My Hand Planes
Re: My Hand Planes
That little plane looks very handy. The hammers will be handy.
quando omni flunkus moritati 
Re: My Hand Planes
yea, the plane should be pretty handy, it's designed so you can get up to a shoulder, or really close to it, like you would need to do for planing down the pads on a pattern where it needs to be machined. You dont have the long nose of the plane getting in the way, and it still acts as a smoothing plane too, so you get a very good finish off of it.
The hammers, they've already been put into heavy use and both of them work really really well. I had to grind a little bit off of the back of the plane setting hammer because the tapered section, the area to hit the blade with was a bit too small, and was a bit akward to tap on the plane blades with, so I just ground down around 3/8" off the back of it and it increased the size of contact area to just the right amount and it's been a joy to use, lol. I was just using the plane setting hammer last night when working on the spokeshaves, lol.
The spokeshaves, they're already in the toolbox, and I didnt really get any pics of them with the wedges in them because I was trying to clean up last night and my throat was swelling shut from allergies to the sawdust, but here they are without the wedges. They're 5" long, around 7/8" wide, and around 5/8" tall, but have a 1 5/8" blade in them from a cut down block plane blade. The designs are a bit different from normal spokeshaves, which I like this style better than conventional style ones because I think that spokeshaves are just a secondary to a draw knife, which Im used to pulling to use, and this style of spokeshaves, the contact point for the fingers is down low on the spokeshaves, right at the bottom where the cutting action is happening, so it's easier to hold and control. They're just hedge apple and black walnut on top as the bullnose plane was.
They are a bit small compared to most spokeshaves, but they are very easy to use and shape stuff with, and small enough to get into even the tightest areas on patterns, but still large enough to do full size hammer handles and axe/sledge hammer handles, or anything you would have on a pattern without any issue. One is a flat bottom one, and the other is a radiused one, that way I could do convex and flat surfaces with the one, and concave surfaces with the other one.
The hammers, they've already been put into heavy use and both of them work really really well. I had to grind a little bit off of the back of the plane setting hammer because the tapered section, the area to hit the blade with was a bit too small, and was a bit akward to tap on the plane blades with, so I just ground down around 3/8" off the back of it and it increased the size of contact area to just the right amount and it's been a joy to use, lol. I was just using the plane setting hammer last night when working on the spokeshaves, lol.
The spokeshaves, they're already in the toolbox, and I didnt really get any pics of them with the wedges in them because I was trying to clean up last night and my throat was swelling shut from allergies to the sawdust, but here they are without the wedges. They're 5" long, around 7/8" wide, and around 5/8" tall, but have a 1 5/8" blade in them from a cut down block plane blade. The designs are a bit different from normal spokeshaves, which I like this style better than conventional style ones because I think that spokeshaves are just a secondary to a draw knife, which Im used to pulling to use, and this style of spokeshaves, the contact point for the fingers is down low on the spokeshaves, right at the bottom where the cutting action is happening, so it's easier to hold and control. They're just hedge apple and black walnut on top as the bullnose plane was.
Re: My Hand Planes
Well, Ive still been messing around with my planes, but I figured I'd show my latest one, lol. I decided to go from easy and medium difficulty to completely insane on this one, lol. It's a dovetailed steel low angle english miter plane.
I doodled it up to see what I wanted, which took a few tries to get everything just right and a shape I was happy with, but it takes a 2" wide blade, is 2 3/8" wide, 10 long, and weighs a hair over 4lbs, which is the same weight as my bronze patternmaker's plane.
The top/sides were heated up and wrapped around a 2" bar in the forge, then stuck on the mill and cut teeth in the front of it, and in the bottom of it, that were later filed into dovetails. The bottom was set up in the power hacksaw and cut squarely across the mouth, then set up on the mill and a 17 degree angle was cut for the blade angle. I then filed out the front of the mouth little by little till the two fit together tightly and had just enough room for the tip of the blade to poke through a few thou.
Then all of the pieces were filed little by little and fit together using dovetails in the steel parts, with relief filed into the corners using a triangle file, that way when the metal was peened over and hammered into place, the steel would expand over and flow into those relieved areas, creating double dovetails and locking everything together forever permanently.
I doodled it up to see what I wanted, which took a few tries to get everything just right and a shape I was happy with, but it takes a 2" wide blade, is 2 3/8" wide, 10 long, and weighs a hair over 4lbs, which is the same weight as my bronze patternmaker's plane.
Last edited by cae2100 on Tue Jan 30, 2024 7:51 pm, edited 7 times in total.
Re: My Hand Planes
After that, all of the dovetails were peened over and ground flat on the belt grinder, which the peening over made any imperfections or gaps in the dovetails dissappear and the joint became seamless between the two. You cant really even see it unless you look at it just right under the light, the light plays effects with the light and you can just see that the steel grain structure is running in different ways, which just lets you see the dovetails, but other than that, the joints are invisible to the eye.
I did have to cut down the back so the blade/iron could be at the 17 degrees, so I got creative with the files and made it that profile, which has a nice flow to the design imo, lol.
I did have to cut down the back so the blade/iron could be at the 17 degrees, so I got creative with the files and made it that profile, which has a nice flow to the design imo, lol.
Last edited by cae2100 on Wed Jan 31, 2024 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: My Hand Planes
After cleaning all of that up, getting it all squared up and such, I started on the infill, which I had some very very old mahogany that Ive been saving forever that I decided to use for it. I stuck all of the steel parts in a container with cleaning vinegar for a day or two, and the mill scale just easily brushes off of the parts with a wire brush, so it made it easy to clean up, plus it gave it a nice matte finish that looked alot better than the shiny ground finish imo. (I really dont like shiny looking stuff)
The bridge was made from a piece of 1 1/4" steel round bar that I cut a 3/8" thick piece off of it long ways, and flattened the back of it. There is a hole drilled all the way through it and through the side of the body of the plane, then the body was countersunk and a 3/16" steel pin was put in it and peened over into the countersink holes to fill them up. Then as before, was ground off flush, then all of it was put back in the vinegar bath for a day to get rid of the shiny ground look and blend the finish of all of the parts all together.
This is my first steel infill plane, and it has definitely been a challenge, but it wasnt as hard as I thought it would be, lol. After the milling and filing was done, everything seemed to go pretty quickly, since I kept having to wait for the weather to warm up to mill the stuff since it is so cold here. (oil in mill isnt happy in really cold weather)
I plan on using it on it's side as a shooting plane, for trimming up the edges of boards and cutting pattern draft on pieces, so the length and weight will really be handy for that, along with the 2" wide blade. Ive been using a block plane to do all of that work up till now, and the blade is only 1 5/8" wide in it, and Ive run into a few times where it wasnt tall enough to trim up what I was working on, so decided to start looking at shooting planes, and the old miter planes really caught my interest, at least till I looked at the price tag on alot of them, lol. Alot of them of that size usually ran between $1200-$5000, and the only way I was going to get one was to make it myself, lol.
It's been a real adventure to try this one out, and I have the stuff cut out to make a few more, but I only needed one, so I may just throw the other ones in a box to fiddle with later on, lol. All that's left to do now is to lap the bottom flat, and sharpen the blade/iron on it. I think it turned out pretty well and is just the perfect weight for me.
The bridge was made from a piece of 1 1/4" steel round bar that I cut a 3/8" thick piece off of it long ways, and flattened the back of it. There is a hole drilled all the way through it and through the side of the body of the plane, then the body was countersunk and a 3/16" steel pin was put in it and peened over into the countersink holes to fill them up. Then as before, was ground off flush, then all of it was put back in the vinegar bath for a day to get rid of the shiny ground look and blend the finish of all of the parts all together.
I plan on using it on it's side as a shooting plane, for trimming up the edges of boards and cutting pattern draft on pieces, so the length and weight will really be handy for that, along with the 2" wide blade. Ive been using a block plane to do all of that work up till now, and the blade is only 1 5/8" wide in it, and Ive run into a few times where it wasnt tall enough to trim up what I was working on, so decided to start looking at shooting planes, and the old miter planes really caught my interest, at least till I looked at the price tag on alot of them, lol. Alot of them of that size usually ran between $1200-$5000, and the only way I was going to get one was to make it myself, lol.
It's been a real adventure to try this one out, and I have the stuff cut out to make a few more, but I only needed one, so I may just throw the other ones in a box to fiddle with later on, lol. All that's left to do now is to lap the bottom flat, and sharpen the blade/iron on it. I think it turned out pretty well and is just the perfect weight for me.
Re: My Hand Planes
Oh yea, underneath of the blade is made of wood, with the blade in place, it's hard to see unless you look for it. It absorbs the vibrations of the cut and makes for a much better hold on the blade than metal on metal. This was before the bridge was put in and pickled in the vinegar.
Re: My Hand Planes
Thanks latz, I have a few other planes that I was looking at also, but they're much simpler and easier to make, that one had it's own learning curve to say the least, lol. Either way, Im defenitely happy with it, just need to make a new blade for it since the one that's in it isnt the best, and it wasnt made for that kind of plane anyhow, but it's easy enough to hammer out a new blade really, lol.
Re: My Hand Planes
Here's another one for you guys to chew on, it's a simple one that I made up, but here is my version of a leather fillet plane. As leather fillets are quite expensive for use on patterns, you can easily spend $40-50 on just fillets alone when working on patterns for a larger project, and as my wax fillets supply is dwindling down pretty quickly, I figured Id look into leather fillets and try to figure out what made them better than the wax fillets according to the old patternmaking books.
The reason Ive found that leather preceded wax fillets was not because they were really any better at holding up against the sand, but at a point in time, the larger commercial foundries would wait till the molds had just cooled enough that the metal had solidified, but were still very hot, and would take that sand, re-mull it right away, then make new sand molds using them, all while the sand was still quite hot. The hot sand would cause damage to the wax fillets on the patterns, and so they tried to find something else to use instead that could withstand both the heat, and the abuse of the sand being pounded down on it. Alot of the patterns switched to wood fillets for a while, but it couldnt be turned around corners or shaped to form to the contours of alot of the patterns, so that created problems, till someone came up with the idea to use leather scraps and cut them into ribbons that could be glued into the corners and worked with the same fillet irons that was used with wax, and that would be able to bend around whatever profiles, and could withstand the heat.
Today, you have alternatives such as wood filler, bondo, or durham's water putty, but each of those have thier own benefits and downsides, so I figured I'd follow the progression of fillet making and just experiment with leather fillets for a few since they do give a little different look to a pattern/casting when they're applied. My problem is that leather fillets are quite expensive just to play with/experiment with, so I had this idea to make a leather fillet plane by taking a V chisel and putting it into a hand plane body.
The body is just a laminated design to make it easier for people to make one if they wanted to that watches the video, whenever I get that finished and edited. It uses a V shaped blade, which was the corner of a piece of bed frame, which bed frame is some pretty good steel for this kind of stuff and really holds an edge well, but because of the bed frame having a radiused inside corner, it acts like a round gouge with V chisel sides.
The bed angle is 30 degrees, blade is ground to a 20 degree angle, is cut 1/2" from the corner of the bed frame up, and that gives a 3/4" wide blade at the top of it, with a flat ground across the top of the V profile. The wedge goes on top of the V portion and creates a triangle shaped tube, so due to the 30 degree low cutting angle, that causes the chips to not want to curl up, but wants to go right up the middle of the V profile, and comes out the back of the plane in your hand, that way there's no binding or bunching up of the fillet material that would need to be cleared as youre cutting the leather fillet material. The wedge that holds the blade in has a large head on it, which also doubles as a palm rest, and makes it look like a squirrel tail plane.
The radius in the corner of the V from the bed frame is beneficial because it adds room for the fillet to push into the corner when applying them and be formed into a radius, otherwise if it just had a really small radius or a sharp corner in the root of the V, it would end up being pushed into the corner and have no give, so you would end up with a straight chamfer instead of a nice round fillet. The resulting fillets cut have a radiused back, and flat front to them, which when glued in and worked with the fillet irons, it would shove them into the corners and create the traditional fillets that we know of.
The body is made of black cherry, which the stuff around here is quite hard compared to normal cherry wood and works really well for making planes from. The profile was just cut out with a coping saw and shaped with my whittling knife, so it still needs sanded to clean up the surface and get flatten out the facets from the carving knife. Other than that, it works really well and after sanding, Ill give it a few coats of shellac to seal it up and then it'll be ready to go into the toolbox and be used.
I get these grocery bags of old leather scraps for cheap from various local places that I usually make my chisel covers, knife sheathes, and other stuff like that from, so the pieces that are not big/wide enough to make that stuff from, I can now take the plane to and turn them into a few feet of leather fillets rather than just throwing them away. The blade can be advanced or retracted in the plane to make larger or smaller fillets, so you can make any size fillet by changing the depth of the blade. Also yes, the sides of the plane are flat and parallel to each other, that way I can set up a ruler as a guide, clampped over the piece of leather, to create nice straight fillets, just working my way over to use up the leather scraps as effeciently as possible.
The reason Ive found that leather preceded wax fillets was not because they were really any better at holding up against the sand, but at a point in time, the larger commercial foundries would wait till the molds had just cooled enough that the metal had solidified, but were still very hot, and would take that sand, re-mull it right away, then make new sand molds using them, all while the sand was still quite hot. The hot sand would cause damage to the wax fillets on the patterns, and so they tried to find something else to use instead that could withstand both the heat, and the abuse of the sand being pounded down on it. Alot of the patterns switched to wood fillets for a while, but it couldnt be turned around corners or shaped to form to the contours of alot of the patterns, so that created problems, till someone came up with the idea to use leather scraps and cut them into ribbons that could be glued into the corners and worked with the same fillet irons that was used with wax, and that would be able to bend around whatever profiles, and could withstand the heat.
Today, you have alternatives such as wood filler, bondo, or durham's water putty, but each of those have thier own benefits and downsides, so I figured I'd follow the progression of fillet making and just experiment with leather fillets for a few since they do give a little different look to a pattern/casting when they're applied. My problem is that leather fillets are quite expensive just to play with/experiment with, so I had this idea to make a leather fillet plane by taking a V chisel and putting it into a hand plane body.
The body is just a laminated design to make it easier for people to make one if they wanted to that watches the video, whenever I get that finished and edited. It uses a V shaped blade, which was the corner of a piece of bed frame, which bed frame is some pretty good steel for this kind of stuff and really holds an edge well, but because of the bed frame having a radiused inside corner, it acts like a round gouge with V chisel sides.
The bed angle is 30 degrees, blade is ground to a 20 degree angle, is cut 1/2" from the corner of the bed frame up, and that gives a 3/4" wide blade at the top of it, with a flat ground across the top of the V profile. The wedge goes on top of the V portion and creates a triangle shaped tube, so due to the 30 degree low cutting angle, that causes the chips to not want to curl up, but wants to go right up the middle of the V profile, and comes out the back of the plane in your hand, that way there's no binding or bunching up of the fillet material that would need to be cleared as youre cutting the leather fillet material. The wedge that holds the blade in has a large head on it, which also doubles as a palm rest, and makes it look like a squirrel tail plane.
The radius in the corner of the V from the bed frame is beneficial because it adds room for the fillet to push into the corner when applying them and be formed into a radius, otherwise if it just had a really small radius or a sharp corner in the root of the V, it would end up being pushed into the corner and have no give, so you would end up with a straight chamfer instead of a nice round fillet. The resulting fillets cut have a radiused back, and flat front to them, which when glued in and worked with the fillet irons, it would shove them into the corners and create the traditional fillets that we know of.
I get these grocery bags of old leather scraps for cheap from various local places that I usually make my chisel covers, knife sheathes, and other stuff like that from, so the pieces that are not big/wide enough to make that stuff from, I can now take the plane to and turn them into a few feet of leather fillets rather than just throwing them away. The blade can be advanced or retracted in the plane to make larger or smaller fillets, so you can make any size fillet by changing the depth of the blade. Also yes, the sides of the plane are flat and parallel to each other, that way I can set up a ruler as a guide, clampped over the piece of leather, to create nice straight fillets, just working my way over to use up the leather scraps as effeciently as possible.
Re: My Hand Planes
After a bit of sanding and a few coats of shellac, this is how that fillet plane has turned out. It has serious iridescent/cat's eye effect to it, which the light just dances off of it when you see it in person.
Im pretty happy with it, and I think it's turned out really well, it's made by cutting up a small board that I had left over and gluing/laminating it all back together, the V groove was cut with a shoulder plane, and the rest of it was done with just a coping saw for the cut out on the back end and a whittling knife.
It works pretty well, and I can say that Im not 100% happy with the leather fillets as much as I am with wax, but they do work and Ill keep them on hand for when I run out of the wax mix that I use. The fillets are just a little different looking in the profile they form as, so it would create a little different look on the castings, which in some cases, would be a good thing.
That's it for this plane's build and it'll be onto the next project, lol.
It works pretty well, and I can say that Im not 100% happy with the leather fillets as much as I am with wax, but they do work and Ill keep them on hand for when I run out of the wax mix that I use. The fillets are just a little different looking in the profile they form as, so it would create a little different look on the castings, which in some cases, would be a good thing.
That's it for this plane's build and it'll be onto the next project, lol.