Who makes their own planes?

[Monkey Mark]

For some reason, I have become quite interested in looking at homemade planes recently and think I would like to have a go myself at some point. A friend of mine who moved away is a cabinet maker and I'd really like to be able to make one for him as a personalized gift.

Who here makes their own?
Any tips/advice, recommendations of where to buy irons or websites for information greatly appreciated.

 

[John Brown]

Boeing?

 

[MIGNAL]

I've made a few, from horn handled continental, traditional coffin, 'Krenov' laminated to (more recently) Marples type transitional Planes.
I'm afraid I'm not a fan of the traditional coffin plane. I find the laminated plane style more comfortable in use. The transitionals even nicer. I am a fan of the traditional wooden Jack though.
Many blades on Ebay. Either grab one from an old woodie or sometimes you can find New Old Stock. For my transitionals I simply buy an old Stanley/Record in poor condition and salvage the rear tote, blade, chipbreaker and frog.

 

[Racers]

Have a look here,

ukw-best-home-made-tools-t89284.html


Pete

 

[Monkey Mark]

I've made a few, from horn handled continental, traditional coffin, 'Krenov' laminated to (more recently) Marples type transitional Planes.
I'm afraid I'm not a fan of the traditional coffin plane. I find the laminated plane style more comfortable in use. The transitionals even nicer. I am a fan of the traditional wooden Jack though.
Many blades on Ebay. Either grab one from an old woodie or sometimes you can find New Old Stock. For my transitionals I simply buy an old Stanley/Record in poor condition and salvage the rear tote, blade, chipbreaker and frog.

I love the planes in your link. The transitional planes look beautiful. Did you follow a pattern for them?

 

[MIGNAL]

No. I researched as much information and images as I could through Google and went on from there. I did have to make some changes and refinements as I went along, including having to make a new part or two. Probably the easiest way is to buy a Marples on the auction site, copy it and put it back on for sale.

 

[dzj]

I made a pair of hollows and rounds a couple weeks ago.
It started out as a fun project for an afternoon, but it took the better part of Saturday and Sunday
to complete. They work well enough, but I'll probably re do them at a later point, as this was
more of a fact finding mission.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Might be worth tracking down a copy of 'Making Traditional Wooden Planes' by John M Whelan. Not the cheapest book on the subject, but many feel it's the best. It's recently been republished by Astragal Press in the USA, and being a niche book, it isn't that easy to find. I did find a seller stocking a few copies for £19 on Abebooks.co.uk, but failing that it may be necessary to import from America.

Irons are not too difficult to find. The Plane Iron Shop (part of G&M Tools) have a wide selection of vintage irons, and the secondhand dealers sometimes come up with spare irons. For new ones, try Workshop Heaven, Classic Hand Tools and Ray Iles (The Old Tool Store), and I think Philly Planes are selling taper irons for moulding planes. Some people make their own using Ground Flat Stock from any decent engineer's merchant; the heat treatment isn't particularly difficult, but some background research and a bit of practice would be a good idea.

 

[AndyT]

+1 to what CC said.
The John Whelan book is available at Classic Hand Tools who have one of the best selections of obscure tool related books anywhere

https://www.classichandtools.com/acatalog/Planes.html

 

[The Bear]

Monkey,
Have a search of the forum for posts by Philly. He used to be a moderator on here years ago and documented several plane builds. His ventures into home made wooden planes evolved into a full time business.
http://www.phillyplanes.co.uk/

Mark

 

[Monkey Mark]

No. I researched as much information and images as I could through Google and went on from there. I did have to make some changes and refinements as I went along, including having to make a new part or two. Probably the easiest way is to buy a Marples on the auction site, copy it and put it back on for sale.

Very good. I've searched some and was surprised at how little I could find on making transitional planes, or at least on nice looking ones.

And that looks like a good book. Think it may go on Santa's list.

 

[MIGNAL]

Transitionals were more popular in the States. They never really caught on over here. I don't know why. Marples made them for a relatively short period of time and their design was a good one. The transitional offers some of the advantages of both metal and wooden planes. For softwood and medium density hardwoods I pretty much use them exclusively. They are light in weight, slick and therefore 'fast'. If you have a lot of wood to plane they are less tiring in use. They lose a little in very hard and/or difficult woods where a heavier weighted plane has the advantage.