Thread: My Infill Plane

Good Morning MA

Try grinding down one face util you have an an acute angle identical to your dovetail angle.

I blunt file faces regularly,as I am far to impatient to not carve into the wrong face.

Cheers

Originally Posted by IanW

I really don't know what to do with it, tbh, so atm it's sitting in a dark corner of my toolbox waiting for a decision on its fate.
Attachment 536217

Cheers,

Really I try to avoid OCD, particularly with tools, but you know sometimes one has to concede. That plane is too pretty to leave that way , unless you come to regard it as Cindy Crawfords mole...

If it's not easy to file put a small surfacing (carbide end) bit into your roll press a low speed and stet for very light passes, like you would if filing. Angle a sheet of melamine to the same pitch as the bed and gently grid away. I sometimes use my baby drill press at hime for very light milling, even though I have a one tonne monster elsewhere.

MA, I grind the teeth off two sides so only one face has teeth left. If you keep it flat on the wheel (fairly easy with a CBN wheel that has a good amount of abrasive on the side) you should end up with a file that is safe and will cut cut right to its edge. You don't need to grind the whole face, I make my tails to about 14-15*, so by grinding the file at an angle a bit less than 60, I only need to take off a small amount to get sharp edges,

The reason for grinding the edge is solely to get rid of the radiused corners. Virtually all files have radiused edges (there are some exceptions, e.g. so-called 'equalling files' which will cut to a sharp 90* edge), and the larger the file, the larger the radius. Even the finest needle file has rounded corners - the radius is so small you can live with it if you over-cut into the corner slightly, the small void should fill easily enough when peening. I used to do it that way but brass clogs fine needle files rather quickly (& they ain't cheap), and then I realised I had a can full of spent saw files on which the corners are cactus, but most of the faces are still in quite good nick. It takes just a few minutes to get one set up for cleaning out dovetail corners.

Martin, I have no suitable milling facilities in my shed. The nearest I have is a cheapish aluminium cross-slide table (& very light-weight to boot), which I have used in the past for "milling" wood, but it is nowhere near stiff enough for milling metal. Add to that, a cheap drill press with far too much run-out & I reckon I would make a bad situation far worse in a big hurry!

I could scrape the bed even, but it would be an exceedingy tedious job. The sole is 5mm thick (& stainless steel, just to add a little more zest to the party), and the bed angle is a shade less than 18*, so there's quite lot of metal to shift. My other problem is how to check progress down there in the bowels of the plane. The only way I can think of is to keep blueing the back of a very flat blade & rubbing it on the bed surface every few minutes to check on progress. I did, in fact, make a feeble attempt by scraping to correct the skew when I first realised it was off, but soon gave up, partly because it was obviously going to be a very long job, but mainly because I really didn't want to widen the mouth more. To straighten the skew will cause the mouth to end up at least 0.5mm, which is not conducive to best performance. If I'd only checked before assembling it, it would have been relatively easy to fix.

So I've kicked the can down the road by putting it away at the back of the tool cupboard while I "think about it". I may end up deciding a big mouth is preferable to a crooked one & making a more serious attempt at it, some day. Or maybe some brilliant (& easy!) solution will pop into my head when I'm not thinking about it...

(Not likely... )
Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

MA, .

Martin, I have no suitable milling facilities in my shed. The nearest I have is a cheapish aluminium cross-slide table (& very light-weight to boot), which I have used in the past for "milling" wood, but it is nowhere near stiff enough for milling metal. Add to that, a cheap drill press with far too much run-out & I reckon I would make a bad situation far worse in a big hurry!

I could scrape the bed even, but it would be an exceedingy tedious job. The sole is 5mm thick (& stainless steel, just to add a little more zest to the party), and the bed angle is a shade less than 18*, so there's quite lot of metal to shift. My other problem is how to check progress down there in the bowels of the plane. The only way I can think of is to keep blueing the back of a very flat blade & rubbing it on the bed surface every few minutes to check on progress. I did, in fact, make a feeble attempt by scraping to correct the skew when I first realised it was off, but soon gave up, partly because it was obviously going to be a very long job, but mainly because I really didn't want to widen the mouth more. To straighten the skew will cause the mouth to end up at least 0.5mm, which is not conducive to best performance. If I'd only checked before assembling it, it would have been relatively easy to fix.

So I've kicked the can down the road by putting it away at the back of the tool cupboard while I "think about it". I may end up deciding a big mouth is preferable to a crooked one & making a more serious attempt at it, some day. Or maybe some brilliant (& easy!) solution will pop into my head when I'm not thinking about it...

(Not likely... )
Cheers,

Hi Ian

Couple of suggestion


Runout
typically a significant amount of runout is from the cheap chucks. If you put a circular file vertically in vise and lower the chuck, and close on the chuck so the jaws are "lightly" touching the file but not gripping. The file and the chuck are to concentric. Spin the chuck and the file. Then repeat a couple of times adjusting the jaws so they are lightly touching each time.
PS don't forget to oil the chuck, and air blasting if possible prior and after. Chucks are dust magnets and the jaws will not seat properly.

I haven't dial indicated but my chuck is worlds better than how it arrived.

Flattening - crude..
For reasons of curiosity, plus flattening seems to periodically be an exercise that is repeated I flattened the side of my sledge hammer with this simple setup. A milling bit was too ambitious for this crude setup. Came out pretty flat, took a bit off. Did not fully flatten the face as it is hardened steel and trapezoidl in shape.
I did not have a piece of mild steel handy and the sledge hammer caught my eye first..
IMG_6295.jpg

Used a ball bit, that was the first one I found. For the inside of a plane, was thinking a cylinder would be appropriate.
JOSCO 32 x 50mm Mounted Grinding Point JMPW232 | Total Tools


If you by chance think this worth trying, experiment prior...

PS : the tight mouth as is is a goner - not there is always brass shims, glued to the bed. A shim could extend right to the base and be faltered in. Then it becomes decocoative a "feature" with performance befits - lets say "accurate lateral adjustment on the "high performance" brass bed..."

More progress. I realised pretty quickly when filing the bed that I didn't glue the guide block close enough to my set out line. Consequently a little more filing than needed and the bed "moved" back along the base. I didn't alter the tongue, apart from squaring things up a bit, but instead spent a lot of time deepening the groove. Thank goodness for my uncle leaving me a whole lot of hand tools, including many rasps and files. I have found good use for both his bastard and 2nd cut warding files. I also realised that the blade needed squaring up and grinding of a new bevel if I was ever going to be able to use it to measure the mouth. My "gauge plate", another of his gifts, is a lot flatter than my benchtop and also helped with aligning things. Base is straight, tongue and grooves mate, and mouth is pretty small. Next step file a relieving bevel on the toe piece before transferring position of tails?

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Your doing very well Mr MA, the tongue an groove joint look good,that’s not an easy joint too do considering the scale your working at,

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

..... Next step file a relieving bevel on the toe piece before transferring position of tails?....

Yairs, I find it's always a bit tricky knowing how close to make the toe side of the mouth. You can't predict how much lapping is going to be required to level the sole after peening it up (at least I can't!). I strive to be consistent & get the bottoms of the sockets on the sides as close to perfect as I can, but I always end up with front & back parts misaligned to some extent. Usually, it's a small dip around the mouth area, & that's ok 'cos you won't change the mouth gap by bringing the front & back down to get the sole level. But sometimes the toe piece will end up high just in front of the mouth, so that lapping does risk opening it too far if you file too much forward slope on the front.

A forward slope of ~10* to the front of the mouth is ample in my experience. One of my last little mitre planes has an absurdly tight mouth & probably only 8* or even less slope on the front, but the shavings tend to shoot back over the blade bevel very smoothly and I've had far less choking with it than one of my high-pitched planes which has a much larger mouth & more forward slope. (I'm still fiddling with that plane years after I made it, trying to get top performance out of it!).

With standard-pitch, bevel-down planes, it's not nearly as critical because you can easily get a file into the mouth to adjust it after assembly, so I tend to leave them undersized & finesse the mouth gap after lapping. With LA jobs, the mouth gap is so skinny you can only get the thinnest of files in the mouth after the two parts are joined which makes it very slow-going to take even a couple of thou off the front of the mouth. My tip for the day is to file a little bit off the sharp end of the blade bed before you peen it up- it's too thin to contribute anything worthwhile to blade support, and too easily damaged. The wider slot thus formed has no bearing on the actual mouth gap but makes it easier to get a file in should you need to work on the toes side. You can actually cut it back a mm or more quite safely, but if you file it back too far it looks a bit gappy & ugly from underneath.

Just work methodically (as you are doing), check constantly & don't be in a rush to start banging it up - like a certain silly person I know.....

Cheers,
Ian

Lookin' good MA.

Hi MA

things are looking like it coming together great.

Adding to my slight thread diversion, in the interest of supporting plane making.

Cheap surfacing setup.
My little test on hammer fooled me into thinking "well that was easy" let just though in a plane and see if I can lap it. Didn't work out, but not for serious reasons, I think. Trying to lap it with single central clamp lead to cantilevers. The cantilevers tilted that the clamp slightly. Upshot, the plane lapped concave -cantilevers deflected down slightly with the ends receiving effectively less grinding.

If one is to try this concept the object - plane/blade/hammer need to be supported at each end. The reference surface that supports the clamps needs to be flat and secure.

Also, as far I can tell , my, not very good drill stand held up to the task, but one cannot be certain until a larger surface is flattened.

Cheers

Dovetails fitted! Now for some peening, when I next get a chance.

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Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Dovetails fitted! Now for some peening, when I next get a chance.

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MA,
It looks like your side’s are a bit below the bottom, ie they need to be in a bit more, or it may just be the camera angle!.

Peening that up won’t actually take that long 10/20 minutes at max I reckon.
Looking forward too seeing it all together soon.

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

.....Peening that up won’t actually take that long 10/20 minutes at max I reckon....

Don't put too much pressure on him Matt..

TBH, I find peening to be a very variable feast, sometimes it goes very quickly & sometimes it seems to take forever. Since this is MA's first lot of peened dovetails, let's allow him as long as it takes....

Cheers,

I will humbly retract my Peening Comments, but let the court beware, we are talking about a Gentleman trained in hitting a small piece of Steel through a piece off Mountain Ash all day long.

Cheers Matt.

Thanks for looking out for me, both of you. I will actually have to learn a whole new hammer technique. I used to wonder why a mate of mine rests his thumb on top of the hammers' handle instead of wrapping it around (like I do). He is a trained coppersmith and, for years, was trying to move metal around not smash a skinny piece of it through wood.

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