more scraped planes

**mic-d** · 28th April 2010, 10:16 PM

After showing some of my restored planes to a fellow woody, he handed over a couple of his, a 4 1/2 and a 5 to flatten the soles. Here's a few photos of the scraped soles.
The 4 1/2 was a big challenge, very concave and the cast iron was very heterogenous. By that I mean the chilled areas were exceptionally hard. The thin areas of the casting cool faster than the thicker spots at manufacture, resulting in harder areas called 'chilled'. I can't see how this plane could have been successfully lapped given the variable hardness of the iron (imagine the result of sanding oregon pine for example). I seem to recall that all my England made planes were a bit like this.
Attachment 135857 Attachment 135858
The #5 is US-made and the cast iron was much more uniform and softer. Lucky, the sole was quite convex. This plane has a few dimples where some pitting had been removed by sand blasting.
Attachment 135859 Attachment 135860

My dial indicator shows a variation < 0.0005" over both these planes, except for a few mm at either end of the #5 where it runs out.

Cheers
Michael

**rsser** · 29th April 2010, 08:28 AM

You're a gentleman Michael.

**mic-d** · 29th April 2010, 08:53 AM

Originally Posted by rsser

You're a gentleman Michael.

Nope, I'm mercenary!

cheers
Michael

**IanW** · 29th April 2010, 09:43 AM

Nice bit 'o work, Michael. My arms & shoulders started aching just looking at the apparent depth of those pits in that #5!

We must pursuade you to give a tutorial on the arcane arts of metal scraping one of these rainy weekend afternoons!

Cheers,

**mic-d** · 29th April 2010, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by IanW

Nice bit 'o work, Michael. My arms & shoulders started aching just looking at the apparent depth of those pits in that #5!

We must pursuade you to give a tutorial on the arcane arts of metal scraping one of these rainy weekend afternoons!

Cheers,

Thanks Ian. Those pits are staying put, another hundredth of an inch would need to come off to get those out

I put up a pictorial blog that explains a bit more, don't know if you saw it, here:
Woodwork Forums - mic-d
Just trying to acquire a good surface plate atm, the glass is hopeless and causes lots of trouble on anything larger than a #4. I have scraped 7 or 8 planes and my table saw rip fence so far, so just an apprentice, but more than happy to pass on what I know, such as it is at the moment

Cheers
Michael

**Clinton1** · 29th April 2010, 07:07 PM

Mic,
Well done... mercenary or not, you have much more bloody mindedness (or patience) than me.

surface plate: just grab a polished granite offcut. You'll be happy with the amount of flatness, and the price.

**jmk89** · 29th April 2010, 07:30 PM

One question, which you may have answered before (in which case, sorry) - where did you get the scraper and how much did it cost?

**mic-d** · 29th April 2010, 07:54 PM

Originally Posted by Clinton1

Mic,
Well done... mercenary or not, you have much more bloody mindedness (or patience) than me.

surface plate: just grab a polished granite offcut. You'll be happy with the amount of flatness, and the price.

Hi Clinton,
Thanks!

Actually I find scraping a lot like planing, very Zen, very addictive.

Um, I have a piece of granite benchtop, the variation on the polished side would be in the order of many, many thousandths of an inch, much worse than the float glass. It may look flat but put a straight edge on it or a dial indicator and holy cow... The float glass varies by about 0.001" over the 600mm, doesn't sound like much I've discovered it might as well be an inch.

Cheers
Michael

**mic-d** · 29th April 2010, 07:58 PM

Originally Posted by jmk89

One question, which you may have answered before (in which case, sorry) - where did you get the scraper and how much did it cost?

I don't remember where I ordered it from. It was a generic engineering shop out of the yellow pages. The insert cost $60 and the tool holder with one insert was around $110-120 from memory. Not cheap. Then you also need a lapidary lap to hone it and diamond powder 3000grit minimum. You also need a good surface plate.

Forgot to add, for a cheaper alternative, if you are handy with silver solder you can stick a lump of tc on the end of a file as a scraper.

Cheers
Michael

**Sapling** · 29th April 2010, 10:08 PM

Mic-D, you scraping has bought back some memories for me from my tafe days near enough 30 years ago or maybe a couple more. We had a cast iron block about 3' x 4' inch. First we hack sawed two groves down one of the long faces and 4 groves across the short side of the same face. We then cold chiseled these out to form 3 grooves with a flat a bottom as possible, marked on effort, then filed the base of these grooves flat and even with each other, marked again.We then knocked all the high steel left down to the level of the grooves with a cold chisel, marked again for how close to flat we got it. We then proceeded to file the surface to as flat as we could get it, marked. After this out came the scraper, prussian blue and a perfectly flat block to measure against and we were marked on the results of this effort on our cast iron (scrape, try scrape). We worked on this for weeks and achieved great results.(Our teacher was doing an aluminium head for his car at the same time using the same method) Our scrapers were files with there teeth ground off the end of both sides and the tip slightly radius. These worked beautifully and could be readily re-edged on the grinder. Lots of sweat went into those cast blocks. I can see how you could get great results on your planes.

**Mr Brush** · 29th April 2010, 10:27 PM

I've had my eye on one of these

Granite Surface Plate : CARBA-TEC

Sounds like good flatosity (

) for the money.....

Like so many things recently, if Carbatec ever get stock I might buy one !

**mic-d** · 29th April 2010, 10:34 PM

Hi Sapling
Glad to hear the post brought back (fond???) memories

I'm glad you posted this, we both are (were) learning by doing, but at least now I will be able to point to more futile ways to learn ie I have a nice flat useable plane, you had a... flat block of cast iron

ta.

Oh, you reminded me that since the blog entry I started using prussian blue too. Can't see much difference to the oil paint. And I have lots of oil paint

Cheers
Michael

**mic-d** · 29th April 2010, 10:38 PM

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

I've had my eye on one of these

Granite Surface Plate : CARBA-TEC

Sounds like good flatosity (

) for the money.....

Like so many things recently, if Carbatec ever get stock I might buy one !

Thanks Mr Brush. That one is a little small. I've got my eye on the bigger one of these if I can't find a cheaper DIY alternative.
McJING Online Tools Products Search

Cheers
Michael

**pjt** · 30th April 2010, 03:10 AM

Ahh yes the old scraping block exercise, we didn't do any of the cold chiseling, we just had to machine out the X that had been marked on the block from the previous student's scraping, then lots of blue, scrape, test

scrape, test... a bit more off there until flat, I remember thinking that straight off the lathe wasn't as flat as u might think

Pete

**kiwioutdoors** · 30th April 2010, 09:29 AM

This all sounds like a painful? Slow? way of achieving something that can be achieved with float glass and sandpaper. do we really need planes that are that flat?

Keen to see some pics of the process though. T o help visualise what your discussing

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