Making woodies with skewed irons

[Sheffield Tony]

Hello all you planemakers. Anyone making planes with skewed irons - badgers, panel raisers etc ? From a single piece of wood I mean, not Krenov style. I'm just giving it a go, and wonder if anyone can share any hints, especially about morticing out the throat - what tools do you find useful ? And how do you figure out what shape the wedge needs to be :? I think I've worked it out, but my method seemed to involve more geometric calculations than I imagine were traditionally used.

 

[D_W]

I've only made one skew, a double iron panel raiser.

I think if you're going to make just one or a couple, it's easier to chop the mortise, clean it out, etc, with regular chisels and floats, and then clean up the corners with chisels. If you're going to make a bunch, then you'd probably not mind custom floats.

As far as the wedge goes, eyeball it and then adjust (use a bevel if needed to get close). It took me three wedges to get one that fit really nicely, but I was rushing the process and cut two too narrow.

No more than 20 degrees on the skew angle - whatever you do will cause the wedge to push one abutment into the cheek of the plane and pry the other away from the sides. More than 20 degrees, and the pressure prying away the top side abutment is too much and you'll get a split (my plane is now split, and glued and screwed - looks horrible, still works, lesson learned). There are a lot of little subtle bits and pieces going on when you do a skew plane.

 

[ac445ab]

Hi Tony,
I made a badger plane a couple of years ago.

i-have-my-badger-plane-t68775.html

This is the link to WIP pics: may be you could find some help.
http://woodworkingbyhand2.blogspot.it/2 ... plane.html

Ciao
Giuliano

 

[heimlaga]

I made a panel riser once. A bench plane version with a front horn like most panel risers around here.

As far as I can remember i just marked out the mouth and chopped it out. The layout was a bit more complicated than on an ordinary bench plane so it pays off to double check everything.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Thanks for the comments. I went ahead with drill, mortice chisel, and the one bed float I have. Then realised I couldn't finish the job without an edge float, so made my own from an offcut of O1. Worked out well enough, but a lot more practice in needed.

I found shaping the wedge tricky. Being an engineer, I did the maths to work out given the bedding angle and skew angle, what the cross section of the wedge should be. I suspect it was probably not traditionally done that way. My father used to "develop" things like that using graphical methods which I always find quite bewildering.

I like your Badger plane Giuliano. I like the slope below the handle; kind of part way to a razee. I'd like to make a panel raiser some day; I may steal that idea.