A simple box...(a slow and lightly updated thread)

[D_W]

I have started the making of a skew cutting brick intended to be a shooting plane. Build-alongs of this type of thing aren't that interesting (if they were, I'd put them on youtube) and it's not like a million people haven't already made infills with mostly hand tools, so I'll keep the updates short and seldom.

Perhaps a skewed plane isn't as common, but lots of things you can do well enough with limited tools , despite not being able to achieve perfection.

(I also took delivery of a LV skew shooter last week, we'll see if I can match it. )

The pins and tails are a little funny in spacing because they're laid out by eye, and the skew mouth means they can't match, anyway - the mouth area needs to be a pin on the sole or you'll be in big trouble. Even when the mouth is surrounded by a pin, it gets distorted in the peining stage and needs to be cleaned up.

 

[patrickjchase]

Out of curiosity, what do you make of the LV?

I like that plane a lot, but I also think that it could prove somewhat polarizing. It's definitely an unconventional design.

 

[D_W]

I'm not a fan of their design (general aesthetics, not function), but I understand that they really like it, so there's that. That's just opinion.

I haven't gotten the plane out of the wrapper yet, but if I don't manage to use it in a couple of months, I might not use it much (and I'm sure it's a great plane - I can't look at the design and see anything about it that would suggest it wouldn't work well - it's simple and the ideal combination of elements for an end grain plane - skew and bevel up, and low angle bevel up at that). The handle location suggests track use from my limited experience making wooden planes to shoot, but if you're going for full white collar planing luxury (which I think I will be with the brick above), the track is really the ultimate beer in one hand and smooth working plane in the other setup.

Fair chance that I completely screw up something on this plane, either in concept or execution, and get quite a lot of use out of the LV, though - but so far - it has to get out of the wrapper first, and I've been doing a lot of cutting/filing/drilling and thinking about this one (and I use the same bench for all things - so vacuuming and possibly a bit of card scraping needs to occur to work wood).

Without having used LN or LV's plane, I chose LV to give me a "feel bar" to shoot for, assuming that its general setup and orientation is better for shooting than LN's stanley copy.

 

[swagman]

(I also took delivery of a LV skew shooter last week, we'll see if I can match it. )

DW; sounds like superb logic. Forking out $400. + usa for a premium shooting plane, so you can do a comparison test with the shooting plane your building. #-o

 

[Bodgers]

(I also took delivery of a LV skew shooter last week, we'll see if I can match it. )

DW; sounds like superb logic. Forking out $400. + usa for a premium shooting plane, so you can do a comparison test with the shooting plane your building. #-o

It's actually about 330, plus you could get a lot of that back resale...

 

[D_W]

That's exactly right, Bodgers - both on the price and the idea.

Stewie, if I thought $35 of spread between the bought and sold price of the LV shooter was going to be an issue, it sure would be stupid to keep building infills that have a couple of hundred dollars of consumables and materials in each.

 

[nabs]

quite right DW - it is perfectly logical to measure your own efforts against a something that is known to be a very good standard.

Are there any better ways to improve your skills than by observing the work of others and trying to match or improve on it? I think not. Looking forward to the updates!

 

[D_W]

Exactly right. In this case, if I can't better the LV plane, I'll just use it. If I can at least match it, then I'll ultimately sell it (or it'll end up rusting at some point from disuse and then it will automatically be sold by house rule).

A reasonable person would've just bought the LV plane and used it, but I like to build planes. Even though this infill is relatively low cost (I'll be making the iron, too, which keeps the cost down - as well as whatever the ultimate retention mechanism is), it'll still be at least $200 in materials and consumables. Probably $250. If it doesn't go well, it won't be worth $250 finished.

If I was worried about money, I'd be hustling to make and promote my wooden planes.

Stewie's got a rub with LV. Off and on with me, but all is fair, I've shoveled some back in his direction at times, too.

All that said, if my plane is substandard to LV's in performance, I'll say it straight up without hiding it. I haven't made a single plane yet that doesn't have some kind of mistake in it, and sometimes they are garish. There's a good chance of it here due to the complexity of the layout and the sequence needed to get everything done. Making a pattern and 5 or so of these to get the pattern right would be a more certain way to go about this.

 

[Ttrees]

Nice work David
Is that regular mild steel, or somethinng else, and if so,
Is it annealed?
The plane looks to be dismantableable at the moment, what I'm trying to say is...
The dovetails are only in one oreintation only,...

I take it the plane will not come apart once you assemble it, never mind when you pein some rods in there, at various locations
and the fact your peining the dovetails also, means it will never give a hint of seperating.
I know your a fan of efficiency and tradition, and safely guessing you will use a wooden wedge...

Are you going to incorporate /have you incorporated an end section of metal to the design, to either end, but mainly at the striking end
for protection to the infill, or would this possibly be counterproductive?

Love to see more pics, especially if your annealing steel or doing anything like that.
Thanks
Tom

 

[D_W]

It's just annealed hot roll (1018 or something, anything malleable works fine). If it's not annealed, don't purchase it. The cheaper stuff like this can be out of flat a little bit, so you mallet anything that's too far out of flat so that it's close.

Then, lay out the pins so that one is at the mouth and one at each end (the pins are on the sole), and lay the tails out in between. If the plane is steel on steel, your objective is to get them to disappear with good metalwork. if you're doing brass or gunmetal over a steel sole, then you need to be a little bit more deliberate and mark them neatly. I marked these by eye (they're not all the same slope or anything).

The key to getting the plane to hold together is to file a secondary notch at the edge of the tails and pins (both sides) so that the metal sort of wraps around the pins and tails and holds things together after peining. If you don't do this, you run the risk of pushing the pins and tails apart when you insert the infill (which needs to be very tight or it will look sloppy).

Corners must be clear - if there is some slough left in a corner, it's not like wood where you can pound it together - it just won't go together. The neater the metal work (and tighter), the easier it is to pein the dovetails together quickly and neatly with no gaps. You don't even want a small pinhole anywhere, but you'll probably have a few cosmetic issues the first few that you make.

I leave 3/16ths to pein, and as I'm filing it off, I keep an eye on the joints and continue to tap any gaps shut lightly.

The only thing that will keep me from using a wooden wedge under a cross strap in this plane is my past experience with wedges sometimes getting knocked loose in heavy shooting. If I use a wedge, it will have a scroll so that I can tap it out No metal on the ends of this plane, just the sides.

By the way, you can see which is pins and which is tails on this plane because I haven't filed the secondaries yet. Once they are there (I can take a picture of what they look like - I've already filed them in), both parts look like tails after peining.

You can also just make a finger joint with the metal and file the secondaries in, but the joint will not be quite as strong. I made two planes that way.

 

[Ttrees]

Thank you David for explaining that
I look forward to your piccys

Tom

 

[patrickjchase]

The key to getting the plane to hold together is to file a secondary notch at the edge of the tails and pins (both sides) so that the metal sort of wraps around the pins and tails and holds things together after peining. If you don't do this, you run the risk of pushing the pins and tails apart when you insert the infill (which needs to be very tight or it will look sloppy).

There's also the minor matter of the stresses that are placed on the shell when the humidity increases and that tightly-packed infill tries to expand...

 

[D_W]

I haven't had an issue with that, but expect that over time, the infills will shrink. I can't remember when I finished my last smoother, but it has pulled up from the sole ever so slightly (fraction of a sheet of paper, but you can see it if you're looking for a laser fit).

I've got about 15 old infills and none have telegraphed their dovetails due to expansion.

I've noticed the same thing with my beech planes. No matter what time of the year I build them, they get tight on the irons after a little while. They're kiln dried and over a year additional air dry in my basement. Same with the old ones - they were probably dry when they were made, but if they're left without use, they tighten up on the iron and wedge and can blow out their cheeks.

If I manage to get this plane built in the winter, we'll see if it can telegraph the tails over summer, because I will make the infill within about a thousandth or two of the peined width.

Norris had enough trouble with beech (which is a terrible wood for infills due to the amount that it can shrink and how fast it can absorb moisture) that they eventually stuck a screw through the front bun on the A5. It looks ugly, but I'm sure it was needed (I had two, one with the screw and one without, and would say they are one plane I'd advise nobody ever buy because of the adjuster - the adjustment system is terrible. The only infills I've ever sold other than a shepherd kit that I put together - shepherd's iron was crap, so out the door that one went).

 

[patrickjchase]

I haven't had an issue with that, but expect that over time, the infills will shrink.

I don't think you can avoid at last some small amount of shrinkage, short of storing the plane in a constant-humidity environment.

Obviously the big challenge there is compression set, just as with dowel joints in chairs. Even if you could put the infill in perfectly dry it would still shrink the first time it tries to expand and is prevented from doing so by the shell.

IMO that unavoidable (and small) amount of shrink is part of the character of the planes.

 

[Ttrees]

David Is this stuff what you'd call 1018 or annealed hot roll ?
As all I've ever heard of is bright mild steel

I'm guessing these, and most likely all infills should have the grain orientated horizontal when looking head on, at either end...
like the wooden jacks and such..... If so,
Which way should the endgrain be facing ?

Guessing orientated so the pith side of the stock is facing down at the sole, as if it were to move, it would
favour touching the edges of the iron instead of at the middle,
Am I on track here, or are there other things at play?
Just I thought I might as well ask

Thanks
Tom

 

[D_W]

I buy the steel from an industrial supplier, so I have no idea what different steels look like in scrap form.

My preference for wood is rift with pith centered well so that it doesn't want to twist, and then the pith side is oriented up. Quartered is ok, but the top of a plane can look like a cheap steak knife if all you see is the flat sawn face.

 

[Ttrees]

I wouldnt have thought there would be much difference in looking at a flatsawn face
if the pith were orientated either way, but then again I'm not used to exotics with features, or in quanitys that I
could consider the look.
Thanks
Tom

 

[Racers]

If you are worried about expansion/contraction use Corian.

My Corian infill plane by Pete Maddex, on Flickr

New Shoulder plane by Pete Maddex, on Flickr

DSC_4720_zps084197e1 by pete maddex, on Flickr

Pete

 

[D_W]

They look great, pete! Especially the one with the black infill.

For some reason, I think of using the toilet when I see the one on the bottom. Or maybe rolling out a pie crust or slicing noodles on the countertop.

 

[Ttrees]

Those are quite lovely Pete
I knew you were into hand tool making, but not that much :shock:
Very slick work, cant say I like the composites though
Will be on the lookout for your next endevour

Tom