Raised panels with LN skew block plane

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ydb1md

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Has anyone tried using a LN skew block plane to do raised panels by making a suitable auxiliary fence?

You could also turn the skew plane into a nice chamfer plane by making a 45* aux fence.
 
Nah. Just use a £8.50 wooden badger, two cramps and a batten. Works for me. Used to have both the Stanley #140 and the Millers Falls #07B on which the L-N is based and from experience of them and what I've seen of the L-N I'd say it was physically too small for all but the smallest panels, it lacks the "heft" for doing say a 6 panel door and the mouth is still too wide for my liking

Scrit
 
Reminds me of my collage days when the machinist walked through the workshop shouting " use the badger"
oh well little things please little minds :oops:
 
Is that called badgering the apprentices? :lol:

Seriously, though I can field a panel pretty quickly with a badger a nd get a quirk in there, wider than the #140, too. As I already have a block plane, a shoulder plane and a badger I can't see much of a need for the #140. Perhaps I'm going through some kind of minimalist phase :wink:

Scrit
 
Matt

A badger is a black and white animal found in the country, and sometimes in the bins behind McDonalds, too :lol:

A badger plane is a jack-sized skew iron rabbet plane, in effect. The iron just peeks out one corner of the sole, so it can be used for panel raising and planing out large rebates. The skew means that it works cross grain more easily than a conventional jack plane on cross-grain work. I'm sure that Alf or Bugbear will be able to expand on this poor explanation

Scrit
 
Looks interesting. Reasonable price too. Been thinking about doing raised panels for a while, but my router and table ain't up to the job. Might go for that one, will have a look behind McDonalds first tho :lol:

Matt.
 
Matt , you can do raised panels on the table saw and clean them up with a hand plane . Never tried it myself but im told it can be done .
 
Now while using a Badger Plane is good advice - if you can find one in reasonable nick - as Dave has just been given a #140 for Crimbo and not a Badger Plane, it's perhaps a smidgeon unhelpful. :roll: :lol:

Dave, I've not raised a panel with it, but I did use it to good effect in chamfering the underside of my side table tops, which is close enough for me to include a gratuitous shot of it in action... I just gauged in some pencil lines and eyeballed it - worked fine. More than once, as the recipients have lifted one or other table to move it, mention has been made of the silky feel of that chamfer, and not an abrasive used. :wink: :
sidetables072.jpg


I have a feeling the reach of the fence would be insufficient for anything but a small panel, bearing in mind you have to allow for the amount of panel edge lost in the frame. :-k

Cheers, Alf
 
Alf":3gxbb7hv said:
Now while using a Badger Plane is good advice - if you can find one in reasonable nick - as Dave has just been given a #140 for Crimbo and not a Badger Plane, it's perhaps a smidgeon unhelpful. :roll: :lol:
Sorry, but there was no mention of that in the post, although I do see that Alf has posted a review of the L-N #140 so maybe there's some guilty need to justify the purchase.... :lol: From your own comments, Alf, the size issue is probably relevant. Me, I've got large hands and a #140 simply isn't big enough for panel raising. I also though that Harris were making a badger, but maybe not, still they aren't exactly that uncommon in the s/h market. As to using it (the #140) to chamfer pieces, surely that job could be done by almost any plane and doesn't require the use of a #140. In a working set of tools I feel it is hard to justify a #140, unless you have rampant galootamania :lol: .

Scrit
 
Scrit-the title of the post was "raising panels with the LN skew block plane". Little bit of a give away :wink: :lol:
Philly :D
 
Philly - and the comment still stands - they are a bit on the small size for a lot of panel raising needs and the traditional way to raise panels was to cramp a batten to the panel as any fence would need to be angled to avoid "stepping", although this can be dealt with by using a side quirk at the end of planing - now they ARE a lot rarer than badgers in useable state. In any case it can be very awkward and inaccurate to work using a fence against such a thin edge as you have on a panel, partly because you run the risk of running the panel between the sole of the plane and the fence, surely a good reason for not using a #140 for this purpose?

From what I've read on these planes they were introduced to allow an on site worker to carry a block plane and a shoulder plane in one package - less weight to lug around. They do, however, have a rather wide mouth and the mouth cannot be adjusted any finer, so you also have the potential of tearing out grain when planing the two cross grain sides of a panel - another reason for not recommending the #140 for the task of panel raising. I'm not saying you can't use it - just that there are other, better solutions out there.

As I said, I've had this type of plane in the past (all my tools are workers, not collectors) and it is a compromise design.

Scrit
 
Thank you all for your comments. I didn't realize that block planes could be such an emotional topic. :)

I guess that I should have entitled the post "Using a skew block plane for raising really small panels." My curiosity with the 140 came because of its included fence and the ability to easily add a subfence.

I'm going to build a 45* subfence this weekend to make my chamfering jobs a bit more accurate. Lie Nielsen is coming out with a redesign of the old Stanley chamfer plane. It's a really complex and clunky design. I wish someone would come out with an intelligent design that used some sort of a fence. :roll:
 
Dave

I get used to being shot at! :lol: :lol: Say, isn't there someone in the States doing a copy of the Preston chamfer plane? I ditched my #72-1/2 a couple of years back in favour of the Preston - easier to use even if you can't use scratch stock bits on the chamfer (never even seen that used, and in any case the beading nose for the #72 is a sloppy piece of work and not nice at all). Chamfering is one job where electric routers are probably the better tool, especially if you are working stopped chamfers which are a pain to work by hand.

Scrit
 
Chamfering is one job where electric routers are probably the better tool, especially if you are working stopped chamfers which are a pain to work by hand.
Unless, of course, one wishes to do the work by hand...

Dave, there's no reason why you could not field a panel using the #140.

I would gauge the lines first. Then probably cut the tongue of the panel edges most of the way down to whatever thickness and width you were wanting--but not all the way.

Then plane the corner off the panel, so to speak, to the line. The clean the tongue up.

If you are "only" planing a large chamfer around the edges, as Alf said, just gauge both lines and plane to them.

Good challenge--please do a trial panel and let us know/see the results!

Take care, Mike
 
Alf":1nsgdu7c said:
Now while using a Badger Plane is good advice - if you can find one in reasonable nick - as Dave has just been given a #140 for Crimbo and not a Badger Plane, it's perhaps a smidgeon unhelpful. :roll: :lol:

Dave, I've not raised a panel with it, but I did use it to good effect in chamfering the underside of my side table tops, which is close enough for me to include a gratuitous shot of it in action... I just gauged in some pencil lines and eyeballed it - worked fine. More than once, as the recipients have lifted one or other table to move it, mention has been made of the silky feel of that chamfer, and not an abrasive used. :wink: :
sidetables072.jpg


I have a feeling the reach of the fence would be insufficient for anything but a small panel, bearing in mind you have to allow for the amount of panel edge lost in the frame. :-k

Cheers, Alf

Now I know I'm in good company when Alf joins the brush club!
 
A belated Merry Christmas all!

I agree that the #140 is a little small for raising a panel (particularly if you are working with hard wood). I have used it to clean up a Jarrah panel I raised with a tablesaw. This is about all I think the plane will do comfortably.

wardrobe3a.jpg


Regards from Perth

Derek
 
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