The Plane Truth

You can handle the plane

 I finished the wooden jointer plane tonight. I turned a strike button from a piece of maple and installed it. I chamfered the top edges with my block plane and applied a coat of tongue oil to everything (except the iron). I did some test shavings and it seems to work fine. I also worked on a kanna (japanese plane) I got off of EBay, flattening its sole, and scraping the throat a little, and its works great now too. I am in plane heaven.

Here is the final plane.

Oh, I forgot the button

One more thing

I got the tote done and installed today. I put it a little too close to the iron, but it is OK. I just have to use a little helper piece of wood to reach the top of the iron to strike it. I still need to put a strike button on the toe. I started to turn a piece of maple for a button, but I am missing a part on my lath that holds down the back part. It fell off and is laying around somewhere. I thought I could just glue a piece of wenge on there for now. Anyway, it turned out great. I planed the edges of some boards with it and I was getting fine shavings the whole length of the boards. Yay!

 

I used the tote template shown in the great tutorial by Sumokun at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ7zP4pajYo . I used quartersawn oak and oriented the grain about 45 degree so the little stub sticking out would be strong. I also enlarge the tote to fit my giant hands.

 

This is the plane after installing the tote. I chopped out the mortise for the tote with a chisel and flattened the bottom of the mortise with a router plane.

 

I will add the button, and chamfer the top outer edges and bevel the top edge of the wedge. The last step will be putting some finish oil on it.

Just a tote to go

Almost there!

I cut the mouth in the laminated-on sole tonight and took some more test shavings. I also cut a segment of a branch that fell in the yard and made a push stick out it. I thought about trying to use it as a tote, but it wouldn't work very well.

My Left Foot

Mystery Sprain

After I got the plywood for the display cabinet cut as was shown in the previous blog post, I woke up with a sore left foot and could barely walk on it. That was several weeks ago, and it has been a slow recovery. I have no idea what I did, but I blame voodoo.

 

Link to PDF of tote shape 

Link to SketchUp model of plane 

Anyway I started hobbling around the shop this afternoon and worked on a wooden jointer plane I am building. I got the wood close to final size and am ready to start cutting and gluing the parts. I was nervous about planing the padauk with the thickness planer because of the red dust that comes off of it and goes everywhere, so I got an solid plastic extension piece for my shop vac and cut a slot in it so it just fit over the exit guard and taped up one end of it, and attached the shop vac to the other. It worked great.

 

 This is after planing down a bunch of pieces. There were no chips or dust to clean up, on the back end anyway. There was a bit of dust and chips that fly back out the front, but not much. I measured the width of the guard, and removed that amount from the center of the extension, taking out two ribbed sections worth (you can see about 2 1/2 sections worth in the picture.) I didn't have to screw it on or anything, just a friction fit.

I am using white oak and padauk for the body and sole of the plane. It should end up around 22 inches long. I am using a jointer plane iron and chip breaker, both being 2 3/8" wide, from Lie Nielsen.

 

Trying to visualize what the plane will look like with the iron in place.

 

I am using two layers of padauk for the wedge wall for the plane. The body and wedge walls together are 1/16th inch wider than the blade.

 

I can't stay on my feet very long, but I will try to get back to cutting the plywood for the display cabinet to final lengths, and start cutting the dados. I also plan on making a trimmer/chisel plane. I am waiting for the Stanley replacement block plane iron to come before I do too much on that. It might come today. 

PS: The Stanley replacement block plane iron was in the mail box, so I went back down and made a chisel/trimmer plane real quickly. I used a bit of the body stock I cut off the wooden plane.