on the process of finishing this off, if I can remember #-o
I was having issues with the iron not bedding down at the tip where it needs to be solid.
Here is what I was experiencing...

Discount the silly theory I mentioned earlier, the problem was with the infill not being tall enough.
I was thinking it was the bridge that was possibly a cause, which was incorrect.
Stupidly, I used a saw file for the job, because it was the only file I had, that I could fit in there...
I should have taken all my files from the folks place for the job.
This procedure left a nice cut line in the inside of the plane, which we won't talk about.

Had a look to see if raising the infill would help, there was nothing else that could have been an issue, and sure enough this was the problem.
Tapped in an old wedge to test

I had just enough of this homegrown oak left, that my friend gave me to make one up.

Didn't photo any of the finessing and beveling of the infills to make it look nicer....
Hiding the cracks at the top of the infills from hammering it into the plane, was a bonus.

In future if I make another, I will spend some quality time making metal infills to pound against whilst peining, as this led to much warpage.
Glad I made this out of oak, because most other timbers would have shattered completely.
Never worked with oak before, and its soo different to work with than iroko.
I had trouble getting the hollow shape into the wedge right, as the late growth rings are a lot harder than the early growth, and fought a bit to stop getting ridges.
I try and not use sandpaper for these things.
The surprising thing to me was, that even though its tough as old boots, it pares nicely, even paring against the grain was no fuss.
A definite no no with most of the iroko I've tried this with.
If you look back at the work on the bed, you might spot that I wasn't hollowing all the way down to the mouth, if I done this again, I would have filed to the very tip, as the mouth would be perfectly parallel, and I would have not got a minutely larger mouth on the edges.
I've seen a few planes with the same thing, it's very minute though.
Slathered the infills with a few coats of BLO, which I've heard does not fair well on oak, but seems to be OK so far, still half expecting the wood to turn black in time.
It made the oak look lovely though, compared to it on iroko in my opinion.
Have pictures of it in use to upload, back in a moment.

Tom

 

[Ttrees]

Felt a bit silly planing a rebate for no good reason, but never used a shoulder plane before...
I did make a huuuge honkin stainless steel infill rebate plane with a wooden sole and brass adjustable mouth before, that kinda worked, but not really as the bed would deflect.
This was well before Big Billy C started posting videos.
Its just silly, and a bad design, originally intended for cleaning up and laminating allready rebated timbers together, before I had my bandsaw... what a waste of time
It might be good for a laugh at the end, never thought it was worth a piccy :lol:

I will probably cut it up to use that stainless for something else like a riving knife, as I don't plan on making ships anytime soon #-o
Anyway back on topic...
I hate to spoil a good piece of timber, so I apologise for the nasty bit of wood pictured.

This half rotten piece of iroko allready had a rebate in it so thought it would make a good candidate.
It might have been difficult to start one off anyways, and I have no experience with studying how to use the shoulder plane for cutting rebates... well, now I know why that is.

I found it very tippy until I got down to about 10mm

I'm glad I made the escapement large enough to poke the shavings out with my finger, but I shan't do this again on the iroko, as I felt some irritation between me fingers the other day whilst packing very dusty shavings down into the stove....this is how you get a reaction from the iroko!
No amount washing with soap and cold water would stop it, but found lovely relief sorting through
a big box of rusty nuts bolts and screws and miscellaneous things.
Why ever that was, it worked for me.
I will poke the shavings out with a stick anymore.

Forgot that you folks might want to actually see the plane, and not a half rotten piece of timber
The plane got easier to use at this depth, but the productiveness proved to cause my hand to cramp up.
It is very uncomfortable to use a plane this narrow, and I don't think any difference in the shape of the wedge would make a difference, as its an ergonomic comfortable shape in the hand....
Well, I say that without ever handling another shoulder plane before... anyways the shoulder plane is designed for tenons and such, and not the best hand tool for what I'm doing.

Makes a square rebate easily, maybe if I was starting one off, I could do with a fence like a length of timber to register against, either that, or not work to full width until I got down to about 10mm.
I was thinking of making a fence for it during construction, but not after using one now, as it's an uncomfortable plane to do this with.
Yes the wood is not square, but the rebate is, even though it looks like a gap between the aluminium block, I assure you that it's a chamfer on the end of it, you are seeing.

I didn't realise how bad the photos were until I got inside :lol:

Sorry for the delay folks, can't say it won't happen again, as I'm not too good with these things.
Thanks for reading

Tom

 

[Bm101]

Looks good Tom. =D>
You have a user mate and it looks handsome too! Congratulations, higher up the learning curve and a new tool to show for it. 8)
I have thoroughly enjoyed the read so thanks for taking the time to post.

Good work mate. Well done.

Regards
Chris

 

[IWW]

Had quite a few deja vu moments reading about your plane build, Tom, & was reminded of many similar moments with my first dovetailed infill. The time from beginning to end of that project was even longer than yours! It didn't help that I was stupidly ambitious and decided to make a coffin shaped smoother - as if tackling parallel sides wouldn't have been enough to keep me entertained for a long time. But somehow, minor disasters notwithstanding (like cutting the mouth through the sole the wrong way round & having to start over with that bit), it eventually came to fruition, like yours, with some flaws that are much more apparent to me, but not to others, and best of all, it worked ok to start with. Subsequent fettling using experience gained from making several more infills has got it to the 'good' stage, but I doubt it will ever be classed as 'brilliant'

Anyway, to get to the point, I suggest there is an easier way to make a shoulder plane than using a dovetailed sole, & that is to rivet the sides to a core. The advantage is that the bed can be a single piece, obviating the necessity of mating a wooden infill to the sole (tricky to get perfect in a confined space!). I've used brass sides and core for this one, but you could just as easily use steel. or a combination of metals as you see fit.

My plane owes quite a debt to Mr. Miller for its side profile.. :wink:

If there is any interest, I could post a short WIP explaning the process...
Cheers,
IW.

 

[IWW]

Hmm. made a pig's ear of that post, & there doesn't seem to be any way to edit it & delete the duplicate image & put the correct one in its place. Can someone tell me how I might fix it??
Thanks,
IW

 

[AndyT]

Hmm. made a pig's ear of that post, & there doesn't seem to be any way to edit it & delete the duplicate image & put the correct one in its place. Can someone tell me how I might fix it??
Thanks,
IW

"Edit" should be one of the options on the blue button with the gear wheel and the down arrow.

When you are inserting an attached image you should be able to pick the right one from a list. Or just edit the text of the