Rehabilitated a Moving Fillister

[Biliphuster]

Needing something to cut accurate rebates I picked up this nice Routledge example which was basically fine but extremely dirty and with a broken wedge.

Cleaned first with vinegar and scotchbright, followed by turps on kitchen paper and finally liberally oiled with raw linseed oil.

Brass and steel parts cleaned with scotchbright and 3 in 1.

The main iron came sharpened with a 40 degree bevel and took some time to lower it on a coarse India stone. The nicker was in good shape, although the shank was bent and needed some straightening once I finally managed to winkle it out of the plane.

The bulbous portion of the wedge had been broken (I assume someone hit the underside too hard in order to extract the wedge) so I made a new one out of boxwood which ended up being much more work than I anticipated. Can you plane boxwood? I ended up mostly filing it to shape. Getting the skews, taper and overall size right was a little tricky but very satisfying. Not the most elegant result but better than the broken stump.

The fence is pretty scabby and I would love to make a new one if I could find a suitably large piece of boxwood, but the current edge is true so it works well enough as it is. If I was making a new fence I would probably make a new nicker wedge as well.

I was pleased with how it turned out, initially the whole plane was the black colour you can see on the top portion of the broken wedge, but there was some very nice quartered figure underneath.

 

[undergroundhunter]

Looks good to me, nice job. Nothing is more pleasing than a tuned fillister plane.

Matt

 

[AndyT]

Good useful tool, well worth the effort and time.

One possibility to patch a worn fence is to use a strip of boxwood from an old, broken carpenter's rule that's too far gone for anything else.

 

[bugbear]

Good useful tool, well worth the effort and time.

One possibility to patch a worn fence is to use a strip of boxwood from an old, broken carpenter's rule that's too far gone for anything else.

Yes - I buy all the old boxwood I can in this way, normally for pennies.

BugBear

 

[Biliphuster]

Good useful tool, well worth the effort and time.

One possibility to patch a worn fence is to use a strip of boxwood from an old, broken carpenter's rule that's too far gone for anything else.

That's a clever idea, I can think of a few things that would benefit from a boxwood facing. I have to say I rarely see old boxwood rulers sold at low prices, still I will keep an eye out.

 

[Racers]

+1 on the boxwood rulers, broken yard sticks are a fantastic source.

Boxwood is plainable you need a sharp fine set blade, I made new wedges and nicker for this sash fillister.

10th January by Pete Maddex, on Flickr

Pete

 

[Biliphuster]

The iron was extremely sharp, but maybe I was going for too much of a cut. Some areas planed to an absolute glass like finish but around the knots and swirls it tore out terribly. I even tried using my HNT Gordon with a 60 degree bed to no avail.