My Hand Planes

[Jammer]

Do you cut the whole thread at once or do it in steps, a little at a time? I had a big one a long time ago. It cut about a 1 1/2 rod. The wooden part was really rotted out and I think it got thrown out.

[cae2100]

One pass, thats why everything has to be absolutely perfect and razor sharp, which I know I had gotten the cutter in mine razor sharp for sure, lol. You risk tearing out doing that tho, so the old trick was to soak the dowels in linseed oil first for a day, then you can run it through the thread box to cut the thread on it without it wanting to tear out as badly. The one using the router/drill press as in the pic kinda deals with that issue by decreasing the amount of cutting forces on the thread being cut by taking tiny cuts each rotation of the cutter, so makes it easier to do and less likely to tear out. I think the much larger ones used two cutters, but Im not really sure.

Edit: here's the one I have and the tap next to it.

Maybe one of these days, Ill get it working, but no idea if/when that'll ever be, lol.

[cae2100]

lol, I kinda had a little oops the other day...

I was trying to use my plane setting hammer to adjust a plane, and with the style of hammer I had made, it had a small tapered square back end that while I thought it looked good at the time, such a small area kinda make for an interesting time trying to hit stuff with it exactly, lol. It was forged out of some 5/8" sucker rod around 2 years ago. The plane setting hammer is the one on the left:

Well, I got tired of trying to hit the plane blades with such a small end, so tried cutting a little off of it to make for a larger striking area and kinda took a bit too much off... It kinda worked, but it looked so bad that it just bugged me, so I fiddled with it to get the handle loose and get it back off. I then took it back out to the forge and reforged it into a warrington style cross peen, just fullering in at the back of the hammer eye and then flattening that square taper out to around half thickness. It looks much much better now, but I tried cleaning some of the forging scale off of it and was in a bit of a rush, so it got a bit shiny.

The peen was hardened, around half way up, then left to cool slowly so the heat would draw through to the peen and temper it, while leaving the eye and front soft. The front had a piece of dogwood in it that was turned down with a round tenon on it to fit into the hammer face, but the dogwood eventually splintered apart from hitting the wedges and such, so I replaced it with a soft nylon plug. That way I can hit the wooden wedges and not damage them or leave ding marks in them, and the peen can hit the top of the plane blades to adjust the cut depth easily.

That's all fixed now anyways, lol.

[cae2100]

Ive run into a bit of a dilemma... I didnt really want to start any new planes, just finish up what I had, but I was using the stuff in my toolbox and sorting everything out a while back and tried using my patternmaker's plane to see how it was compared to my new pipe planes. It was really really bad tbh and actually very uncomfortable to use.

I can fix it and make it better, but it was my first plane I made, and there's a big reason why I really dont want to use the plane tbh. The plane was original based off of my grandfather's hand plane, and while I was working on that, he was battling cancer, and it was kinda his pride and joy and he was always wanting to show everyone that as I was building it. Almost a week after I had finished it, the cancer took over and he passed away. So as time goes on, I really want less and less to use it, and more of just to put it in the display case with his planes, rather than trying to modify it or replace any parts of it.

So thats where Im at, I really dont want to use it in fear of something happening to it as Im using it. Also, while it works well for a first try, it does have a few issues that are mostly just design issues that I discovered later on that are in commercial planes, and was fixed in the pipe planes. So I keep debating on taking the old patternmaker's plane out of the toolbox and replacing it with a new one in pipe plane style, and just putting the old one in the display case with my grandfather's tools.

Another issue with it is that the plane is far too wide, and trying to shape the bottoms for different radiuses, it is just a nightmare to do tbh and almost impossible to get into alot of places that you would need it to, so in reality, it's only good as a general purpose, flat bottom plane tbh.

On the other hand, the toolbox was made to fit that plane and the few chisels I forged out a few years ago, as it was one of my first tools for the patternmaking toolbox, and it has always been a permanent piece in the toolboxes from the start. So you can say that in a way, it belongs in that toolbox and it's hard to just remove it from it and replace it.

So debating on just keeping it in the toolbox and keeping it safe in there, or putting it on the shelf and making a new one... Ive been fighting over that one for a while really, and lately after digging into the toolbox again a few days ago, it just really got stuck in my mind and is just getting to me of the - if something happened to it.

[cae2100]

Ive thought about it over the last few days and have decided to just put that plane up and keep it safe, and just make a new one that Ill use from now on.

I went out to the shed and found a piece of 4" pipe, which was 1/4" thick walled, so I cut a 2" wide ring off, and a 1 3/4" wide ring. The 2" wide one, I cut on the weld seam and took both of them out to the forge, which I opened the 2" one up and flattened it out into flat bar, and the 1 3/4" one, I first stuck it in the lathe and turned the wall thickness down to 3/16" thick, then forged into the traditional pill shape. From there, I was able to see exactly how long of plane I could make and where I could start at now. The pill shape was forged using a 1 1/2" round bar, so the inside of it will support a 1 1/2" wide blade now, and turned out to be 6" long.

After that, I was able to measure everything off and start doodling up the plans for the new patternmaker's plane. The keyhole slots are still fighting me, but I have some ideas for that. The idea is to hide the keyholes underneath the infill, so they dont show up and dont stick up on the front toe, which when youre resting your hand on the front toe, you'll be scratching yourself on the screws, so by hiding them under the infill, that makes it look nice while protecting myself from the screws, lol.

The old one was honestly way too wide to get into the radiuses and such that I needed the plane for, so it made it pretty useless tbh. With a much narrower blade, I can make the plane much narrower too. Old one, the soles were 2 1/2" wide, this one, I think it'll be around 1 7/8", maybe 2" at most, but that'll still be more than narrow enough to do what I need it to do, and open alot more possibilities. The tote/handle in the back is being replaced for a squirrel tail type handle that you commonly see on smaller patternmaker's planes. I was looking at the sizes of patternmaker's planes and the blades range from 1" wide on really small ones, up to 1 3/4" wide on larger ones, so I figured since Ill be using it alot on just doing flat and larger radiuses, a 1 1/2" wide blade would be right in the sweet spot for what I wanted to do without it being overly big. The tail allows me to get the longer footprint to give it more room and clearance for the shavings and such to come out freely, and makes it much more comfortable, without adding length to the bottom/sole of the plane since that limits what I can use since Im trying to use the same drawer as the old plane's soles used.

I had to take everything back out earlier and clean up a few minor issues on the pieces, but they're sitting out there cooling right now, and shouldnt have any issues anymore. Ive been thinking about this for a while now and it's become even more pushed to the front of the line recently, which when I tried using it the other day, I realized how uncomfortable the handle really is compared to my pipe planes, so I think it's finally time to just give in and put the old one away somewhere safe.

[Jammer]

You just keep thinking and doing, I just think up stuff but don't do much.

I really like that style of plane and I'm amazed by the Keyhole slots, you make them disappear. I do want to make some small hammers and may actually try to get a start on them. I'm still casting some small Pewter items and actually selling a few in a small shop in town.

[cae2100]

lol, really, I am always thinking, but I need to do to keep from going insane, lol. I feel like that line inches closer every day, but just keep myself busy and I wont notice it when Ive gone way past it, lol.

I keep grabbing a bunch of stuff out of the toolbox to take with me to carving group, so finally decided that instead of constantly pulling stuff out to take with me and bringing it back home to put it all back away every time, since the stuff Im usually after is in the big box and not in the carving one, I might as well take the main toolbox instead, lol. I brought it out to get it ready to take with me, and was looking at the stuff in it, I realized that most of the stuff, I could replace if something had happened to it, but that plane, there was no way I could if it had gotten damaged or something had happened to it. I went to use it and after using my pipe planes for so long, I realized how uncomfortable to use it really was, plus with the problem that I couldnt really modify it to make it better/fix it, I ended up just deciding to put it on the shelf with the important stuff and put it up where it was safe.

The small hammers are pretty easy to do, the hardest part imo is just making the hammer eye drift, and even then, it's pretty easy. Just forge a long round taper, then heat it back up and flatten it out somewhat into an oval shape, then roll it on the belt grinder's slack part to smooth it out. Most people punch the hole in the hammer blank, but I end up just drilling it out and then run the drift out to open it up and shape it. If you want to use mine, youre welcome to come out and make up some small hammers and such.

[cae2100]

I got a little progress done on it, deadline is probably next wednesday for it, or at least have most of the metal work done on it anyways. I cut the bottom do to slightly over length, stuck the parts back in the forge and cleaned them up, going at the bottom with the flatter so it makes it as flat as possible, and just cleaned up the radiuses on the ends of the top piece to get them into nice smooth round ends. Just rough forging them left them a little lumpy in some spots, but mandrel had gotten too hot and I had to stop to let the mandrel and my hand cool back down, lol.

I laid out and chain drilled the mouth, then roughly filed it in so i could get a bulk of the work done before brazing. Ill file the rest of the mouth out and everything afterwards and when I get the infill installed, that way I can get the transition between the steel bottom and the wood infill perfect, and get the angles perfect too. I cut a bit off the back of the top piece also, which would be removed anyhow when milling the scallop out later, so I figured do it now so it was less to deal with later.

I stuck the top/pipe piece in the shaper and got it flattened and squared up to the sides, and it's wrapped up in bailing wire to hold it in place while brazing. I also took my circle drafting stencils and metal marking pencil to lay out the ends, then cut them and ground them to shape on the belt sander, so that's done and I dont have to worry about laying it out later.

Right now tho, it's sitting on the anvil, mixed up some brazing flux and put it all around the inside seam, and bent up a bit of brazing rod to fit inside of it, so now the flux is drying and as soon as it stops raining, Ill take the forge out and heat it up and braze it all together. Im pretty sure I overdid it with the amount of braze, but I rather have too much braze and a good joint, rather than not enough and have to redo it later, lol

Edit:

Sitting in citric acid pickle for a day or two to remove the remnants of the brazing flux, and removing the forging scale, then Ill work on getting it cleaned up and get it ready for machining.

[cae2100]

Ok, the acid worked pretty well removing most of the forge scale, had to leave it in for 3 days overall, which the copper in the braze kept getting attacked by the acid and kept wanting to plate itself loosely to everything. It easily just brushed off tho with the wire brush, then it would keep removing the mill scale again. I did that till everything was gone and the metal was clean, then it got washed off in the kitchen sink to remove any of the acid. Then I went at it to with a little flap wheel thing in the dremel, which made quick work of the braze that flowed out where it wasnt supposed to.

After that, it was set up on the shaper and the top and bottom was planed flat, holes laid out, and keyholes were drilled out, then taken to the mill and the keyhole slots were milled in it. The sides werent perfectly parallel as I thought at the time and it messed with me a little bit and the keyholes are off by around 1/32", which isnt much and really wont hurt anything. The sides were then milled parallel to the top/body to clean it all up.

After deburring and cleaning it all up, it was stuck back on the mill, with a 5/16" bolt through the back keyhole's hole, which let me clamp it down without risking hitting a clamp with the milling cutter.

Then I went at it with files and the dremel flap wheel to deburr and smooth everything out, and getting everything to flow together nicely.

And here it is on the original drawing to see how it looks.

I need to hammer out the lever cap for it, but it's coming together pretty quickly. The deadline I had set for myself to get the metalwork done on it was july 9th, which is when the carving group is, and I planned on having the infill cut out and roughed out by the time it was time for the carving group, then I'd just work on that while I was there BSing with the guys, lol. The mouth was just roughly filed to shape/angle before, and it's slightly out of square, so I left material to file out and square it all up, and file to blend it together with the infill so it has a perfectly seamless transition between the metal and wood. Lots to do still, which I need to make the soles up sometime soon also, which needs to be done before the infill is added in, but that's pretty easy to do really.

Thats about it for now, lots of progress this time, but still lots to do. Fighting weather and humidity because it's 90+ out here still and very very high humidity right now, so trying to avoid doing too much forging right now, and I need to forge out that lever cap. I kinda have the steel cut out for it, but it needs cut in half, and Im pretty much out of cutoff wheels for the angle grinder. Ill probably find some way to use the power hacksaw to cut it, which shouldnt take too long to do really.

[cae2100]

I forged out a lever cap, but it turned out to be crap and Ill just have to make another tbh. I cut the stock piece too narrow and when trying to stretch it out to size, it got thinner than I really wanted, and when cleaning it up, I noticed a cold shut in the neck part of it, which I tried grinding out but I couldnt get it all, and it ended up getting too narrow, so Im just not happy with it at all. I also forged 6 blade blanks for the thing also from bed frame, just need to cut them down and stick them in the shaper to get them all parallel and to size.

Also laid out and cut out the wood for the infill out of cherry as usual. The handle/tail design is actually really comfortable and it really surprised me at how comfortable it is, lol. It needs fit into the steel, and carved to final shape still, but Im saving that for the carving group. It's already in the box ready to go.

On top of that, Ive been thinking about some way to hold the stuff when working on it at the carving group, since I dont have a vise there to put the stuff in, and a normal clamp wont work very well, nor will a normal vise, so I took a 6" hand screw clamp, glued and screwed it to piece of scrap wood, and stuck a rubber drawer liner on the bottom of it, lol. It has clearance all around the outside of it so I can stick an F clamp on each side of it and use it to hold the stuff, which the hand screw clamps can hold tapered stuff and small parts very easily and very firmly. The F clamps on thier own, if youre really pushing on it, or planing something held in it, those clamps tend to move on me, so the rubber drawer liner on the bottom of it keeps the stuff from sliding around.

Now I can hold the infill to cut the groove around the infill so it'll fit down inside of the steel plane body, and to carve it to shape. The wood is almost the same size as the outside of the steel/body, so it has to be cut away so it fits down inside of it.