Shepherd Spiers Style Improved Mitre Plane Kit Build
- Thread starter rxh
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Cheshirechappie
Established Member
Your usual impeccable standards!
Can't be many Shepherd kits still about.
Can't be many Shepherd kits still about.
Thanks CC. I have read that Shepherd went out of business in February 2006 so I think you are probably correct.
The photos below show what I was given to work with.
The photos below show what I was given to work with.
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Tony Zaffuto
Established Member
Beautiful job! You should be proud!
rxh":2g93a0vh said:
Those kits can be a frustration.
I wonder why they didn't provide a longer iron. I have a spiers panel infill kit, and the holes were also drilled in the wrong place for the lever cap necessitating either a longer screw peining some stock on top of the cap iron for additional height (which is what I did).
The plane works well in the end, though. The metal parts were nice other than that they were drilled in the wrong place, and I had a cheapish looking mark on my lever cap (someone told me that as they were in the throes of not being able to make ends meet, the mark was cheapened).
The end plane is fine in my case, but I couldn't sell it and get back the cost of the kit the way it looks.
Nice of you to put that together for someone and work through those things for them.
Thanks Tony and D_W.
Yes, a longer iron would look better - I understand that the owner intends to get a replacement (in O1 steel) in due course. The lever cap engraving was indeed cheap looking and I filed it off without difficulty.
Lengthy instructions were provided - they were good in parts, confusing in others and some operations were not described at all. They stated that typical construction time would be 8 to 9 1/2 hours. I am not the quickest of workers and it took me rather longer than that
Yes, a longer iron would look better - I understand that the owner intends to get a replacement (in O1 steel) in due course. The lever cap engraving was indeed cheap looking and I filed it off without difficulty.
Lengthy instructions were provided - they were good in parts, confusing in others and some operations were not described at all. They stated that typical construction time would be 8 to 9 1/2 hours. I am not the quickest of workers and it took me rather longer than that
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David C
In Memorium
I wrestled with a Shepherd (Spiers parallel sided smoother) kit and wrote about the process in F&C. The three articles are now in my third book.
The kit was dreadful. The pre-machined Cocobolo infills did not fit the metalwork, (which was rusty).
The laser roughing out of the dovetails, had work hardened the steel, making it difficult to file and peen.
My instructions were bad and I joked that 8 hours were spent trying to understand them.
Enough moaning. I was lucky to get a number of valuable tips from Karl Holtey. These were invaluable in my objective, which was to produce something which I would not be ashamed to show him.
I fitted a Holtey adjuster, which was historically incorrect but useful. The other extra was to fit spring loaded pins to the lever cap.
A fascinating exercise, it worked very well, but I don't use it.
best wishes,
David
The kit was dreadful. The pre-machined Cocobolo infills did not fit the metalwork, (which was rusty).
The laser roughing out of the dovetails, had work hardened the steel, making it difficult to file and peen.
My instructions were bad and I joked that 8 hours were spent trying to understand them.
Enough moaning. I was lucky to get a number of valuable tips from Karl Holtey. These were invaluable in my objective, which was to produce something which I would not be ashamed to show him.
I fitted a Holtey adjuster, which was historically incorrect but useful. The other extra was to fit spring loaded pins to the lever cap.
A fascinating exercise, it worked very well, but I don't use it.
best wishes,
David
My infills didn't fit, either, and the handle didn't come close to fitting into the slot cut in the back of the infill.
For someone buying a Kit, making a major adjustment to a mortise like that for a handle that is cut curved front and back is a tall order. the end result is the handle is more upright than I'd like, but not horribly so.
The cocobolo infills were narrower than the inside width of the base casting (someone didn't calculate future shrinkage very well). II had to purchase some veneer and laminate it to the infills (fortunately it's dark enough that you can't really see it).
The iron is poor quality (large strange chipouts every now and then - the only A2 iron that I've ever had that wasn't identical to almost every other A2 iron - that is, the A2 irons that are properly heat treated are almost interchangeable from brand to brand, but the shepherd is noticeably poorer).
The sides of the plane were drilled wrong so that the screw was not long enough to work with the lever cap. It shouldn't be near the end of it's travel at all, but it was well beyond even that.
Good idea, poor execution. It took me about 40 hours to put the kit together, about half as long as it would've taken me to just make it from scratch with *hand tools*.
Now I have a plane that is worth far less than the kit sold for used ($600 back in the infill sprint that occured in 2008 or 2009 when all of the infills on the market were high - the prices have about halved in the states since then). I would sell it in a split second for anyone who would pay what the kit cost me.
For someone buying a Kit, making a major adjustment to a mortise like that for a handle that is cut curved front and back is a tall order. the end result is the handle is more upright than I'd like, but not horribly so.
The cocobolo infills were narrower than the inside width of the base casting (someone didn't calculate future shrinkage very well). II had to purchase some veneer and laminate it to the infills (fortunately it's dark enough that you can't really see it).
The iron is poor quality (large strange chipouts every now and then - the only A2 iron that I've ever had that wasn't identical to almost every other A2 iron - that is, the A2 irons that are properly heat treated are almost interchangeable from brand to brand, but the shepherd is noticeably poorer).
The sides of the plane were drilled wrong so that the screw was not long enough to work with the lever cap. It shouldn't be near the end of it's travel at all, but it was well beyond even that.
Good idea, poor execution. It took me about 40 hours to put the kit together, about half as long as it would've taken me to just make it from scratch with *hand tools*.
Now I have a plane that is worth far less than the kit sold for used ($600 back in the infill sprint that occured in 2008 or 2009 when all of the infills on the market were high - the prices have about halved in the states since then). I would sell it in a split second for anyone who would pay what the kit cost me.
Thanks David and D_W. It seems like our experiences have been rather similar. I think that Shepherd should have given some kits to a few volunteer constructors and then used their feedback to refine the product and the instructions. If I had not already made a few dovetailed infill planes I think I would have struggled. I found this article useful:
http://www.handplane.com/282/building-a ... -smoother/
Here is the next batch of WIP photos:
http://www.handplane.com/282/building-a ... -smoother/
Here is the next batch of WIP photos:
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