Wooden plane - no screw cap iron?

[worker]

I picked up a wooden plane from a car boot today. After dismantling, I can't figure how how the blade and cap iron are supposed to work together.

All the cap irons I've seen come with a screw to tighten it against the blade and the plane is made to accomodate it. This one has no screw and no holes anywhere suggesting it is missing.

I'm pretty confident the blade, cap iron and wedge are original - plane and iron are branded Peugeot Freres - wedge looks aged just like the body.

It takes about 3 hands to get everything into the plane without slipping and once in, only the blade moves forward when adjusting, and I end up with massive chunks when taking a shaving.

Was this intended up a scrub plane? Am I missing a trick to getting it working right?

 

[niall Y]

There is obviously a knack to it. The cut out at the base of the wedge seems to afford you quite a good view of the blade and cap iron, relative to each other. Which should be helpful when setting the plane up.

There is one on Ebay at the moment that shows a bit of a bend to the cap iron, such that when the wedge is in place , the top of the iron is a few millimetres away from the surface of the plane blade. This should make it easier to independently, tap down the cap iron, into its correct position. If you hold the plane firmly down on a wooden surface, whilst doing this, it should prevent the blade , itself , from moving.

I'm sure you'll master it in the end.

 

[--Tom--]

Bit like a the cap irons on Japanese planes which are set by tapping up to the edge.

Get it all roughly in place and then add a bit of tension with the timber wedge then tap the iron to depth, then tap the cap iron up to <1mm from the edge, then tighten the wedge.

 

[worker]

I see the one on Ebay has a very long cap iron - my one disappears under the wedge. Maybe it's not original. Might a lost cause tbh

 

[niall Y]

Maybe, make yourself a new cap iron , slightly longer. That shouldn't prove too difficult to do.
EDIT. It could be that the wedge is the part that has been changed, and is now too long so obscuring the cap iron. Might be worth checking against a similar plane.

 

[ac445ab]

Ciao from Italy,
Here, as in France, there are examples of wooden planes where the wedge is positioned between the iron and the cap iron. Perhaps your plane is one of these, with an incorrectly replaced wedge.
Regards

 

[worker]

I assume the mouth on that is quite tight - unfortunately on mine the mouth is quite large and I was getting horrendous tearout on my test piece.

 

[ac445ab]

I assume the mouth on that is quite tight - unfortunately on mine the mouth is quite large and I was getting horrendous tearout on my test piece.

I don’t know; I don’t have it. It’s a picture I found online.
However, a properly set cap iron could compensate for the wider mouth, so first, you need to find the right plane configuration.
Additionally, you could close the mouth with a wooden patch.