Bl Working

Cosmin sent over pictures of his favorite tool collection: planes. He writes:

They have not been inherited as I come from a long line of geeks; all I got was a stack of computer punch cards. I have gathered the planes over less than 2 years, which is just about as long as I have been interested in woodworking. I took some photos of the warzone to give some perspective. Then I placed the planes on item #1 from my honey-do list (11/4 thick walnut bench) and took somes shots. For reference, the walnut piece is exactly 12" wide. I promise I did tidy up the place before I took the shots and I chose the best available angle. 

My current interest is building stave shell drums. I am slowly getting there. In the mean time, I am developing a huge interest in hand tools. Next on my list is a Roubo workbench, braces, more drawknives, a beam drill, and a few more drawbore pins.

Beech body, wengè sole and strike button, ash handle and wedge.
14" long, single iron (Eskiltuna-Sweden), 20° skew angle, 45° seat. 
This plane was quite common, judging by a good number of exemplars it is possible to find. It is similar to a jack plane but if you pay attention, you can note the skew iron exposed on the right side. This is achieved by rotating the seat on the left.
 This feature permits to the plane of cutting large and deep rebates.
The cut begins by nailing a wood strip to the piece as guide or, as we can see in the below video, by cutting a preliminary groove.
On the right side, where the blade is flush with side, the wood thickness decreases to zero and a point of weakness is created as can be see looking at old exemplars.



I preferred to add a brass plate for preventing future damages.
The building process follows.


Carefully layout the throat, mark the part to be first morticed and bore with a spade bit, following the seat and wear angles.

 



Trace a hole series a couple of cms deep, by a 3 mm bit. These define the central mouth part and help us to complete the throat.


Cut the mouth for some mms.

Utilize a wooden block, cut to the same seat angle for define the iron bed.


A steel plate, equipped with 80 grit sand paper, helps us to flatten the seat.



At this point glue a wengè sole about 1cm thick


and re-cut the mouth



For cutting the abutments, I utilize a coping saw. It is time to create the bed rotation in order to permit to the blade of being flush with the side.



A flat milled file is used for obtaining a precise surface, vital for a good planing action.



Mark on the wedged blade a line parallel to the plane sole and grind and hone a new cutting edge.


a planemaker float (thanks to Andrea who built it for me) helps to make some corrections.
 

Determine the brass plate position and fix it flush with the side.


Cut a recess for blade side protruding. Unfortunately, I did a mistake in positioning the brass plate, so I had to fill the gap with a beech veneer. This does not affect the planing job but is a little bit unpleasant to look at.







The handle is joint by a blind slide dovetail. Cut the male with a dedicate plane.
The handle position has not to interfere with hammering, while the blade is setting in.

Cut  the mortice sides by a back saw.


Bore where the saw blade cannot cut.

Clean by a router plane.

Both tail and mortice are tapered on one side, so a more solid joint can be obtained.


The strike button comes from hole saw and Dozuki cuts.












The following video shows the plane in action while cutting a 45 mm rebate.

Since several years I wished to make a panel raising plane. Inspiration came to me from a model listed in the 1934 UMAT catalogue.
 



Other than the main blade, it was equipped with an auxiliary iron for moulding the inner edge of the panel and a nicker for scoring the wood across the grain.
Woods are lamellar beech, wengè and cherry (handle). Here is the result:






The plane (13" long, blade bedded at 50°) has a razee shape like motif and is provided with an adjustable parallel fence as well as a depth stop. The fence permits changing of rebate width. 





The main blade (25° skew angle) has a chipbreaker and the "Stella Bianca" mark. It is a new old stock blade and showed very good quality and ability of keeping a sharp edge. The moulding iron comes from a file, shaped by bench grinder.
The first nicker (red point) comes from an old plane iron; it is inserted in a mortice and held in place by a wedge. Another nicker (green point) is present; it avoids the tearout of the moulding edge when the plane cuts across the grain.



The main wedge is kept in place by a 5 mm steel rod I obtained from a screwdriver.

The cherry handle is glued to the plane body by a sliding dovetail joint (PR means Panel Raising and 13 is the plane length).












  A description of building the plane follows.









It received three coats of shellac and two coats of wax.











 


The following short video shows the plane in action. 
What a satisfaction!