Anyone have a spare moulding plane iron?

[Corneel]

I started tidying up my few Higgs hollow and rounds. And now I have a problem. One of the irons is too far gone. Rust has eaten almost straight through. I have plenty of old irons, but all of them are way too thick. This one is 18th century so at the business end it is not quite 3mm thick, more like 2.5mm. Less then 1/8".

The size is a bit of an odd one, between a #8 and a #9 I'd say. The width at the bevel is 13.6 mm. The tang is 5 mm wide.

Does someone have a fitting iron for sale? And would you be inclined to put it in an envelope and send it to The Netherlands? Somewhat wider then 13.6 mm, more like 14.5 (9/16") would be perfect, wider is no problem. I think the tang width is more important.

 

[Carl P]

Hi,

I've just looked through my moulding plane irons, I have one that might do - the tang is mostly 5mm, but a little thicker at the cutting end, it's about 2.5mm thick at the bevel and 18mm wide at that point. It's a rather exaggerated round in profile but there's enough length left to change. Unfortunately I can't take a photo at the moment, but I'll do that later on so you can gauge if it's suitable,

Cheerio,

Carl

 

[Corneel]

I send you a PM immediately!

 

[Andy RV]

You could easily make one? 01 gauge plate / ground flat stock, harden by heating with a blow torch until it's non- magnetic then quench in oil, temper in the oven at 200'c for an hour.

 

[Racers]

LN sell blanks and Ebay, G+M tools, +1 for the O1 and blowlamp.

Pete

 

[jimi43]

Try to see if Carl has a contempory one or you can get an original and if you exhaust those sources let me have the old one and I'll make you a copy.

Jim

 

[Corneel]

Yes making one isn't too difficult, but tapering an iron is quite a bit of work. And I do prefer an old iron in an old plane. So if the deal with Carl works out, that would be perfect.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I have a spare iron for a round, about 5/8" wide. It was in the bottom of the box of a job lot of planes, and looks never used. Strangely, it is not tapered at all - about 2.5mm or so thick throughout ?

 

[Corneel]

Carl's plane iron arrived in good nick. Good quality and exactly the same thickness and taper as my old one. So I flattened the back a bit, put some permanent marker onto it an scribed the profile of the plane body and side. Then some grinding and sharpening and the plane is back in action again! See the moulded edge of this practice board. Thanks a lot Carl!



Now onto the rest of the planes. Those are going to be more work with pitting and all that.