Small wooden plane shop made

[CliveB]

I needed a small plane to help shape the struts on my acoustic guitar project so I made this little plane:-

It's made, from beech, in two halves, split right down the middle with each side of the cavity sawn/chiseled out before gluing the two halves together. After a little fettling, this made it pretty easy to get the angles more or less as designed and a nice fit for the blade, although the mouth ended up a bit larger than planned.

I made the blade out of 2mm oil hardening tool steel (gauge plate) which was hardened using a little enameling kiln and then tempered at 180 deg C. It's as sharp as any of my old Record/Stanley plane blades.

It took a little while to get used to adjusting this type of wooden plane, but it works a treat and is nice and light to use.

If anyone's interested a pdf plan with dimensions is attached.

Clive

 

[BillHoughton]

Right nice! And making your own planes for specialty work is a step up in your craft.

Looking forward to the guitar!

 

[Wilson joinery]

Absolutely brilliant that Clive. Wish I had the skills (and time!) to attempt one of those!!

 

[BillHoughton]

They're not hard. I made a butt hinge mortise plane some years back, in a hurry (about two hours of work), and it came out fine. Not as pretty as Clive's, but it gets the job done.

 

[RobNichols]

Really nice job.

I wonder if the measure of a blade is as much how long it maintains an edge as how sharp you can get it. So how well does the blade maintain the edge?

 

[CliveB]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments.

Rob, I've used the plane mostly for the guitar struts, which are spruce, and the edge holds well without any visible chipping. I've not given it any heavy use. I believe that the tradeoff of hardness versus toughness depends on the choice of tempering temperature (at least for bog standard gauge plate tool steel). I chose 180 deg C which gives a barely discernable very light straw colour to give a harder end result. I can say that the blade lasted very well for its intended purpose and is satisfyingly sharp!

Clive

 

[RobNichols]

Splendid job

 

[DRC]

I needed a small plane to help shape the struts on my acoustic guitar project so I made this little plane:-

View attachment 160916

It's made, from beech, in two halves, split right down the middle with each side of the cavity sawn/chiseled out before gluing the two halves together. After a little fettling, this made it pretty easy to get the angles more or less as designed and a nice fit for the blade, although the mouth ended up a bit larger than planned.

I made the blade out of 2mm oil hardening tool steel (gauge plate) which was hardened using a little enameling kiln and then tempered at 180 deg C. It's as sharp as any of my old Record/Stanley plane blades.

It took a little while to get used to adjusting this type of wooden plane, but it works a treat and is nice and light to use.

If anyone's interested a pdf plan with dimensions is attached.

Clive

Hi Clive I'm a 60+yrs of playing acoustic and electric solids. I'm hoping at some point you will post some pics of your guitar build. Do you have an acoustic guitar and if so what make do you have please. I have Guild acoustic and Fender Strat.

 

[CliveB]

I posted a quick photo of the finished guitar in the "Post a photo of the last thing you made" thread a couple of days ago. I am putting together a more detailed post which I will post in the near future. It's based on a Martin 0-28 design with cedar/mahogany construction, slotted headstock and 12 frets to the body.

I have a L'arrivee 00-05, a classical guitar and a Fender Strat too. I have been playing for 45 yrs or so, but my playing skills are "moderate".