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  1. #1
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    Default A one & a half inch infill

    I can see you all rolling your eyes & asking "doesn't this bloke ever make anything useful?". That's more or less what my better half sez, anyway.

    Well, this little plane I (almost) finished today has had a very long gestation: 1.jpg

    I bought the blade from Lee Valley in 1982, iirc, to make my very first (laminated) wooden plane. That first plane was a dog, and a monumental disappointment to me - almost put me off ever trying again! In retrospect, I'm moderately confident I know what was wrong with it (everything!), but nowadays I could probably get it to work tolerably well, however it's all academic because I used PVA glue to laminate the parts, & after a few years, the glued-on Lignum vitae sole fell off, followed by complete disintegration of the body, so all I ended up with were the blade & cap-iron plus some useless bits of cherry & birds-eye Maple, & a slice of 9mm thick Lignum with a slot through it.

    Move ahead a few years, and with a couple of more successful woodies under my belt, I started getting interested in making metal-bodied planes. About 20-plus years back, I was on the hunt for some gun-metal, or other malleable brass, & the place where I (still) buy my brass from offered me this stuff they called 'silver bronze'. Apparently, they'd got it in for a client & cut it up into the specified bits only to have said client reject it. I could have it for scrap prices, they said. Unfortunately, the pieces on offer were 1 1/2" wide, 3/8" thick, & just 4.5" long - not what I had in mind for plane sides! But I bought a piece anyway, & chucked it in my pile of metal scraps, & promptly forgot about it for a dozen years or more.

    A couple of years ago, I used my slitting saw jig to 're-saw' it into two bits about 4.5mm thick, but still had no idea what I was going to do with it. Then inspiration struck a few days ago, & I decided I would make a small infill, using the 1 1/2" blade from my first-ever plane-making exercise. I did a lot of head-scratching & careful designing to get this one as close to perfect as I could, thinking I've made just about all the mistakes possible. Well, pride cometh before the fall - I made a fundamental blooper & put the side dovetails in the wrong order (don't ask me how - I thought I'd stopped mixing-up pins & tails 40 years ago!). So I thought I'd make a virtue from a vice, and do a split sole instead of cutting the blade slot from a solid one. I just used a simple butt join, but it turned out very well & the sole is neat & straight (I'm now keen to try doing a T&G join just for fun!).

    Everything else went well, and the silver bronze was an absolute delight to work with, files cleanly & peened beautifully, these are the best metal dovetails I've manged so far, almost perfect. My plane is a chunky little thing, the sides ended up 4.2mm thick. The infill is the next-to-last bit of that beautiful fiddleback Wattle I rescued from MIL's woodpile a couple of Winters ago: 2.jpg

    It has a nice, solid feel to it, & even though I haven't finished fettling & flattening the sole properly, it can make nice shavings: 3.jpg

    However, it jumps from not cutting, to 2 thou shavings. I was hoping to be able to set for 1 thou shavings with ease, but no joy: 4.jpg

    This happened on both my attempts to apply a super-fine set, so more investigation is needed, tomorrow. But even at this relatively raw stage, it's still 1,000% better than the plane this blade was first applied to, so I guess I've made a bit of progress in the last 30-odd years!

    Cheers,
    IW

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  3. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    I can see you all rolling your eyes & asking "doesn't this bloke ever make anything useful?".
    only if you think an infill plane is not useful ...
    impressive work as usual. Though "usual" sounds too casual.

    the way I see it (and my SWMBO agrees) you're having fun, you're occupied and perhaps most importantly you're in the shed and not moping about the house getting under her feet

    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    I'm now keen to try doing a T&G join just for fun!
    not yet ready to try a dovetail joint?
    regards from Alberta, Canada

    ian

  4. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by ian View Post
    ......only if you think an infill plane is not useful ......
    Ian, I'm sure you know just as well as I do, that other halves are often far more interested in the product than the means of producing them. Mine is better than many, being a 'crafty' person herself, so she does accept that I need some tools to make objects considered useful or desirable for the household, but any attempts to explain why I need "so many" planes, for e.g. (there's only about a dozen if you don't count the oddballs ), still tend to get the glazed-eye treatment. A set of pretty Christmas tree ornaments was viewed with far more enthusiasm than my much prettier little plane.

    But you're right, I'm certainly having a ton of fun, and it does keep me out of trouble except when I goof-off from gardening duties or something else I promised I'd get done this century...

    Quote Originally Posted by ian View Post
    ....... not yet ready to try a dovetail joint? ....
    Now that is throwing down a glove, isn't it? Fortunately, I can dodge having to accept the challenge by pointing out that they are traditionally T&G, and I'm a traditionalist.

    An experienced metal plane fabricator would probably spot my 'mistake' with the sole, which I didn't properly explain above. What happened was that I must've been thinking backwards when I laid out the dovetails on the sides. You normally put a 'pin' in the section where the mouth goes, so that sole metal extends right across the full width of the plane at that point. But I laid out a tail instead, and didn't realise my mistake until I'd already cut out one side (as I said, just when I think I've made all the mistakes possible, I find another one! ). If I'd been working with 'ordinary' brass I would have simply remade the side from scratch, but I had no more of the bronze, & no prospect of getting any more. So I sat & stared at it a while. My first thought was to cut off the dovetails, & make new ones, but the sides were already just high enough, so that option was out. Finally, I decided that the little bit of metal that normally remains is really only to keep things together while you join sides & sole, it doesn't add huge amount to the structural strength (hence the simple T&G of the split soles - it's just there for alignment when assembling). So I went ahead & cut all the dovetails & got sole & sides fitting neatly, then cut the sole across & filed the slope on the mouth. I was a bit nervous about it remaining straight during peining - it's a pretty brutal process, but it went well & didn't visibly distort. When I started lapping, there was a slight dip for about 10mm in front of the mouth, but it lapped out very quickly.

    My main concern was that the sole across the back of the mouth was 'unsupported' and applying pressure with the lever cap might force it down enough to have an effect on blade setting. So to add some more rigidity, I silver-soldered the join between sole & frog-block & the sides. There was enough of a gap between the frog-block (or 'chatter-block', it seems to go by a number of names) that the solder flowed in beautifully. It's all out of sight, and given the block is very firmly riveted to the sole, I reckon it is as good or better than the 'proper' construction. In fact I think I would do this on any future plane, whether the sole is one-piece or two piece - the more solid this part of the blade bed, the better, imo.

    Once again I'm reminded that what experience brings to a craft is a store of ways of getting around mistakes....

    Cheers,
    IW

  5. #4
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    Another keeper, Ian. Great work.

    So is this one kind of like a No. 3? A smaller, more narrow smoothing plane?

    Did you make the lever cap and screw? Is it a solid piece of brass?

    Cheers,
    Luke

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    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Maddux View Post
    ...Another keeper......
    Aayup.

    Spent a bit of time refining things this morning, & discovered the source of the 'jumpy' set. The cap iron was slipping on the blade. This was partly because I was trying to make the fine adjustment without slacking off the lever-cap pressure enough, and partly because the screw head is rather skimpy & barely makes contact with the sides of the blade slot, so it doesn't get a really good purchase. The cap-iron moving was definitely not helping things to move smoothly & predictably! I may have to make a new cap-iron screw with a slightly larger head, eventually, but by being a bit more careful & backing-off the lever cap a touch, I can get fine adjustment & was able to take some very nice shavings with it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Maddux View Post
    ........So is this one kind of like a No. 3? A smaller, more narrow smoothing plane?.....
    Quite a bit smaller than a #3, it's more like a block plane in sole length (145mm) & blade width (38mm) - the #3-sized version is yet to come.
    It's a sweet enough thing to use, but as someone else has noted with these small rear-bun planes, your hand is awfully close to the back of the blade, & you can't help rubbing against it a bit, so I wouldn't want to use it all day. But great for getting into small areas, I think.

    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Maddux View Post
    ........ Did you make the lever cap and screw? Is it a solid piece of brass? ....
    Yes & yes.

    Making the lever-cap is far easier than you may think, actually. I was afraid of tackling one at first, too, so I wimped out & bought a ready-made lever cap for my first metal plane, but I've made 3 or 4 now & they aren't at all difficult. In fact it's quite a lot of fun starting with a boring chunk of metal & sculpting it into shape. Each one I've made was a bit better & a bit easier to do. If you haven't got a mini-lathe & knurling tools to make the thumbscrew, Derek has posted on ways of making them using brass bits off tap-fittings, which look the part...

    Cheers,
    IW

  7. #6
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    Sweet. Glad you've got it performing to your liking and it wasn't a nightmare to figure out the "why".

    Can we see a shot of it that's more from the front? Maybe at a slight angle?

    And how about stuck between the chariot and the panel plane for perspective?

    In case you didn't have enough going on already...

    Cheers,
    Luke

  8. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Maddux View Post
    .......Can we see a shot of it that's more from the front? Maybe at a slight angle?

    And how about stuck between the chariot and the panel plane for perspective? ...
    OK, you asked....

    Front: 1 front.jpg

    Side: 2 side.jpg

    Above: 3 above.jpg

    And sole: 4 sole.jpg

    In the last pic you can clearly see my "blunder". The mouth sits between two side tails, instead of the sole going through the sides at that point. How/why I did that I'll never know; I am well aware of traditional construction, I can only plead absence, m'lord (of mind! ). Anyway, non-traditional it may be, but it made forming the mouth much easier, and in the long-run, I doubt it has had any serious effect on structural integrity. Even when you do it 'properly', with a full-width mouth there isn't much metal left at the sides, anyway. But I will try never to do it again, in case I offend the purists...

    And now for some family portraits: 5 group a.jpg 6 group b.jpg 7 group c.jpg

    Righto, on to the next-but-last metal plane I intend to build in this lifetime.....
    Cheers,
    IW

  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    ...the next-but-last metal plane I intend to build in this lifetime.....
    You mean for yourself, right? I think I speak for all of us when I say I assumed this was all just advertisement for your upcoming line of infill planes

    Thanks for the extra photos. It looks great. It's really impressive how quickly you're able to knock these out. It's difficult for me to even really think in terms of which part goes where and how this and that is supposed to be shaped, but you make it seem almost intuitive. After three of these posts it's starting to come together though...

    I've got a mitre square coming in the mail on which I intend to replace the infill, so I've got a bit of tool-related finagling headed my way soon. Maybe I can take some techs from these posts.

    Cheers,
    Luke

  10. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Maddux View Post
    You mean for yourself, right? I think I speak for all of us when I say I assumed this was all just advertisement for your upcoming line of infill planes
    Yer, right, move over Mr. Spiers! No way, Jose, I'd be flat out putting bread on the table making these things, let alone any spreads or sandwich fillings! It only seems quick because I don't start posting until I'm well into the build & reasonably confident that it's going to amount to something tolerable....

    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Maddux View Post
    ......t you make it seem almost intuitive......
    There are a few mis-steps I chose to keep to myself, Luke. As I said, the main advantage of experience is you know how to fix your mistakes.

    It's like most things, I guess, once you settle in & begin the actual making, it pretty-well guides itself. Knowing what I know now, I think I was stupidly ambitious with that first coffin infill I made about 12 years or so back. A sensible person would surely have decided straight sides were enough of a challenge for the first foray into dovetailing a plane body. I made some minor blunders, but somehow avoided any major bloopers - and I assure you, it was due much more to luck than foresight! So, odd as it may seem, I'm a bit nervous about tackling the last item on my list, which is another coffin smoother, standard blade angle & using a 1 3/4" (#3) blade. I want this one to be perfect, so of course I'm bound to screw up something....

    Cheers,
    IW

  11. #10
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    Talking of all your blunders remindes me of the old quote;

    The difference between the Master and the Apprentice:
    The Master has made way more mistakes.
    You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ~Oscar Wilde

  12. #11
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    Another great infill build. Well done!

    I'm curious about the silver bronze material you've used.
    My searches aren't coming up with much about it. Is it also called 'nickel silver bronze'. Is it the same or similar to this metal:
    Alloy: C97600 Nickel Silver Bronze - Concast Metals

    What are the advantageous properties of silver bronze over other typical metals for infill planes you've used? Malleability?

    Cheers, Vaughan

  13. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by dubrosa22 View Post
    ....I'm curious about the silver bronze material you've used.
    My searches aren't coming up with much about it. Is it also called 'nickel silver bronze'. Is it the same or similar to this metal:
    Alloy: C97600 Nickel Silver Bronze - Concast Metals

    What are the advantageous properties of silver bronze over other typical metals for infill planes you've used? Malleability....
    dubrosa, I don't know anything more about the stuff I'm afraid, the bloke what sold it to me said it should be good for peening, & it was certainly better than the 380 brass alloy I've used for all my other brass/steel projects. Didn't show any tendency to flake or split during the build process, though I should add that the way I formed my parts I didn't need to to push it very far. I bashed away at a piece of the scrap beforehand, and it seemed like it would take quite a bit more deformation without splitting compared with the 380. I suspect that the metal you pointed to is it, but can't be absolutely sure. Doesn't say anything about malleability in those specs, though. It was also nice to saw & file, so if it's not too horrendously expensive at 'regular' prices, it is a good candidate for plane sides if you can't get something like 260 alloy....

    Cheers,
    IW

  14. #13
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    Ian,

    I just want to make sure I understand something...

    You mark out and then saw those dovetails with a jeweler's saw, final shape them with files, then scribe them onto the "tail board" with I'm assuming a hardened steel awl, then saw and file again and then the peening expands the metal so that it locks into place. Is that the process? There's no glue, etc? Is there any other fundamental part of the process I'm not getting my head around?

    Cheers,
    Luke

  15. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Maddux View Post
    ...You mark out and then saw those dovetails with a jeweler's saw, final shape them with files, then scribe them onto the "tail board" with I'm assuming a hardened steel awl.....
    Yep, that's all there is to stage 1, Luke, it's essentially the same process as making through dovetails in wood. The hardened steel awl is an old 3-cornered file ground to a smooth, sharp point. You can buy scribes for metal, of course, but I have too many old saw-files looking for re-purposing...

    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Maddux View Post
    ... then saw and file again and then the peening expands the metal so that it locks into place. Is that the process? There's no glue, etc? Is there any other fundamental part of the process I'm not getting my head around?
    Not quite sure what you're picturing here, but step 2 involves forming a second set of 'dovetails' by taking advantage of metal's malleability. No more sawing is involved, what you do is simply file a bevel on the outside edges of the 'tails' of the side pieces. Look closely at this pic of the chariot plane sides after they've been banged-up: 6.jpg
    ..and you should be able to visualise how the basic 'tails' of the brass sides have been squashed down a bit to lock them onto the sole, but as well, the metal from the sole has been beaten over to fill the bevels I filed on the brass tails. The result is a joint locked very firmly in place. I do usually use some epoxy to bed-in the infill, but no glue whatever needed to join those bits of metal!

    It's one of those things that when you actually do it, it's very obvious what you need to do...

    Cheers,
    IW

  16. #15
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    After I wrote that I realized it was poorly worded and I almost reposted it.

    Nonetheless, yes, that's what I thought you did. Interesting how that can work without glue.

    Makes me wonder why we woodies chose a medium which has grain!

    Thanks for the explanation.

    Cheers,
    Luke

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