A sort of ripping plane

[Ikisumu]

This came to me when I happened to get a piece of one impressive blade of large sawmill bandsaw for large timber.

The blade is carbide tipped. At first I thought it would be a plow plane for narrow grooves or such, but ripping has became it's own turf.

It was done from scratch to finish in an evening, or so. Pretty much in a heat of the moment, just to test out the concept. It's not very detailed or shapely work, instead some hastiness can be seen indeed.

I used the tools and materials I had at hand, stainless steel tube, aluminium profile, steel, beech and wenge. Fast epoxy glue was used. There were no actual blueprints in use, I just rotated everything in my head, and it kinda can be seen, too.

These are a year or two old pictures, right after I made it. I have replaced the locking system machine screws with wing screws, otherwise it is pretty much the same in appearance. The saw blade skates are 1,5mm thick, and original width of the carbide tip was something like 2,5mm, which I have since honed down to 1,7mm. The profile of the tip is trapezoid. It is very easy to push, and the carbide tip seems to have eternal lifespan in this application.

Of course it will not replace a proper tablesaw or circular saw, but sometimes it is just nice to work in silence. And there is no dust either, because shavings can be almost 3mm thick depending on the wood. A bit of evolution could find more applications for it, but I have not developed it any further than this.

That's about it.

Samu

 

[Trizza]

Thats really crazy cool. I've never heard of a plane used for ripping before!

 

[Ironballs]

Indeed, interesting plane and one hell of a big bandsaw blade.

Have you not heard of panel saws though? :wink:

 

[Ikisumu]

Thanks guys.

Sure, I have a couple of panel hand saws, too. However, when for example some gutsier aussie hardwood blank decides to show me some face, I feel like taking no prisoners. Those woods can be pretty tough ones sometimes.

I like Australian species of wood quite much. They give sometimes terribly lovely contrasts when combined with a nordic baltic birch and some other European hardwoods. There's some African species I like as well, but those ones are usually more obedient.

Samu

Edit: I have a couple of panel hand saws.

They used to be called just panel saws. Now something else is called as panel saw.

 

[OPJ]

An intriguing idea.

To me, the main problem with panel and rip saws seems to be how you hold the timber, sometimes. It's not always possible (or easy) to secure something without a clamp or something else getting in the way. Using this jig, you could probably pinch the wood between a pair of dogs.

 

[Ikisumu]

Using this jig, you could probably pinch the wood between a pair of dogs.

That has been the strategy for me, too. The work can be done so that the entire piece of wood is on the table top, and battens will be supported until cut completely loose.

A plunger circular saw certainly does it too (in a one go), but sometimes I feel that setting up the power tool, dust extraction and cleaning of small chips afterwards from everywhere would be a bit laborous for one-off small cut. I like jarvising, too.

I have used it for making grooves into plastics a couple of times, and it seemed to be working fine. At that time there was no other tool at hand that would leave as narrow and straight kerf (the plastic strips were pretty long, almost 2 meters), and that one turned out to be suitable for the job.

Samu

 

[AndyT]

I like it! The original bit is the shape of the cutter - which seems so much more sensible than the simple wedge shape slitting blade on combi planes in the other thread.

I think I might try grinding down a plough plane cutter and see what I can do.

 

[bugbear]

This came to me when I happened to get a piece of one impressive blade of large sawmill bandsaw for large timber.

The blade is carbide tipped. At first I thought it would be a plow plane for narrow grooves or such, but ripping has became it's own turf.

Impressively fast build!

Its cutting action is quite different from the #405 slitting - you're using a saw action, the #405 is a knife.

BugBear

 

[Eric The Viking]

That's a really nice idea, and very beautifully made, too. I can see why you want one - lots of good ideas for using it too.

I notice you've got some left! Can you bolt two teeth together, side-by-side, so as to make a router plane? I guess your existing design does that well already, but two teeth might be faster and a bit cleaner for wider slots. Is there a sharp edge on the side of the teeth to allow this?

By the way, That looks like a very unusual blade too. I'd have expected a blade that wide to have wider-spaced teeth for rough sawing. At least, the ones I've seen usually did. Was it a resaw blade of some sort?

 

[NickUrquhart]

Beautiful tool, always impresses me when someone can bang something together in one day, nevermind one evening. I normally take 3 days, over-enjoying the thinking part, before my hands get to the project.
You've got some pretty tidy countersunk holes on the blade retention plate. Did you do this on a drill press with a countersink bit or on a mill?
In the past i've use a stringing plough that i made to rip small sections, when i couldn't afford to let the kerf line stray. The fence never lets the line move more than a few thou. One plane that i was thinking of making a few years back was a plough with back to back blades, so that you can cut on both push and return strokes. Great plane, reminds me of the clean lines of an Ulmia. Might be an idea to put your pictures up on handplane.com planemakers gallery.
cheers, Nick.

 

[Ikisumu]

Thank you, guys.

Impressively fast build!

It took about 5-6 hours or such. I made my decisions for details quite fast.

One important factor to speed up the process was using a fast setting epoxy glue. I often mix my epoxies myself, for I do not always like those excess thixotropes in most commercial glues. For example the use of Epon 8111 with suitable curatives will give you a relatively clear epoxy that cures quite quickly into working strength. It's really a matter of minutes to tens of minutes at maximum, depending on the curative type. Full strength will appear after days at room temperature, but here was indeed no need to wait for that.

First I glued a couple of beech blanks together for the body and fence. Then I stacked and clamped them into a post drill holder and drilled the holes through the stack in both ends for tubular fence guides. That was essentially the starting point.

I did all my metal work at one go, too. I cutted the blanks for tubular quides, skates and the blade with an angle grinder. Mostly by eyeballing the approximate dimensions, and the making two pieces alike. I used metals cold cutting circular saw for cutting steel and aluminium profiles. Then again to the post drill for holes, picked up the threading bits and basically only after preparing the metal parts I checked out how they would fit there.

Then I did some routing for seating the skates and the blade. According to the thickness of the blade "shank", I routed the housing for the "cap iron" plate. Then I fitted the blade and the skates into some good looking position and drilled holes in the skates with a carbide drill bit. It was slow work and needed some extra Rocol Lube. After that I positioned them again and drilled screws through the holes and seated them.

Routing the housings for locking rings was no problem. I just seated them inline in some position in the midline of the fence and routed the cavities at the fence guide holes, large (long) enough enough. The thickness of the aluminium locking ring matches with the routed cavity, so the guides will not get stuck with aluminium because of swaying of the locking ring.

The plane was finished by scraping and planing smooth of all the non-essential surfaces. Edit: With this I mean the "outer" surfaces. Once you decide the mating surfaces, it's not usually a good idea to touch them afterwards.

The depth stop is just a big woodscrew. Anything more sopisticated was seen unnecessary, because I just wanted to check out the concept. I wanted the plane to be precise, though.

Its cutting action is quite different from the #405 slitting - you're using a saw action, the #405 is a knife.

Yes, in this format. My apologies I forgot to mention I have made a selection of different styles of blades for it. There is a couple of a bit like knifeblades, too. They will not cut too deep in one pass, that is true also.

Samu

PS. For those who are interested and into these things, they should really pay attention for this note on Epon 8111 for basis of further formulations:

EPON Resin 8111 was designed to be cured with aliphatic amines. Within this curing agent class, EPI-CURE* Curing Agent 3295, EPI-CURE Curing Agent 3271, and unmodified polyethylene amines such as triethylene tetramine are particularly useful converters for this resin due to their low viscosity and moderate to high reactivity. EPI-CURE Curing Agent 3282, while higher in viscosity, is also recommended for this use. When using these curing agents, the preferred combining ratio is calculated on the basis of one active hydrogen equivalent weight per one hundred forty parts by weight EPON Resin 8111.

Edit: there's something all the time, but I'll arrive, I hope.

 

[Ikisumu]

Aah, it took me for too long to write the previous post, and I missed your posts, guys. Thanks anyway!

I admit it has clear Ulmia and ECE influence. I like their planes, too. Despite the "square" looks of many of their products, they are surprisingly comfy and precise to use. And I like wooden planes anyway.

Countersunk holes (like all other drillings) were done with the same sturdy post drill.

I never visited myself at the sawmill, but I suppose it was a resaw, a fast running one.

I have not thought of making multiple blade planes, but I don't see why not they would not be possible. On my behalf, anyone may exploit this concept quite freely.

Samu

 

[Philipp]

Hi Ikisumu,

Looking at your ripping plane I am thinking about building one on my own.

What do you think would the max. cutting depth be for such a plane? I am thinking about cutting wider boards into slices (I don't own a band saw which would be the most appropriate tool for this job). I could imagine that the thin "sole" and shavings causing the plane to jam might be restrictions to the plane's usefulness for deeper cuts, say more than 4 or 5 cm.

What do you think?

Regards, Philipp