Thread: Panel-plane build

Day two (or three or four!)

OK, so now it’s time for the real work, getting those sides attached to the sole. For this step, I need a ‘buck’, which is just a solid chunk of hard wood that exactly matches the inside width of the sole. This holds the sides perpendicular during the peining. Discovery number one: there is a small downside to buying a kit, you don’t get the matching offcuts from the sides. If you are cutting out your own bits, you can bolt the offcuts to the buck to form a very solid support during the hammering. In the absence of the offcuts, I used a series of bolts, which wasn’t entirely satisfactory, & I needed clamps & some delicate hammering on alternate sides until each tail was firmly locked: 7.jpg

After I got the pins & tails firmly locked together, I just needed to keep peining & moving metal to make certain all the voids were filled. I’ve learnt from previous experience with riveting & metal dovetailing that you need to watch carefully as you do this. Try to move the metal so it fills from the bottom of the void upwards, don’t just bang the top edges over, or it may look like you’ve filled the holes nicely, but when you start filing off the excess you find some nasty gaps lurking in there.

Another hint if you are cutting out your own parts: the amount of projection of pins & tails is fairly critical – about 1.5 to 2mm max, is good. Too little and you won’t have enough material to fill the voids, too much and it’s difficult to ensure that you fill properly. If you bash the corners down too quickly, they’ll cover the top ok, but there’ll be voids deeper down, and not only will that be unsightly, it will not form a strong joint. Whoever made this kit must operate on a different rule of thumb because the tails had what I think is too much (about 3mm), while the ‘pins’ on the sole barely projected a mm past the sides. The skimpy projection was made worse by some of the corners being melted away by the cutter, so I had to move quite a lot of metal to get a fill, on those.

Finally, it’s all done – gets the arms a bit weary, but it’s quite therapeutic, really, you get a bit mesmerised tapping away & watching the steel flow slowly in te direction you are sending it. Don’t be alarmed by how fugly it looks when you finish peining, as long as you haven’t made too many mis-hits & not hammered the metal too deep, it will all file off & you’ll end up with shiny, flat surfaces: 8.jpg

In fact, I’m pretty happy with the result, it’s as solid as, & the sides have remained dead square, which is a relief: Sides square.jpg

Filing off the hammered pins & tails is sheer tedium & hard on the pinkies, so I did it in bursts, interspersed with working on other parts. Here it is at a fairly advanced stage, but still far from complete. That last 10% goes painfully slowly because you have to use a finer file & take great care to hold it level to avoid marking the metal in the wrong places (I did make one or two small grazes where they shouldn't be ). I tried using masking tape to protect the bits I didn't want to scratch, but that was only partly successful. The file kept catching on the tape, which promptly balled up & tore big chunks out of itself, so in the end I just put up with going very carefully & slowly as things got close.

At this stage, the edges of the tails & pins are still a teeny bit proud, & you can easily see them, but I am not aiming for perfection yet, as there will be more filing to come if I use rivets to hold the stuffing, rather than screws: 8a.jpg

I‘m still debating that part; screws will be easier, and they are often used to hold the stuffing on infills, but look rather tacky to me. OTH, rivets are more work & run the risk of marking the sides if you mis-hit when peining them. Hmmmm.....

Break 2....

Last installment for tonight..

So, I started on the woodwork. First job was to cut out the finger hole in the centre piece of the rear stuffing, a very simple task with my little 10-inch turning saw: 9.jpg

Then I set to with rasps & scrapers to shape the grip: 10.jpg

Rosewood is hard, but quite nice to work with & you can move quite quickly between the various tools such as rasps, files & sandpaper without leaving marks from the previous grades. Soon enough, I had something that looks reasonably like a tote. I was wondering if I should “over-stuff” (as I did with my smoother) or keep the stuffing inside the body. The former looks neat, but the latter allows you to do a bit of stylish chamfering of the metal. The decision was quickly made for me when I lined up the three pieces for the rear stuffing and saw that they were not quite wide enough to overhang the sides, so internal it has to be. That simplifies the woodwork, but means more filing to chamfer the metal!

I finish-sanded the grip & bits that will be hard to get at later, then glued the cheeks on. There will be a bit more cleaning-up to do after it is fixed in the plane body, but this as far as I need to go now. 11.jpg

And so ended week 1 (actually quite a bit more - I lost count of actual hours spent due to interruptions and some days doing other things).

More tomorrow maybe,
Cheers,

Chair pulled up and popcorn on standby; looks like a very intersting WIP

The lever cap knob and the adjuster supplied with the kit were perfectly functional but not finished to the standard I wanted to achieve on this job. In particular, the taper of the adjuster shaft was rather rough, with a rather rough taper & obvious deep tool-marks from the turning. The knurling on both knobs was also rather skimpy (they looked just like my early attempts at knurling ). Luckily, I have a very useful mini-lathe that can handle jobs like this easily & I was able to smooth & polish the shaft of the adjuster & improve the knurling on the knob by making a temporary arbor that I could screw the knob onto. Re-knurling was done very gently, but the brass was easy to cut & it came out very nicely after several light passes: 12.jpg

The lever cap screw wasn’t so easy. Its knurling was a bit better done than the adjuster knob, & I was tempted to just leave it as-is, but the head was a bit wonky & could do with cleaning-up on the top (& very visible!) surface. The only way I could hold it for re-knurling was by the threaded part, which isn’t a good idea, as you risk marking it. I measured the thread at 20tpi, which translates to half-inch BSF, & I didn’t have a matching die in that size to clean it up if it got bruised. In the end, I decided ‘no guts, no glory’ & popped it in the lathe, re-knurled it (very gently), & cleaned up the wonky top edge, taking light cuts til it was neat & straight. On the last pass of the knurling tool the light grip let me down & it rattled loose, causing some slight damage to a couple of threads, but I was able to straighten them up with a needle file. I’m much happier with it now: 13.jpg

While I was at the lathe, I decided to do something about the adjuster pivot. There was nothing in the kit to make any sort of firm attachment to the tote. All it consists of is a short stub turned on the main nut, which for some reason I can’t fathom, is also stepped, complicating the boring of a receiving hole. The Norris adjuster pivots on a small plate which is screwed into a recess in the blade-bed, forming a very firm attachment. At first, I thought I would make something similar, but Norris use thicker material for the tote sections of their rear stuffing, which gives more room for the mechanism to be let into. My grip is only about 25mm thick, & furthermore, the side cheeks I had didn't sweep up as high as they do on a Norris. I didn't think I could safely cut out a slot wide enough for a plate, without the risk of breaking through the edges of the tote where it would be visible In th end, I decided a pressed-in metal cup, similar to what Lee Valley supply with their little plane kit would be the best solution..

So after some thought, I made a brass insert with a close-fitting, stepped hole to receive the pivot. I made it a good but not tight fit for a 16mm hole, then knurled the outside, so that it would be a solid press-fit that should stay put without need for glue (trying to glue something like this iin a confined space is liable to be a very messy operation!). You can see the stepped stub on the adjuster nut in the pic, along with my sleeve: 14.jpg

As it turned out, I was too tentative with the knurling and it ended up just a smooth fit, not tight. I could have just epoxied it in, but I bored hole slightly sloppy too, and it wasn't as neat a fit on the pivot stub as I wanted (I was having a bad morning! ). So it was back to the lathe for another try. With the experience gained on the first attempt, take 2 took very little time & came out near-perfect, and when the time came to st it in, it took a goodly squeeze to seat it. I think it will be in there until the wood rots away from around it! However, having the 'dud' insert turned out to be very handy, because I could insert & remove it a few times while I got the depth and slots for the shaft just right. I had to make many test-fits with the adjuster, carefully cutting away the wood until there was enough travel & lateral movement. I ended up removing quite a lot of my precious rosewood to fit everything in. Here it is in the process of being sorted out before the cheeks were glued on: 15.jpg

I had to be a bit inventive working out how to drill the hole for the brass piece accurately. It needs two concentric holes, one for the barrel of the pivot-nut and a smaller one for the brass insert, but this Heath-Robinson jig held things firmly & I managed to get it right: 15ab.jpg

As I said, I lost track of time, but at this stage I'd spent a couple more happy days at it without a lot to show. There's a fair way to go yet, but the promise is there.... 15b.jpg

Now that the adjuster is placed, it's time to think about a cap-iron. I had to fit the adjuster first, because that determines exactly where the screw will be placed in the cap-iron. The distance is critical, so that the blade can be extended sufficiently and retracted comfortably as needed. You've got somewhere between 1 & 2mm tolerance, & even though I spent ages measuring & checking, I got the position a bit high. It means that with the cap-iron set very close, you can't get much blade protrusion, but I judge it will be more than enough for the jobs this plane will be called on to do, it is not designed for heavy-duty stock removal . You will be restricted in the shaving thickness it can handle anyway, because of (what I hope will be) a very fine mouth.

The kit did include the necessary cap-iron screw, taped into the adjuster receiver, so I decided I’d use it since it was already there & a nice fit in the cup, & would save me the time of making another. Then I checked the thread & of course I didn’t have a matching tap for that, either (5/16” & BSF, again), which I'd need to cut the corresponding thread in the cap-iron. But fortunately a distress-call to my mate confirmed he had one, so a quick trip over to his shed to 'beg a borrow' & that was sorted. I used the last piece of some 1/8” stainless steel I acquired many years ago for the cap-iron. No idea what alloy it is, but it’s reasonably easy to cut & file, & soft enough to put a bend in with the crude bending jig I made. Forgot to take pictures of this bit of the build, but it’s hardly rocket-science & not a very interesting bit, anyway. The last pic in the previous post shows it cut out & roughly fitted to the blade, ready to bend & shape into its final form.

While all this metal-work was going on, I took breaks to work on the front bun & finish any moulding that would be difficult to impossible to manage once it was in place. Again no 'in progress' pics; I was hopping from one thing to another & ignoring the camera.

With the woodwork sorted, I tidied up the tops of the sides and filed some chamfers on the edges that match with the wood because it would also be next-to-impossible doing that once the stuffing is in place (edit: as it happened, I did have to clean up the top of the sides in a few places, it wasn't impossible, but horribly awkward!). Some more work will be necessary when the stuffing is fixed in, but I did as much as I could, then mixed up a goodly batch of epoxy & lightly clamped the stuffing in place: 15c.jpg

I used epoxy here for two reasons, one being that it will hold everything in place while I drill & fix the rivets (which I’ve now decided I will use, not screws), & the other is to fill any small imperfections in my dovetails & prevent moisture getting in where it’s definitely not wanted.

After the epoxy had cured thoroughly, the the next step is to add the rivets. All relatively easy, except a regular 4.5mm bit won’t reach all the way through the 75mm width of the body, & a quick trip to Bunnies informed me they don’t carry long 4.5mm bits. So I used a long 4mm bit to get a straight hole right through, then came in from each side with a regular 4.5mm bit. Luckily, I did get nice straight holes, which were countersunk each side, then some 100 x 4.5mm nails cut to length (cut to give ~2mm exposure on each side) and well-peined to tighten them up & fill those counter-sinks. After that came more careful filing to level the peined rivets. Here is one side with one completely flushed (which you can’t see!), one almost done but still visible, and a few not yet started: 16a.jpg

Once the rivets were filed flush, I could lap the sides flat, & hey presto!, the rivets have disappeared (but you can still see the ones for the chatter-block lurking underneath): 16b.jpg

That was the end of another longish day, so I packed up & sat the blade & lever cap in place, to make it look a lot more like a plane when I come back in the morning & encourage me to believe I'm almost done: 15d.jpg

Now it's time to tidy up that blade-bed, & here I had to deal with my first real stumble. The wood slid forward a teeny-weeny bit when I clamped it in (wet epoxy has less than zero tack!). This caused slight misalignment of the wood & chatter-block. The wood is hanging over the metal part by less than .5mm, but that is going to take an awful lot of filing & scraping to bring it flush & keep it all straight & level!

It did. But after a couple of hours of finger-killing work, I had it tolerable. It isn't a seamless match, but there is plenty enough of the chatter-block flat & flush where it counts, which is where the lever-cap bears down, I could now begin refining it, using some marker pen on the back of the blade to rub over the job & show the high spots: 17a.jpg

As you can see, the back of the blade is touching only in the centre on the first test, but after another hour or more of patient filing & lots more checking, I had a pretty even ink mark across the metal and the wood: 17b.jpg

Stumble #2: I had foolishly filed the front of the mouth before glueing in the stuffing (because it was easier to get at, with no obstructions) but the amount of material I had taken off the the blade bed had tilted the blade up a fraction (the final angle is 48*) & it made the mouth wider than I wanted - Damn! I particularly want a very fine mouth on this plane, as per the originals. But all is not lost, in fact I think fate was taking matters into her own hands again. Remember that 6mm blade? It’s now back in contention, and in fact, looking at the various pics of panel planes you can find on the web, very thick blades seem to be the rule rather than the exception, on these beasts. So the 3.2mm blade got ditched in favour of the monster. Although the mouth was too big for the 3.2mm blade, I still had to open it some more to take the thicker blade, which involved yet more filing (very carefully, & with constant checking!). I’ve left it at just a hairline opening for the moment, just enough to get the thick blade through whileI settle everything else, particuoarly the lever cap. Adjustments will follow in the final fettling, after the sole is lapped.

Now for the final and perhaps most fraught phase of the whole construction; the lever cap has to be fitted. I spent a long time fiddling with its position, because it’s such a critical component. Basically, it just has to bear down evenly on the cap-iron at the right spot, and be set so that it can open to a sufficient angle that I can get the bade/cap-iron assembly in once the lever cap is in place. That bulky cap-iron screw needs quite a bit of room to fit over the blade bed before it drops into its receiving cup on the adjuster. But you can’t have the lever cap set too high, or the screw will meet the blade at too much of an acute angle because this can tend to move the blade assembly back when you tighten down the blade, which is not at all desirable. With the thicker blade, there is only just enough room to maintain the desired geometry. I had to get those pivot screws in within a fraction of a mm of the sweet spot. If I get this wrong, an awful lot of work could go down the gurgler, so you can understand I was just a little nervous through it all. I checked & re-checked about 20 times before finally marking out, & another goodly number of times before centre-punching the spots & drilling the first hole! Either by good management or good luck (mostly the latter, I think!), it all went smoothly. The pivot holes in the lever cap ended up slightly off where I'd estimated they would be, towards the rear of the cap, but that was yet another blessing in disguise, because the drill exited cleanly into the depression on the back of the casting, which meant I could tap the holes with a standard tapered tap & not have to fuss with a bottoming tap (which I don’t happen to have in the size I used, anyway).

With the lever cap fitted, the job is almost complete. Did I say ‘almost’? Hmmm…..

I assembled it with the blade well backed-off, tightened the lever cap down & started lapping the sole. After 50 or so strokes, I was pleased to see several large shiny areas, all the way along the sole: 28.jpg

This won’t take too long, says I to meself says I. Hah! Do you know how many months of rubbing over abrasive paper it takes to reduce half an acre of steel by a couple of thousandths of an inch!!??

After another couple of hundred strokes, the shiny spots had increased, but nowhere near as much as I would have liked to see. This is going to be a long haul, as I feared.

My impatience got the better of me at this stage; the plane felt so solid and ‘authoritative’ as I pushed it back & forth over the 80 grit paper, I just had to see what it felt like cutting wood. So despite the sole still being a long way off properly flat, I touched-up the blade and carefully set it up for a fine cut. It worked! With a sweet, smooth, action, shavings rolled up out of the mouth. They were a bit coarser than I thought I’d set it for, but they came through cleanly, demonstrating the mouth is probably quite wide enough already.

29.jpg

As well as the sheer joy of having it 'work' first time (I well remember how long it took just to get a shaving out of the very first plane I ever made), it felt very comfy, sliding over the piece of wood I tried it on. This just happened to be a bit of rowy-grained Camphor, but the surface my half-finished plane left was surprisingly good, considering the sole is a long way from true, & especially at the front of the mouth which is still a thou or too low – there is still ink there where I scribed a line across to file to. But I’m pleased as pie that it looks like all that work will pay off & I’ll have a keeper that is a delight to the eye as well as doing a good job for me….

There are still quite a few hours of work to go. I estimate lapping the sole is going to take 3 or 4 hours minimum. In between lapping sessions, I’ll tidy up the detailing and final-sand the bits of woodwork I left until it was assembled, replace the temporary screws holding the lever cap with a couple of counter-sunk stainless-steel screws, and then apply some finish to the woodwork.

At this stage, I’m pretty pleased with it all. There are some minor flaws in my metalwork that you might find on a careful inspection, but overall, the dovetails should totally disappear, except for a fine line on a couple. Almost makes you wonder why you go to so much trouble to make joints you can’t see.

For the time-being, that's the end of the build, but I hope to be able to post a couple of finished pics and a pile of gossamer shavings in a week or three......

Cheers,

Progress at a blistering rate. Took me about that long on a simple woody. Lovely to watch it come together.
Regards
John

Originally Posted by orraloon

Progress at a blistering rate. Took me about that long on a simple woody....

Don't worry John - it only seems like a blistering pace 'cos it's condensed into a few posts! I started on it at least 3 weeks ago, and even allowing for missed days & other interruptions, I've put more than 10 long days into it.

My last post this morning got me up to last Friday evening. Yesterday was a family gathering, but after everyone left, I got about a half-hour of lapping in before the dogs insisted on their walk.

I got back at it after lunch today, & this is where I was at. a.jpg

Not much change from Friday, I'm afraid. Tonight, after a couple of hours and several lengths of 80 & 120 grit paper had been consumed, it looks like this: b.jpg

The shiny spots have definitely grown, but oh so slowly! I've run out of the coarser grit, so I packed it in at 4:30 and will get some more tomorrow. But before I quit, I had to lower the blade & give it another little run: c.jpg

You can feel a difference, and shavings are coming out better after I spent a bit more time smoothing the front of the mouth, & getting the bevel a bit steeper and extending it back to about a mm above the sole base: d.jpg

I may need to do a bit more on it yet, I think, because shavings are still wanting to stick in the left side of the mouth rather than rolling up into the throat, but that's the side that's lowest, so I'll wait til the lapping brings the sole flat to the edge of the mouth before I do anything more there. The whole toe area is getting close, but there is still a shallow area for about 15mm in front of the front edge of the mouth.

This is far & away the most tedious part of the build, but I'll get there, one day....

Cheers,

Nice work Ian !
Have you got a job lined up to try it out on ?
I like the thread of Peters from 2008 as well . Never seen that before.
Rob

I put in a couple more hours yesterday, lapping the sole. I used up the only roll of 80 grit paper I had, got very tired arms, & barely made any impression on the low spots.

So today I went out & bought a 60 grit zirconium oxide linisher belts. I cut it open, & with some difficulty, I managed to stretch it nice & flat across the tablesaw M1.jpg

What a difference! You can really feel the strong 'bite' of the paper, and it took much more effort to push the plane back & forth. After 50 strokes or so I took a peek at the bottom, hoping to see some difference & was greatly encouraged by very clear signs of progress. The shiny spots had increased more in those few minutes of lapping than they had done in an hour with the 80 grit Al oxide paper I'd been using.

I went from this: M2.jpg

To this: M3.jpg

To this: M4.jpg

In less than an hour. I reckon another couple of hundred strokes or so tomorrow will get rid of that last small dip, and I should be able to move up through the grits pretty quickly after that, to finish it off. Some folks like to polish up to fine grits, but I can't see any value in going past 180 - the scratches that grit size leaves is not much different to those you get over time from normal use.

Of course I had to do another test before packing it in for the night. Either I'm getting more used to setting this plane up, or the more polished sole is easier to align the blade against, but whatever it is, I found it much easier to get the blade engaged & cutting a nice shaving: M5.jpg

With any luck, I might have this project done & dusted by tomorrow evening......

Cheers,

Originally Posted by auscab

Nice work Ian !
Have you got a job lined up to try it out on ?
I like the thread of Peters from 2008 as well . Never seen that before.
Rob

Thanks, Rob. No specific job in mind for this plane, but I'm looking forward to getting to know it, and seeing what it will do. To that end, I do have a large lump of Aus. cedar from a crotch that has been settling for several years, waiting to become make two quite large book matched panels for the bottom part of a glassware cabinet. It's been on the 'to do list' for far too long & I'm running out of excuses.....

Yeah, Peter made it sound easy, but he does have a little bit more experience of working metal than I do. Like 40 years, perhaps....

Cheers,

Looking really awesome Ian.

How are you finding the Norris-style adjuster on this one? I recall you saying that the one fitted to your Veritas kit plane was installed a miniscule bee's winky off centre which subsequently caused a great wailing and gnashing of teeth; is this one an improvement?

Very nice work

I seriously considered buying those pieces when they were offered for sale
I'm glad you got them as the resulting plane is a lot better than I would have acheived

happy shavings making

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

......... How are you finding the Norris-style adjuster on this one? I recall you saying that the one fitted to your Veritas kit plane was installed a miniscule bee's winky off centre which subsequently caused a great wailing and gnashing of teeth; is this one an improvement?

CT, I don't think I explained myself very well regarding the adjuster. It wasn't a problem created by me, for a change. The problem I whinged about is inherent in the design, which may sound like heresy to some, but let me present my case with the aid of this sketch diagram: norris adjuster diag.jpg

The blade & adjuster setup on the left represents the ideal world, where the cutting edge is perfectly square to the blade's long axis, the hole for the stub which engages the blade and the centre of the pivot are all aligned on that axis, so moving the blade back or forth by screwing the adjuster through the pivot nut moves the blade perfectly along its axis. A beautiful, simple system...

However, it ain't a perfect world. We rarely have the cutting edge so precisely square that it doesn't need a touch of adjustment (well I don't, and I'm in awe of anyone out there who does!). This alters the geometry as shown in the right drawing (exaggerated for clarity, as they say). I think it's pretty obvious that the adjuster shaft is now angled to the blade axis. The lever cap presses down on the blade near the mouth (or it should), creating the front pivot point, so screwing the adjuster forward to get more blade exposure will tend to slew it slightly as indicated by the arrow, causing more blade exposure on the right side than the left. Every time you alter the depth of cut with the adjuster shaft off the central axis, you will need to make some lateral adjustment at the new setting.

That's my beef. It's not a game-stopper, just a small inconvenience, which the Bailey system, sloppy though it may be, doesn't suffer from.

Of course you learn to live with this inbuilt 'flaw'. The adjuster in my panel plane has it in spades because it's far longer than the adjuster I used in the Veritas kit plane. It also suffers from having a single screw, as does the Veritas version. This makes adjustment a bit tricky because you get a lot of blade movement for a small turn of the adjuster. Norris addressed this problem very elegantly by using a twin screw system. One fits inside the other and they are of opposite directions (i.e. one is left-hand, the other right), but different pitches. So as you turn the main shaft to go forward, the inner screw screws back at a slightly slower rate determined by the difference in the pitch of the two screws, but the sum of movement is in the direction required. This is really slick, because you can use relatively coarse and practical pitches, with just a small difference in tpi and you'll get much less axial movement than you'd get with a single screw without using a ridiculously fine pitch. Very clever, Mr. Norris!

[Edit: Never believe everything you read! I based the above on an explanation I read many years ago, of how the Norris adjuster works, and foolishly never bothered to think it through for myself, or check. It's quite incorrect, as I recently learned by making a Norris type adjuster myself. The R/H-L/H thread combo of the Norris mechanism is actually additive, not subtractive. As you turn the main shaft clockwise, the inner shaft with its L/H thread 'unscrews' & so the actual travel of the banjo is the sum of both thread pitches. Veritas put the left & right hand threads on the same shaft, but it has exactly the same effect as the sleeved shafts of the Norris system. ]

My panel plane has a relatively coarse thread at 20tpi. I just did the maths & that's 1.27mm axial movement per turn. Taking the blade bed as 45* you get 0.9mm change relative to the sole, per turn. (Actually it's a fraction more because my blade bed has ended up at about 48*, but let's not worry about the 2nd decimal place! )

The upshot is that it's not easy to make a thou or two adjustment in your cut - as I said, I'm getting used to it pretty quickly & I can live with it. I didn't believe it myself for many a year, but you can quite easily learn to adjust blades quickly & very accurately without mechanical aids other than a mallet or small brass hammer. But, as I said above, the adjuster looks cool and many folks would consider it an essential, and it was a fun challenge to include it, so why not? ....

Cheers,