Preston Infill Smoother

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It's mine. It's on its way. I'll get a Ray Iles blade if I can't make the supplied one work. Thanks guys for your input, much appreciated. I'll post a picture when I pretty it up a bit 8) .

Cheers
Richard
 
The Preston infill turned up and is in pretty good nick - its the steel dovetailed version, all the woodwork is tight and the thread on the lever cap is good. Ive resisted the temptation to make it all shiney :shock: and given it a light clean. It'd be fun to make it look like new but its over 100 years old so it just feels like it would be wiping its history - so it will remain a bit battered looking as it should.
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It is the wrong iron as it is tapered so I'll have to get another (2 1/4 inch wide). I think someone said Ray Iles makes replacement infill blades? Where is the best place to get them?
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The screw holding the iron to the cap iron is also munted - still works but has been undone with molegrips at some stage :twisted: so I'll try to find a replacement. Can you get those new with the right thread. I suppose I should try another plane screw.
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Found this link - so it is a 1372 I guess. http://www.handplane.com/images/Catalog ... g1-Big.jpg

Cheers
Richard
 

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richarddownunder":51szmedr said:
The screw holding the iron to the cap iron is also munted - still works but has been undone with molegrips at some stage
Cheers
Richard
I think that cap crew would be fine after a fit of simple remedial filing. I've renovated and retained worse!

Is the cap iron stamped for Preston, "other" or not stamped?

BugBear
 
Ray Iles plane irons here https://www.oldtoolstore.co.uk/ Normally I think he likes to have the plane so an iron can be made to fit so some careful measurements on your part will be needed, probably supply a cap iron as well. Any reason why a tapered plane iron can not be used in an infill? Other than it is too wide or thick of course.
 
bugbear":1p4wrgh5 said:
richarddownunder":1p4wrgh5 said:
The screw holding the iron to the cap iron is also munted - still works but has been undone with molegrips at some stage
Cheers
Richard
I think that cap crew would be fine after a fit of simple remedial filing. I've renovated and retained worse!

Is the cap iron stamped for Preston, "other" or not stamped?

BugBear
Yes, you might be right. It has a different thread too. The lever cap is stamped preston but the cap iron doesnt have any marks on it. Apart from a tiny number 3 on the back. Its got an inset piece with the thread and a guide on the back that slots into the channel in the iron. Dont know if that is original but I cant think why it should be added later.

Cheers
Richard
 
essexalan":2gocwui1 said:
Ray Iles plane irons here https://www.oldtoolstore.co.uk/ Normally I think he likes to have the plane so an iron can be made to fit so some careful measurements on your part will be needed, probably supply a cap iron as well. Any reason why a tapered plane iron can not be used in an infill? Other than it is too wide or thick of course.

OK, thanks. I googled a bit after my last post and found that there he makes a standard 2 1/4 inch iron. I suppose that would work. Bit hard to send anything to the UK to measure - I'm on the opposite side of the world and it would cost quite a bit! The tapered iron is too thick. It really doesnt leave any room for the shavings - although I must admit, I havent sharpened it to find out whether it would produce an extremely tight mouth and very fine shavings. I might try that and its good grinding practice anyway! The original catalogue says the iron is parallel but this iron obviously is made to have a cap iron so I'm not sure what it is out of. It is stamped Preston but is rough as guts, especially the slot, seems odd from such a reputable manufacturer.

Cheers
Richard
 
2 1/4 parallel irons are a fairly regular occurrence on ebay. You might try for that simply because they'll look miles better with the plane than a brand new iron.
 
D_W":2f2ruhho said:
2 1/4 parallel irons are a fairly regular occurrence on ebay. You might try for that simply because they'll look miles better with the plane than a brand new iron.
Any tips for Richard on how to measure, to work out what the thickness of his "dream blade" would be?
(and, of course, to avoid buying blades from eBay that would either give no aperture, or an aperture you could back a Mack truck through)

BugBear
 
Anything bigger than about 6 thousandths of mouth should be fine. Personally, I'd probably file the mouth 6 thousandths if I had an iron that was just dead on fitting tight, but before you do that to a beautiful plane, you want to know that you can do it accurately.

I'd use the tapered iron that came with the plane, it's a beautiful iron, and the only reason I'd replace it with something else would be if it's soft or chippy. There are a lot of infills with tapered irons in them, but many quite a bit thinner at the top end than that one (and thus funny looking). The fact that that one has a make that matches the plane and is near parallel would lead me to use it.

I have noticed with the dozen or so infill planes that I've used (pre-war, before norris started using robert sorby, because all bets were off at that point), that the older parallel irons are generally a click or two harder than most of the tapered irons that I've used. I. Sorby's parallel irons will be about as hard as mathiesons, will be about as hard as wards, etc. Robt sorby's irons are perfectly serviceable, but they're not made to the same standard. If the taper iron that came with that plane is reasonably hard (you can always get a good judgement on hardness by taking only thin shavings for a while - an iron that is soft or chippy will drive you nuts in terms of sharpening cycle with thin shavings), I think it's fine as it is.

Anyway, if the taper iron is dead tight and you want a .006" mouth or so, you want an iron that is at least .006*(2^0.5) = .0085" thinner than that iron is right at the bevel (the taper is little enough that you can measure it there). Certainly, the old irons vary in thickness a lot, even in the same make, so I guess you'd have to check with a maker to make sure you got what you want.

(I wish I'd have gotten that plane for 140 quid. i'd file the mouth a little bit and nobody would ever be able to tell that I did. If I was absolutely dead set against filing the mouth, I'm sure I could get 8 thousandths off of that iron with my lap pretty easily. Might take a half hour of sweating, but doing the filing job properly won't be 2 minutes - it won't be an hour, though, either).
 
D_W":12lif7bl said:
I'm sure I could get 8 thousandths off of that iron with my lap pretty easily. Might take a half hour of sweating,.
Nah - wouldn't take long at all.

You weren't planning to remove metal from the hard face of the lamination instead of the soft back, were you? :wink:

BugBear
 
Either or. If it got to be much more than that, then I'd be thinking of at least taking some from the back side. Which shouldn't be an issue if it has not been modified before, because it should have a scoop in its back that doesn't exist on a parallel iron (and is therefore not needed in an infill plane).

If the iron bedded nicely and adjusted nicely with good even pressure across the lever cap, I'd probably just take it off the front in that small of an amount, but I am better at working the face of irons than most people. Not because of skill, only because of experience and repetition.
 
Well, you were all right! The tapered iron fits after all and does a great job. Not really expecting it to work, I just hollow ground it and put on a 30 degree bevel, flattened the back a little and...

mouth preston.jpg


The plane works really well and takes thin, full width shavings with hardly any further fiddling and no work to the sole at all. I can see why folk get so enthusiastic about infills.

Thanks for all the help guys.

Cheers
Richard
 

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I guess my chance of getting it off of you has probably dwindled to zero :)
 
Really enjoying using this Preston, the more I look, the more I realise how well made they were. Sorry to say D_W.

A couple of questions though:
1 is this the finish typical of these sorts of forged irons or has it been rusty at some stage? As we established, it aint the original and I cant find one on e-bay (2 1/4 inch)

2 The plane works very nicely and has a great feel to it - no tear out to speak of on sapele but the edge only holds up for a short time. I can get a lot longer out of my Cliftons or Records. So, in practical terms, would I be better to get a new Ray Iles iron to use instad of the Preston tapered iron? Sharpening isn't the problem, I'm fairly proficient at that, but it does take me a minute or two to get it adjusted nicely (maybe due to my lack of practice).
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Has anyone on the site substituted an old (tapered) plane iron with a new one and found they hold up better?

Thanks

Richard
 

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