My Hand Planes

[Rasper]

One problem is that people up there have sealed their houses up so tight there is no exchange of air. My house in Virginia had no insulation. The wind just kind of blew right through it. I would just throw more wood in the wood heater. I made a wood heater from a 55 gallon barrel. That thing could make so much heat you couldn't stay in the room with it. I hate central heat. With a wood heater I could keep most of the house down around 55 or so as long as I could go stand by the heater to warm up. With central heat there is no place to go to get warm. I am always cold. Fortunately, where I live now that is not a problem. The coldest it ever gets here is about 65 at night in January.

Richard

[cae2100]

Yea, my camper Im in right now is pretty breezy and falling apart. As soon as Im done with it this year, it's going to have everything torn out and taken out. I think that's a good part of the reason why when the smoke comes in, I keep having so much trouble. The house is fairly breezy too I think, or at least well vented anyways. It's a very very old farm house from the 1880s or 1890s I believe originally, with some stuff added onto it since then.

I tried ramming up some sand cores using that corebox and it just refuses to cooperate at all... The core sand keeps wanting to stick in it, so I tried dusting it with graphite, which helped a tiny bit, but not enough, so brought it in and coated it in paraffin wax paste, and that's drying on it now. Ill probably go over it with some steel wool to try to smooth it out a bit more, then go over it again with wax, but no idea if that'll work or not. I tried adding a tiny more draft to the one side, but the sand just wants to stick to it anyhow and refuses to come out cleanly. I just dumped all of the core sand I mixed up into a jar and sealed it up air tight, so that should hopefully hold it for a few days till I can get this corebox sorted out. I tried 4 times, with and without vent hole, and it just refused to work no matter what I tried. Im sure it will fight me, but Im determined enough that I will win in the end, lol.

[cae2100]

After at least a dozen times of trying to ram up that stupid core, I was talking to tohbo and he said to cover it in packing tape, which I did, first time, core came out fairly easily, no sticking. So it was some reaction between the sodium silicate and shellac for some reason. I can not figure out what was going on for anything, especially since I just used the same shellac, same paste wax, same everything not too long ago to make up the corebox for the chariot plane I just poured. I have 4 cores rammed up and in the toaster oven now baking, so probably in the morning, Ill work on those and see about making up a sand mold or two for it. I only have enough bronze to technically pour one tho, plus a gear blank for my dividing head. I did ram up one of the sand molds earlier, but went to put the core in and it snapped right in half at the worst possible place, and damaging the sand mold also, so I just dumpped it all, lol. I might pour the other one in aluminum for lols if I get a few rammed up.

[cae2100]

got 4 cores made up, works great now that the tape is in there. You can see the outline of where the core was fused to it before behind the tape on the top part, it looks like it etched it. Only thing I can really think of that is different with this corebox beyond being made of plywood vs cherry or pine, is time. Other ones, I made up in the winter and had a few months to sit and fully cure, where as this one was made up over the last week or so and as soon as the shellac was dry, it was rammed up. So maybe over time, the shellac actually polymerizes into another form or something and becomes more chemically resistant to the sodium silicate or something.

Got one rammed up, core lines up nicely and everything fits together nicely. You can see how the core creates the tapered pocket for the wedge.

[cae2100]

And we have a winner kinda, lol.

The one side of the mouth had some sand wash somehow and I have no idea where it came from, but I think once I machine it up, it'll remove alot of that and I should get a usable plane. The problem is that the core shifted slightly and is around 1/8" off, so that kinda screwed it up a bit. It can easily be fixed with a file, which I need to file the mouth out anyways to remove the pattern draft, but that's not much of a problem really and should meet up with where the core is bottomed out at.

It should work pretty well, but now for the long part of cleaning it all up with a file and cleaning up the mouth. The surface finish isnt bad at all, but the draft from the corebox made it at a slight skew angle for the bed, and I didnt even think about that, just grabbed it out of the toaster oven and put it into the casting, so Ill have to clean that up. Being done in aluminum bronze, it's going to be interesting to say the least to clean that up, lol. Either way, it is done and I have my T rabbet plane now.

[Jammer]

Looks great. I don't know why the core wouldn't come out either. I've only done them in a PVC pipe, they come right out. I would think the graphite would have worked. Tape does sound like a good idea, I'll have to remember that one.

[cae2100]

Yea, Im not sure either. Only variable Ive been able to see is time. I know that there is some sort of chemical reaction over time with the shellac as it is dried/curing, but not entirely sure what it is tho, or if that's really the reason. That core box was made up very recently, like the last few weeks, where as the corebox for the chariot plane had been made over the winter and left to sit for months and months. The thing that really makes me think of it being time is that when you put a brush with shellac back in the jar of shellac, it'll dissolve dried shellac and you end up with a soft brush again that is good to go after a few mins, it acts as it's own thinner. If you have a brush that's been sitting out for a while, you'll start to see little bits of grit in the bottom of the jar from the old shellac, which is stuff that hadnt been dissolved, and honestly never will dissolve again in the alcohol/shellac, so it stays in the bottom of the jar. Thats what I think is happening anyways.

I think that if I just had given it a few weeks to fully cure, then it might not have any issues at all. I unfortunately couldnt do that in this case, so tape trick to the rescue, lol.

Ive done quite a good amount of cores on patterns, but have never had this problem, so it was defenitely a new one to me, lol.