Cocobolo LN Planes

[SammyQ]

Replied to and sorted in 23 MINUTES!!!!


Philly, you are a warm hearted gent. PM of Quigg Towers as requested. Many, many thanks.


Sam

 

[Alf]

Philly beat me to it (you should have asked him if he had any cocobolo he wanted to get shot of too... :wink: ) And you're right - unless it happens to be a type with the pins all the way through, you won't get the pins out of a #45's handle without totally trashing the wood (and swearing really rather a lot). If you have the means to take some pics as you do it, there's something of a dearth of info on what's involved (she hinted, heavily). No, don't look at me - nothing would induce me to even contemplate it unless something really terminal happened to my battered old #45. :lol:

 

[SammyQ]

Alice, my provisional plans are to knock up a cradle for the 45 bodies from scraps, to hold one at a time 'rigidly' on its side, pin face on upper surface. I aim then to use my x/y tatty drill vice to manoever the pin centrally under the smallest drill bit I posess, spinning at just sub-sponic speed in the drill press. I hope (hollow laughter) to drill a small (pilot) hole reasonably central in the pin, then change bits for summat similar in diameter to brass pin and.....wack away......until the pin is completely bored out. Yes, I know you should modify a drill tip for brass and that the heat generated could set fire to the handle.

I am also renewing my Premier subscription to St Jude; you know, the one with the 'any and every circumstance, anywhere, anytime' clause, specially pertaining to much loved tools that you really like.....

Having said that, I am the direct blood descendent of the Murphy, Sod and Parkinson families. I am therefore quite certain that, if I put my efforts onto 'the tube' (come back Muriel and Jools) there will be several acres of woodies cackling madly and chanting "TOLD YOU!!"

I am trying to preserve the original handles as much as possible, despite the fact they look as if they were used to re-seat steam locomotive wheels on their axles at some point. I reckon the nearer original dimensions I can get 'em off, the less fettling, scraping, sanding, I'll have to do.

God, don't you just love an optimist.....please?

Sam

 

[jonbikebod]

To come back to the original question of the alternative handles for L-N planes, the alternative handles I got directly from the factory were ‘a rosewood’ but sonokling not cocoblo. They did use cocoblo for the infill and wedge of the small ½” bronze shoulder plane. Compared to cocoblo, sonokling is far more drab in appeaence.
Jon.

 

[Philly]

Jon
Yes, they did use different Rosewoods over the years, but now only Cocobolo is available.
They have some wonderful curly maple - I'm surprised they don't offer that.
Cheers
Philly

 

[jonbikebod]

Thanks for the explanation Phil, I couldn't agree more about the curly maple (a wood i don't think I have ever seen for sale over here).
Cheers,
Jon.

 

[Bainzy]

Loving the photos in this thread. I haven't actually taken out my LN in over a year, and I swear looking at it now, the handles have got slightly darker. I wonder if in time it will eventually look like an old Stanley Bedrock...

 

[woodbloke]

May I wander slightly further off track Brainzy and ask ALF if I may...what is that Record over on the far left at the front...velly interestink!

I'm thinking that's probably a Calvert-Stevens 88. Rob's iirc, but might be Paul's.

Yes, it was Rob's - with a modified lever cap. If you do get one, Jim, they were notorious for the soles not being flat but Rob worked on his and got it working really well.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

Yup it was mine. I modified the lever cap (as per the 'foto), replaced the skinny iron with a LN one (plus chipbreaker) and generally tarted it up...but it never, ever worked as well as my LV BU smoother
When I flattened the sole on the CS, I had to take a file to the mountain :roll: behind the mouth, I've seen other examples where it's around .5mm higher (if memory serves). I saw one once lying forlornly on a shelf and and the maker explained to me that he couldn't get it to work. When I had a look at the sole I explained why
I've now sold my CS - Rob

 

[Benchwayze]

Thanks Pedder - I like the rounded top irons. Very 18th Century!
I might bring that style back one day.
Cheers
Philly

Quite soon I hope Philly, because I shall soon need a rounded sole woodie, and the rounded top blade would be sort of obligatory?

Cheers

John

 

[Philly]

John
You got it! Just drop me an email when you're ready.
Best regards,
Philly

 

[matthewwh]

Thanks for the explanation Phil, I couldn't agree more about the curly maple (a wood i don't think I have ever seen for sale over here).
Cheers,
Jon.

It'll be called Rippled Sycamore over here if that helps. Sycamore/Maple/Acer = all the same family.

 

[Benchwayze]

Thanks Philly,

I will have a week or two to decide on exactly what I'll need. (The plane need not be much bigger than a standard 'Coffin-smoother in fact.) If you can work safely with Maple, I have enough here to make one plane; and a nice piece of Leadwood for accents.

Regards
John

 

[jonbikebod]

Thanks for that Matthew. I have never been sure if the curly maple was hard 'rock' maple of sugar maple. I have used ripple sycamore and would say it to be less dense than the handles of L_N screwdrivers for example. It also seems lighter in colour but that seems to be quite common across the pond divide. Our wild cherry never seems to be a pink as theirs for example. One does have to be careful with common names (although my eyes seem to glaze over at the sight of Latin). 'Lacewood' is the wood of the plain tree over here but something quite different in North America...
Jon.

 

[matthewwh]

Lacewood is a hugely broad term, in Australia it refers to lace she-oak, a eucalypt named by the sailors who first visited the country and used it to replace components in their ships. It didn't quite have the strength of English Oak but was the most suitable material available, hence she-oak.

I love the chaotic nature of wood nomenclature, despite the efforts of biologists to pigeon hole everything in latin, woodworkers tend to go their own way and everyone still knows what each other means. It's like a big collective 'up yours mate!'

Marvellous.

 

[jimi43]

Nice one Matthew...great post!

One thing we also have to be aware of...

Although the species categorisation may be the same in Latin...the same species grow in completely different climates...and therefore can exhibit different characteristics entirely...

This is the sole reason for "across the Pond" differences. Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) for instance sourced in the Appalachian mountain range is a fine guitar body wood but that grown in the UK and other fast growing environments yields a wood totally unsuitable for that purpose.

Jim