Moving Fillister Plane

[swagman]

In the early stages of building a traditional Moving Fillister Plane. The depth stop assembly, single iron, and ancillaries were purchased from the U.K close to 5yrs ago, so its been a project that's been well overdue in getting started. Some existing slop within the mechanical movement of the depth stop had to be addressed before it was later installed. The build itself will take some time to complete as this is my 1st time attempt at this type of wooden plane design. Each stage needs to be followed up by a detailed account of the measurements taken for future reference.

A rebate needed to be formed to allow the later gluing in of a partial sole of higher janka timber. The main stock species is Tasmanian Tiger Myrtle.



A dovetailed key-way was formed to house the adjuster side wall plate.



The thread plates to secure the moving fence were keyed in before being epoxied into position.



A partial sole of higher janka Aust. Jarrah was glued in before being dressed back to final dimension.

 

[swagman]

Re-threaded securing bolts for the moving fence to SAE 1/4 NC20.



Installing the moving fence.





After shaping the slitting iron, the cutting end was heated to a cherry red before quenching in oil.



Keying the slitting iron into the inboard side of the fillister plane.



Testing the slitting iron.

 

[swagman]

The lower exposed bed after being mortised out.





Work on the upper enclose bed. The tool rest on the Pedestal Drill is set at 47 degrees.



47 degree mortising jig.





The cutting iron and wooden wedge after being fettled into their mortise housing. A planemakers edge float was refiled to 70 degrees, then retoothed to complete the mortise.





Next is to form the shoulder rebate on the outboard side of the plane.

 

[marcros]

I appreciate that you are making an item that is both functional and beautiful, hence the choice of Tasmanian Tiger Myrtle and Jarrah.

What timbers would traditionally have been used in Australia when such planes were made back in the day? I presume that you dont have the supply of beech that we have in the UK, but dont seem to be short of dense and hard hardwoods.

 

[swagman]

European Beech.

Workability: Overall good workability; it machines well, and glues, finishes, and turns well. Beech also responds superbly to steam-bending. It does, however, have a large amount of movement in service, so movement and wood stability must be taken into account.

Shrinkage: Radial: 5.7%, Tangential: 11.6%, Volumetric: 17.3%, T/R Ratio: 2.0

http://www.wood-database.com/european-beech/

 

[D_W]

Beech only moves if it's not perfectly sawn. It does shrink quite a bit, though, if it changes environments.

 

[AndyT]

I was wondering the same thing as Marcros - but maybe nobody answered because there never was a time when wooden planes were made in Australia for the domestic market?

By the time Australia was being settled by immigrants, English tool makers were well into the swing of exporting in bulk to "the colonies."

So possibly, by the time Aussie makers got going, the trade had switched to metal planes.

This is just guesswork - can anyone confirm what crops up on the secondhand market? Were there Australian made wooden planes before HNT Gordon, and Stewie of course?

 

[swagman]

Profiling of the main stock, including the makers stamp have been completed, and the 1st coat of oil has been applied. After viewing the photo's, a chamfered edge on the outboard side of the toe is needed.

 

[G S Haydon]

Looks great

 

[swagman]

Further testing of the Moving Fillister Plane will occur on the weekend.

Stewie;

 

[swagman]

4 Moving Fillister Planes made by 3 well known British Plane Makers. Griffiths (Norwich) x2, Moseley & Son (London), Varvill & Sons (York).

3 Fillister planes match in skew direction. The Varvill & Sons (shown on the right) has the skew running in the opposing direction.

 

[swagman]

Final testing of the Moving Fillister Plane. 1st the cross grain dado with the nicker engaged, then move onto the side rebate with the nicker disengaged. Excellent results. Appreciate the interest during this traditional Fillister Plane build.

Stewie;

 

[D_W]

Result looks good, Stewie. A whole lot of effort to make one.

 

[swagman]

4 Moving Fillister Planes made by 3 well known British Plane Makers. Griffiths (Norwich) x2, Moseley & Son (London), Varvill & Sons (York).

3 Fillister planes match in skew direction. The Varvill & Sons (shown on the right) has the skew running in the opposing direction.

The unanswered question is which skew direction offers an improvement within design. The best way to find out it to test out the Varvil & Sons Fillister Plane with its opposing skew direction. The major improvement award goes to Varvil & Sons. The curly shavings being worked were flowing freely from the escarpment without any need to manually intervene. The answer in hindsight lies in the fact that the skew direction is favoring the escarpment side of the plane.

To better understand what I mean by manual intervention of the shavings, view the following video by Bill Anderson at the 10.40 min where he is working the long grain rebate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKiJ46JhWSM

 

[D_W]

That should be preventable (the clogging - part of the problem is that bill is using cheap radiata pine in that video). I bought 6 moving fillisters last year in anticipation of making one or 10, but decided to go toward infills for now. one was a varvill-york, probably almost identical to the one you're showing. I had some concerns about whether or not it would work away from the line, but all of the planes worked fine. I sold four of them after experimenting.

At any rate, I had the chance to use them for some house work, as well as a little bit of cabinet work and found that the ones that had reasonable space and a good provision on the end of the wedge to move the shaving out still work fine, despite bringing it in toward the wedge. I tried some metal skew rebate planes for the same thing and realized that I don't need to have one with a good wooden plane in hand - they are like a metal brake and much slower to use for bulk work.

In terms of the skew, I think they look better when made the way you have made yours, but in use, there's little difference in their handling (which isn't a surprise, I guess, as Varvill wouldn't have sold their planes oriented that way if they didn't work).

My biggest trouble in wanting to make them is finding a donor plane that I consider a lost cause, but that still has nice hardware. It's not too hard to find one with good hardware for about 50 pounds or so, but when the plane is still OK and just needs to be gone over a little bit to be running top shape, I can't stomach robbing its hardware and throwing it away.