Thanks for Sparing the Planes, Fellas!

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Hi Derek - have you found them favorable to use? I guess that's not much of a question to ask, they are a function of their fit, as you've said - if everything is locked down tight and they are set up properly with the iron matching the sole, life is good.

Hi David

As you know, the thing about used and old woodies is that wood moves, and nothing is the same as when a plane was new. Especially with moulding planes, the iron must fit the bed.

My set needed a fair amount of work to dial them in. Although the irons had plenty of meat in them, there was not much clearance behind the wedge. The wedges needed to be adjusted a little (by planing them down - which retains their shape and fit, but reduces their depth), and then the blades needed to be reground and sharpened. Once done, they worked well.

I also have a full set of beading planes that, despite having been little used, still needed to be tuned up to fit the sole.

I think that the only time one will obtain a moulding plane that works out of the box is when it is brand new - the only one like that I have had is a mini panel raising plane from Philly. Ironically, much of the pieces I have build in recent years have had curved edges, and I have resorted to scraping a bead (just ordered the new LV beader).

Regads from Edinburgh

Derek

 

[D_W]

I agree on that - the fitting. I was sitting here earlier trying to think of a plane that I've gotten that was old and not in use where I didn't have to do any fitting, and the only thing I can think of is a grooving plane (because the skate had moved some, but not vertically). Even then, most of the planes set aside with metal skates have required some fitting because they were either never made for anything other than a heavy cut, or because the skates have moved so much.

I have always marveled at how well the moulding planes work when you make them by hand, even though my first set (and probably last) is just riddled with cosmetic uglies - it's unrealistic to get them to look good when you don't have something good in hand and you haven't built them before.

One other thing came up, I finally got to use the radius on my CBN wheel, and I never appreciated it until now. It will cut the radius on everything except sizes below #4, which made grinding the hollow on this finished pair a snap.

I'm sure these will shrink a little over time, as will the griffiths - probably more for the griffiths (english planes always shrink a little more here - though I'm in a fairly humid place for the states, the winters are cold and I guess that's what wrings them out).

 

[D_W]

These arrived yesterday, packed nicely and clean. they definitely aren't set up as well as a freshly made pair, but they are about as good as one could expect (most of the work will be in getting the irons back to proper profile with the sole, they've been allowed to get off track a little bit).

Just as I thought it was very difficult to find a good half set of english planes here for reasonable, patrick leach listed a similar set to the one I purchased for about $120 more than my half set. Normally, patrick's prices are pretty aggressive (but I'd say that they're what he probably needs to charge to stay in business and not resort to selling questionable items).

At any rate, I notice the following things with the set i picked up:
* there's quite a bit of variation in the amount of arc reflected in each plane. the wide planes have a very flat arc (less than 60 degrees by quite a lot) and the narrow planes quite a bit more). I'm not going to go so far as to measure them, but you could almost cut a bead with the #2 set
* the aforementioned relief of the corners on the hollows
* the cosmetics on the set are unfortunately even behind the cosemetics on my planes!! The aesthetics around the edges were pretty rushed due to them being (i'd assume) fairly late planes. The mortises are all tight and the wedges fit well, though, contrary to american planes where often the wedges are tight when I get them.

I've always profiled my irons so the very edges don't cut in a light cut, but I never read anything about sharpening that way, just a safety. Is there anything standardized in terms of sharpening? Presumably someone who is constantly cutting profiles could disregard the need to do that because they'd know when they were a pass away from corners leaving a mark in a moulding.

 

[AndyT]

Is there anything standardized in terms of sharpening?

Dave, I know that was really a specific question in context, but I think you should know that the general answer also applies to the particular case! :lol: :lol:

Seriously, I think your approach of having the cut run out at the edges is a sensible one, but as far as I know, it's a subtlety that never got written down when the planes were in everyday use.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I'm not sure that anybody can be too sure about this, but with complete, or almost complete, sets of H&Rs having little overall wear, it's quite possible that some of the planes - maybe towards the largest and smallest - have never been used and are as they came from the maker's workshop. That, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be in working order; bench planes needed a bit of setting-up when new, and I strongly suspect that side escapement planes did too.

As Andy says above, there's not much written about the use of side escapement planes in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and even less about the subtleties of sharpening. However, one snippet I did pick up somewhere is that irons were sometimes 'let down' in the tempering a bit more than bench plane irons, just to the point where they could be reshaped with files, then just the very edge refined with slips. That would be a much less time-consuming process than trying to reshape them with slips alone. It might be worth trying a file on yours.

 

[D_W]

I'm not sure where they are in hardness, but when I make my own planes, I used to harden them and no temper. I have a feeling that my hardness was shy of top potential hardness, but the irons generally come out too hard for anything other than very minor work on slips. Eventually those planes will have to have their irons tempered. I temper them now to straw/dark straw because there's no great reason for them to be that hard when they have so much clearance, and an iron that touches up easily with a slip is so much nicer to use.

Some of these planes look like they were put away in use, with the iron slightly off kilter, and one or two look like the seller or someone may have cleaned them roughly. I'll treat them the same way I'd treat a new blank (recut the entire profile and then rehone). One of the nice surprises has been that the CBN wheels with a radius on the edge (which I bought because I could find that type cheapest) has been very useful for grinding the profile on hollows, and it's pretty gentle heat-wise.

Thanks for the thoughts on the standard sharpening. I've never had an issue with the setup with the corners back a little bit, but you always wonder when you're working in isolation (like I am) if some ideas aren't as good as they seem.

 

[AndyT]

One more data point from someone with much more practical experience of using hollows and rounds than I have, who knows what he is talking about better than I do:

Matt Bickford, Mouldings in Practice p133:

"I sharpen a profiled plane so the plane's iron matches the sole across its entire width. I have had many conversations with people who opt to fade one or both corners of their hollows and/or rounds. I appreciate the argument in favor of this and the choice, but I do not know how I could execute the profile in Fig 14-20 [an ogee with a defining step on one side] with a hollow that has either corner fading into the sole at the corners."

 

[D_W]

I think I recall something (not about sharpening) about cutting profiles from matt bickford where he describes coming one cut short of disaster and stopping there. I assumed that from that, he meant just what you passed along - that his irons cut fully to the edges, or there'd be no threat of disaster.

Most old planes I've looked at don't have the iron fit that well to cut crisply to the edge like that in the first place.

I have that book, but bought it when it came out and probably should reread it. If there's no definite answer (it appears there is not), i'm perfectly satisfied with that conclusion.

 

[D_W]

Subtlety is often lost on me, but I gather that larry's description of matching the iron exactly to the sole is in line with Matt Bickfords.

http://www.planemaker.com/pdfs/hollow&round.pdf

I haven't yet cut a moulding that terminates at the corner of a round, and thus haven't had the need for the sharp corners.