it actually cuts really easily, it feels kinda soft in the saw, but the only thing is, it is horribly abrasive to everything, especially saw blades and plane blades and makes a mess everywhere.
I cut out some disks for the cone wheels and have those glued together, but it has a wax coating on the undersides of it to prevent moisture from getting into it, and has the laminate on the top that the belt rides on, so I had to take a block plane and set it to a super coarse cut, that way it dug down under the wax and that laminate and just sliced it up. It worked, but that stuff ate my plane blade within a dozen or so passes, so Ill have to sharpen it again. I needed to do that so I had bare MDF that I was sure that the glue would stick to it. I need to make up some bushings and flanges for all of my wheels/disks still, but Ill make some longer ones to help support the inside of the cone wheels, with threaded insides, that way it just twists on and has the lock nut integrated in, then have some holes in the bottom of the flange to screw into the cone/wheel and lock it all together solidly.
I got a semi early christmas present, but cant have it till christmas, so thats why I say semi early, lol. But that's been taking up alot of the time lately and the sharpener has kinda gone on the back burner for a few, lol. I was thinking about trying to find somewhere to post what I got on here, but it is mostly forging related in a way, lol. Lets just say this, they're quite old (1920s-1940s probably), have quite a kick to them, and Im going to need to machine a bunch of bits for the one of them coming up, lol.
My Hand Planes
Re: My Hand Planes
I was pretty much finished with making hand planes, but I had this idea in my head for a while now, and that was making up a hand plane to do checkering, which is kinda a diamond knurl pattern that you commonly see on custom gun stocks. I made up checkering tools a while back and they worked kinda, I wasnt really happy with the result, but I think alot of it was with wood choice and lack of skill in using the tools tbh.
I wanted to do up large flat pieces of wood to be using as the tops/decorative sections on patterns, so I figured instead of doing one line at a time, why not make a plane that could do a dozen or more lines in one pass, and would only go to a certain depth and then stop cutting, then you can move the plane over, index the previous cuts and a few passes to cut it down to depth to create all of the lines to precision depth and everything.
The problem would be the cutter and how to actually do it, but then I realized that toothing planes had something kinda similar, but they cut square grooves in the wood, so that wouldnt be good, but it also got me thinking about that same theory. I realized that if I put the V profile on the bottom of a plane blade, or on the front of it, opposite side of a bevel, and put it in a bevel up/low angle plane like a block plane, I realized I could do it. By doing it that way, with the V grooves on the bottom of the plane blade and bevel on the top, and making it act as a bevel up scraper plane or toothing plane, you can actually get the 90 degree V profile you need.
The problem was, I didnt have any extra cheap block planes, and all of the planes I have were far far too big, or didnt have parallel sides, which was a requirement I had for it. I needed parallel sides so I could take a square, put it up against the workpiece or workbench, and use the ruler to act as a straight edge to get it cutting at exactly 90, 45, or 30/60 degrees. You would want a 90 degree V pattern, which would give full tipped diamonds vs the 60 degree flat top diamonds.
Well, here comes the plane, I was looking at one plane and it fit all of the requirements perfectly, I can make it the right size I was after, etc, and it was a real challenge of patternmaking to say the least, lol. The plane is called a chariot plane, which I found an article in a magazine from april 20, 1889, called work magazine, and it has plans for one, which I kinda modified a little bit to fit my needs, lol.
The hard part about the plane is the bridge pin, that the wedge slides under and holds the wedge and blade in place, that is cast in place when the plane is cast, which is an undercut, so no way to pull the pattern from the sand normally, and the pattern has to be done completely different than normal.
I wanted to do up large flat pieces of wood to be using as the tops/decorative sections on patterns, so I figured instead of doing one line at a time, why not make a plane that could do a dozen or more lines in one pass, and would only go to a certain depth and then stop cutting, then you can move the plane over, index the previous cuts and a few passes to cut it down to depth to create all of the lines to precision depth and everything.
The problem would be the cutter and how to actually do it, but then I realized that toothing planes had something kinda similar, but they cut square grooves in the wood, so that wouldnt be good, but it also got me thinking about that same theory. I realized that if I put the V profile on the bottom of a plane blade, or on the front of it, opposite side of a bevel, and put it in a bevel up/low angle plane like a block plane, I realized I could do it. By doing it that way, with the V grooves on the bottom of the plane blade and bevel on the top, and making it act as a bevel up scraper plane or toothing plane, you can actually get the 90 degree V profile you need.
The problem was, I didnt have any extra cheap block planes, and all of the planes I have were far far too big, or didnt have parallel sides, which was a requirement I had for it. I needed parallel sides so I could take a square, put it up against the workpiece or workbench, and use the ruler to act as a straight edge to get it cutting at exactly 90, 45, or 30/60 degrees. You would want a 90 degree V pattern, which would give full tipped diamonds vs the 60 degree flat top diamonds.
Well, here comes the plane, I was looking at one plane and it fit all of the requirements perfectly, I can make it the right size I was after, etc, and it was a real challenge of patternmaking to say the least, lol. The plane is called a chariot plane, which I found an article in a magazine from april 20, 1889, called work magazine, and it has plans for one, which I kinda modified a little bit to fit my needs, lol.
Re: My Hand Planes
The plane has to be cast with a corebox, and everything has to line up perfectly between the pattern and corebox, otherwise the internals and bridge pin wont be cast in the right place. Here's pics from the article of the pattern and corebox.
The corebox technically comes apart into 6 different pieces, with a pin running through it to create a cavity for the metal to flow through to make the bridge pin, and cast in the bed angle, internals of the plane, and bottom to make it up. I added a bit more to my pattern so it has a pretty thick bottom, so I could cast it easily, and machine it with the V grooves in it, and still have plenty of material left over. It'll probably be poured in brass from old house keys, which is a leaded, high zinc brass, so makes it pretty hard brass, but lead in it makes it flow very easily and machine nicely.
Mine will have a 3 3/4" long sole, and have a 1 1/4" wide blade, which at 16 lines per inch, or 1/16" spacing, that's 20 lines cut across the piece at one time. I used leather fillets on this one, mostly because I could use some CA glue on the edge of one part, put the leather fillet in place, press it in place, then use some thin CA glue to wet the leather without it sticking to the other piece. Then when I took it back apart, I stabilized the leather using some thin CA glue and it holds it's shape now, but presses against the other pieces to create a nice fillet on the corners, even between seperate pieces of the corebox.
I just need to get some nice weather to get out and pour it. I have around 3lbs of brass keys, so Ill melt those down and turn it into the plane hopefully. I have a bunch of other stuff Ive been working on also that I need to pour too.
- Casting-An-Iron-Chariot-Plane-1889-2.jpg (83.91 KiB) Viewed 421 times
- Casting-An-Iron-Chariot-Plane-1889-3.jpg (79.06 KiB) Viewed 421 times
Mine will have a 3 3/4" long sole, and have a 1 1/4" wide blade, which at 16 lines per inch, or 1/16" spacing, that's 20 lines cut across the piece at one time. I used leather fillets on this one, mostly because I could use some CA glue on the edge of one part, put the leather fillet in place, press it in place, then use some thin CA glue to wet the leather without it sticking to the other piece. Then when I took it back apart, I stabilized the leather using some thin CA glue and it holds it's shape now, but presses against the other pieces to create a nice fillet on the corners, even between seperate pieces of the corebox.
Re: My Hand Planes
Here's an example of checkering like I was trying to do, and how it turned out with the line cutting tools. They kinda worked, but it kept wanting to tear out with the cherry, and didnt want to work very well at all tbh.
The piece was for a ruler holder, similar to a starrett #62 rule holder, which holds patternmaker's rulers and normal rulers for use on surface plates with surface gauges, so you can lay out scribe lines and such on your patterns, or metal when machining it. I wanted it for the patternmaking to use with the shrink rules, so I can get even more accuracy than I have been, with shrinkage allowances built in also. I picked up some starrett shrink rules last summer, so wanted to put them together. These pics were taken before I put the fillets on and filled in the cracks, so it looks much better now and has a nice even flow to everything.
That's an example of what the checkering is used for. Another example is if you look up stanley #71 router planes and a bunch of other planes, the large flat surfaces are done in checkering to break up the casting texture and it helps hide any metal flow patterns that you commonly see when casting thin castings like that. Thats why I was wanting that plane to do that up with, lol. I have this one and a patternmaker's surface gauge pattern sitting here now, they'll probably be poured in brass for the weight/mass, along with a few other parts too.
Re: My Hand Planes
While Im showing patterns for planes and such, Ive seen the stanley #51 and 52 shooting plane and board that goes with it, which I have my miter plane that does the same thing as the plane, but I wanted to make a nice shooting board to go with it. A shooting board and plane is a tool that you just press the wood up against the fence, and run the plane up to trim off a tiny bit at the exact angle you wanted, usually square or 45 degrees for mitered corners, but it cuts it perfectly square in both vertical, and horizontal to the workpiece that youre trimming up.
The main part that really interests me about that shooting board is that the fence, which is adjustable to any angle that you want between 90 and 45 degrees, so you can set it to do the angles for when gluing up octagon or hexagon pieces for segmented turning and such, so everything glues up extremely tight and wont have any glue lines or gaps when turning the patterns. There are a few designs out there for the fences, but most look like crap imo, so I just tried to recreate the stanley one, lol.
I made a few minor modifications to it to suit my needs, but I ended up cutting up some junk "rustic" cherry boards that I thought were junk, cut out the parts with the mineral pockets in it, and glued it back together to make a large plank, that was used to cut out and carve out the shape of the fence.
That probably will be cast in bronze or maybe iron, it's fairly thick, so should be a pretty stout fence, lol. Then Ill use a wooden face on it instead of the normal so if I hit it with the plane iron accidently, it doesnt mess up my plane blade. The rest of the body will probably be made of MDF or some sort of wood, that way I can wax it really well and the plane will slide very easily on it, while holding everything solid.
The main part that really interests me about that shooting board is that the fence, which is adjustable to any angle that you want between 90 and 45 degrees, so you can set it to do the angles for when gluing up octagon or hexagon pieces for segmented turning and such, so everything glues up extremely tight and wont have any glue lines or gaps when turning the patterns. There are a few designs out there for the fences, but most look like crap imo, so I just tried to recreate the stanley one, lol.
Re: My Hand Planes
I have some other patterns too, like some safety sanders, which dave clarke showed in a video of his. I wanted one of them but Im not sure he was selling them anymore, and it was an easy pattern to make, and a good practice to try faceplate turning on the wood lathe, lol. I have one of the old brass rotary planers for the drill press, but it leaves a very rough finish, and isnt good for fine cuts at all, where as this would be great for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv3Wt1sQ1CU
I also remade all of the patterns for the vertical milling head and the corebox for those since they were a disaster, and falling apart badly due to the water putty on the old ones, so I laminated and turned the new pattern pieces, so they're all good to go. The corebox was done using my corebox plane, which went very quickly, and a card scraper to remove any of the plane marks.
Ive been trying to improve my patternmaking skills for a long time now, and Im finally at a point that Im happy with where I am with all of it. So yea, lots of patternmaking, and hopefully lots of casting coming up, so busy summer coming up hopefully, if it ever stops raining and snowing that is, lol. I have enough projects to cast out parts for and to do to keep me busy for the next decade probably, lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv3Wt1sQ1CU
I also remade all of the patterns for the vertical milling head and the corebox for those since they were a disaster, and falling apart badly due to the water putty on the old ones, so I laminated and turned the new pattern pieces, so they're all good to go. The corebox was done using my corebox plane, which went very quickly, and a card scraper to remove any of the plane marks.
Re: My Hand Planes
oh yea, lol. I did get another hand plane. 
My dad saw it on the auction site he gets on, and got it for $13, but it's an old ohio tool co. plow plane, which is probably from 1870s-1880s I think. It was pretty rusted up and pretty grungy when I got it, and it was missing the iron and wedge for it. I luckily had one of the irons/cutters already, probably the one size that I would use the most, that I got from a thrift store years ago. I also had an old jointer plane that was broken in half probably decades ago, so I just ended up cutting it up to have stock to make the wedge from, that way when it's done, it'll all be the same wood and match when it's done.
After an hour of scrubbing with a mix of BLO, turpentine, and steel wool on the wood parts, and wire wheel for the metal parts and screws, it was all cleaned up and ready to go.
There is some damage to the threads in certain spots, but it doesnt hurt from the function of it really, and it's still perfectly usable. I really wasnt looking for the plane, but my dad surprised me with it, and I was still putting off finishing my plow plane contraption, so it all worked out and it'll defenitely be put to use coming up for sure, lol.
I have the face of the cutter/iron flattened already and sharpened, it's ready to go and the wedge is cut out already and fitting nicely, just need to carve the finial on the top of it and the escapement end, but I needed something to take with me to carving group tomorrow, so Ill do that there, lol. I have another plane that needs modification to get it working too that Ive been putting off for a long time now, so Im taking all of it with me to do, lol.
Sorry about the pic spam tonight, just has been a while since I posted anything, lol.
My dad saw it on the auction site he gets on, and got it for $13, but it's an old ohio tool co. plow plane, which is probably from 1870s-1880s I think. It was pretty rusted up and pretty grungy when I got it, and it was missing the iron and wedge for it. I luckily had one of the irons/cutters already, probably the one size that I would use the most, that I got from a thrift store years ago. I also had an old jointer plane that was broken in half probably decades ago, so I just ended up cutting it up to have stock to make the wedge from, that way when it's done, it'll all be the same wood and match when it's done.
There is some damage to the threads in certain spots, but it doesnt hurt from the function of it really, and it's still perfectly usable. I really wasnt looking for the plane, but my dad surprised me with it, and I was still putting off finishing my plow plane contraption, so it all worked out and it'll defenitely be put to use coming up for sure, lol.
I have the face of the cutter/iron flattened already and sharpened, it's ready to go and the wedge is cut out already and fitting nicely, just need to carve the finial on the top of it and the escapement end, but I needed something to take with me to carving group tomorrow, so Ill do that there, lol. I have another plane that needs modification to get it working too that Ive been putting off for a long time now, so Im taking all of it with me to do, lol.
Sorry about the pic spam tonight, just has been a while since I posted anything, lol.
Re: My Hand Planes
That's a nice one. I used to see planes like that at auctions all the time. Now you don't see them much.
Re: My Hand Planes
I got the wedge made up, cutter sharpened to razor sharp (trust me, I dropped it on the side of my finger and removed a chunk...), the skate was low in the middle by almost 1/16", so had to file all of that down to get it in line, and lapped it flat/in line. Now it cuts like butter and while the wedge isnt perfectly the same color, it's pretty close in person. It looks a little lighter in the pic tho, but it'll darken as the BLO inside of it oxidizes over time, and it'll match the plane's color.
The parts on it are all wrought iron, which you could see the slag/mineral streaks and the layers where the iron was folded up on itself and laminated when I was filing and lapping the bottom of the skate. So that dates it quite a bit, I would guess 1860s-1870s probably. After the 1870s, they switched all planes parts to actual steel rather than wrought iron. In the 1890s, ohio tool co switched from making wooden body planes, to making the cast iron type mass produced planes like you see from stanley. So I think for as old as it is, it seems to have cleaned up pretty nicely really, lol. It does work pretty well, and there is one or two modifications I would like to do to it still, but they really arent needed now, just a little lubrication in the inner workings of the thing really. I might tear it back apart soon and do it before it goes on the display shelf, lol.
Most people that have seen these might notice that the finial on the wedge is pretty low, I tend to pop the wedge out using that finial and a mallet when the wedge and iron gets stuck, and the tall ones, Ive tried doing that with and it ends up breaking at the base of the finial and makes for a nightmare of a time getting it back apart, so I just keep them low. It also strengthens the wedge too, and also as the iron gets sharpened over time and goes lower and lower, it gets harder to set depth, so yea, I keep them close to the plane so that never becomes an issue.
The parts on it are all wrought iron, which you could see the slag/mineral streaks and the layers where the iron was folded up on itself and laminated when I was filing and lapping the bottom of the skate. So that dates it quite a bit, I would guess 1860s-1870s probably. After the 1870s, they switched all planes parts to actual steel rather than wrought iron. In the 1890s, ohio tool co switched from making wooden body planes, to making the cast iron type mass produced planes like you see from stanley. So I think for as old as it is, it seems to have cleaned up pretty nicely really, lol. It does work pretty well, and there is one or two modifications I would like to do to it still, but they really arent needed now, just a little lubrication in the inner workings of the thing really. I might tear it back apart soon and do it before it goes on the display shelf, lol.
Most people that have seen these might notice that the finial on the wedge is pretty low, I tend to pop the wedge out using that finial and a mallet when the wedge and iron gets stuck, and the tall ones, Ive tried doing that with and it ends up breaking at the base of the finial and makes for a nightmare of a time getting it back apart, so I just keep them low. It also strengthens the wedge too, and also as the iron gets sharpened over time and goes lower and lower, it gets harder to set depth, so yea, I keep them close to the plane so that never becomes an issue.
Re: My Hand Planes
No hand planes this time, but cast out the rule holder, surface gauge, and safety sanders earlier. I wanted the density of brass for the surface gauge and rule holder, but the safety sander, I just cast those in aluminum, which Ill heat treat those and they'll be ready for machining up. Ive always struggled with brass, but I think this time was pretty close to being perfect, other than being slightly too hot, but it wasnt too bad. Either way, Ive used up pretty much all of the brass now and dont need to mess with it anymore, lol.
The rotary planer I have that I use from time to time, it works great for removing alot of stock really quickly and getting it parallel, but leaves a horrible finish, where as the safety sander I just poured, it'll take maybe 1/32" at most per pass and leave a nice finish and be capable of doing fine cuts where as the rotary planer isnt good at.
The other pieces were the tracking mechanism bracket for our bandsaw, which I went out to use it a few weeks back and it was all jammed up, ended up the bracket was made to be super thin and it ended up snapping due to tension of the blade, and the extreme cold we had at the time. So I glued it back together with CA glue and filled it in with plastine clay to build up the thickness of it, and stuck it in the fridge in the camper, lol. After 30 mins, the clay has gotten rock hard and a little bit of parting dust gets rid of the oily feeling of it and you can ram it up in the sand mold pretty easily before it warms back up and gets soft again, lol. It takes around 15 mins before it warms up enough to really be noticable really, but by then, youve already rammed up the sand mold, lol.
Tomorrow Ill ram up more molds for the aluminum bronze parts, which will be the adjustable fence part of the shooting board for my miter plane's shooting board, and parts for the pantograph. For now tho, I sat down for dinner and am done for now, lol.
The rotary planer I have that I use from time to time, it works great for removing alot of stock really quickly and getting it parallel, but leaves a horrible finish, where as the safety sander I just poured, it'll take maybe 1/32" at most per pass and leave a nice finish and be capable of doing fine cuts where as the rotary planer isnt good at.
The other pieces were the tracking mechanism bracket for our bandsaw, which I went out to use it a few weeks back and it was all jammed up, ended up the bracket was made to be super thin and it ended up snapping due to tension of the blade, and the extreme cold we had at the time. So I glued it back together with CA glue and filled it in with plastine clay to build up the thickness of it, and stuck it in the fridge in the camper, lol. After 30 mins, the clay has gotten rock hard and a little bit of parting dust gets rid of the oily feeling of it and you can ram it up in the sand mold pretty easily before it warms back up and gets soft again, lol. It takes around 15 mins before it warms up enough to really be noticable really, but by then, youve already rammed up the sand mold, lol.
Tomorrow Ill ram up more molds for the aluminum bronze parts, which will be the adjustable fence part of the shooting board for my miter plane's shooting board, and parts for the pantograph. For now tho, I sat down for dinner and am done for now, lol.