Thread: Plane making questions

Mike, any plane that works is ok.

The only 'problem' you might strike is that it could take many years for you to make the 'production' version. I made something similar (with a double radius) for precisely the same job (scooping out chair seats). It was knocked up in a hurry, and far from brilliant, but it did the job it was intended for, so I kept on using it despite its shortcomings, for 30 years or more! I finally got around to making the definitive version last year. The good news is that I 'd learnt a bit in the interim, so the new plane is a big advance on the old.......

Cheers,

Ian,
You do some truly amazing work and thanks for posting here I appreciate your experience and obvious skill.

BTW where do I buy one?

Originally Posted by m2c1Iw

Ian,
You do some truly amazing work and thanks for posting here I appreciate your experience and obvious skill.

BTW where do I buy one?

I’m told there’s a worldwide stock shortage...

Mike, dunno how much is due to skill & how much to dogged persistence - I've had my share of failures! The success rate has improved slightly over the years, so I guess I've learnt something on the job..

My message is always "get stuck in & give it a go". It would be a good confidence-builder if you could have an experienced maker looking over your shoulder & giving a few pointers, but we have the next best thing here - you can have lots of people looking over your shoulder! You have to sort through a bit of conflicting advise, sometimes, but that's character-building....

Originally Posted by m2c1Iw

.....BTW where do I buy one? ....

Originally Posted by Colin62

I’m told there’s a worldwide stock shortage...

I think Colin has nailed it - at 25 years between planes, the wait-list would put most potential customers off.

Cheers,

I made the decision at the start of this year to no longer discuss my traditional plane making work on any of the hand tool forums.

Stewie;

Sorry to hear that Stewie. I was hoping to get your take on things as I enjoy reading your threads and ideas, but understand.

Cheers

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Good Morning DW

I am a little perplexed by these comments.

Why could Terry Gordon's planes be more suited to removing power tool marks than, say, a Bailey plane, or a ROS. I am sure the latter would be the go to tool for a "power tool woodworker", and that Terry's stuff appeals more to the hand tool adict. And Terry's jointers and smoothers are far sweeter to use than any Bailey pattern equivalent.

Secondly, why advocate lowering the pitch when one has to deal with hard, hardwoods with cantankerous grain. Standard pitch is fine for pines and softer hardwoods, but not for jarrah; it just invites tear out.



Fair Winds

Graeme

Hi, Graeme - it's not that they're more suited to removing power tool marks than a bailey plane, just that they're not suited to much heavier work than that (the gordon high angle planes).

As far as the pitch, it's only half the story. If you set the cap iron close on a bailey style plane, it'll seem like an entirely different plane. It'll do fine work as well or better than any 60 degree plane (tearout control is about the same, but you can get a better surface finish on medium and soft woods, all with the same plane.

If you want to do heavier work, set the cap iron just slightly further back and put a little bit of camber on an iron, etc. With a 60 degree plane, you just really can't do much, and the iron needs to be resharpened often because it doesn't do as much to keep itself in the cut.

Setting a Cap Iron

Try it. You're basically setting the cap iron right on the end of the iron and then backing it off just enough to see a tiny sliver of reflection off of the back of the iron.

Please disregard the tearout that remains in the second picture. The editor took those pictures on his first couple of tries setting a cap iron after reading the article to edit it. He felt that less tearout was important to show (I don't agree, but I was being agreeable because he offered editing services in exchange for nothing).

As far as jarrah, no problem with a stanley/bailey plane. The only really difficult to plane wood is something like quartered cocobolo that's really hard in the late wood and really crumbly/powdery in the early wood.

This is a little gimmick worth taking advantage of. You'll get a better surface on all but very hard woods, the plane will be much more agreeable to use than a high angle single iron, you can do more than just fine work (Even in the hardest woods), tearout elimination isn't dependent on sharpness, and you can do more work between sharpening cycles by far.

All completely separate and aside from the issue of cost - the bailey planes don't cost much.

I have built a bunch of planes. My first planes were steep but I was dimensioning wood by hand and just figured that there must be something better, and using the cap iron on common pitch is it.

Thanks for clarifying DW.
Hmm interesting more issues to ponder.
The blade I'm using is a monster without cap so I'm now leaning towards 45 deg bed and if needed back bevel for tear out as per below.

The goal posts keep moving though because now I think a tote and moving the mouth forward might be the go.

Perhaps I should just start and stop thinking about it.

Originally Posted by m2c1Iw

Thanks for clarifying DW.
Hmm interesting more issues to ponder.
The blade I'm using is a monster without cap so I'm now leaning towards 45 deg bed and if needed back bevel for tear out as per below.

The goal posts keep moving though because now I think a tote and moving the mouth forward might be the go.

Perhaps I should just start and stop thinking about it.

You could build a quickie plane in the same proportions out of cheaper wood (just glue it together). When the handle or the mouth aren't in places where you'd prefer them to be, it's almost instant to figure it out as soon as you put plane to wood.

My personal preference for a single iron plane if you feel you want to use single iron is a steep bed. 45 degrees without the cap is just what most people think a stanley plane is in general, difficult to keep in the cut if the wood isn't perfect and you can't plane downgrain.

I like 50 as a wood remover with a single iron, but it isn't anywhere close to as good as a cap iron for tearout reduction. 55 is better, but the trade off is resistance and the limitation of the plane to relatively light work (no volume wood removal, like facing a panel that isn't very flat) and 60 is probably the angle where tearout ceases, but wood removal of any quantity is out of the question and edge life is poor.

45 and a cap iron with a short learning curve is as good as 60 with tearout prevention, but a whole lot more latitude for user intervention to preserve surface quality. It is something that may seem tricky only for a week, and you'll know you've mastered it once you describe it as good at tearout prevention as anything (short of sandpaper), but far easier to push than a high angle plane, and less dependent on sharpness. I would venture to guess I could smooth more wood with a modern cheap stanley iron in a bench plane than anyone could with an HSS 60 degree blade in a gordon plane.

My comment about 60 degrees being planer chatter removal territory is that in a session where you're using a plane more than a minute or two, you won't want to use it for much more than that. I've had planes up to 63 degrees, and they are OK for removing planer chatter, but I learned quickly with a set of center panels that cupped over night that I wouldn't be using them to remove the cupping. What I learned dimensioning is super helpful even if I'm using a machine planer. I've got two smoothers set, one at about 4 thousandth and one stanley plane (the one set heavy is just a large coffin smoother that I made in cocobolo and I can't really figure out what to do with it). Boards come out of the planer, one pass with the 4 thousandth plane, perhaps two if there was a chip on the roller, and then one or two with a stanley plane.

All that said, there are a lot of people who never use a plane for anything other than surface finish or joint fitting, and in that case avoidance of learning the skill of the cap iron and the ease of bevel up and high angle planes is a real draw. It's just very limiting in the long term. I've got a friend who has been avoiding learning for decades, and he's got all kinds of very time consuming setups to fix rudimentary issues. He's still convinced he can't learn to use a plane well to do them, even though he's seen me use a plane with a cap iron on nasty wood - I suspect that as a mechanical engineer, he thinks that ultimately my work must be really inaccurate or something. The end result is that because his work arounds are so tedious, he doesn't often get in his shop.

Originally Posted by m2c1Iw

...... Perhaps I should just start and stop thinking about it.

Yup!

I suppose we all approach projects like this with different attitudes & expectations, Mike. From reading your posts, I gather you have a rough idea of what you want, but it seems a bit fluid, which is normal & healthy in the planning stage. As I said before, no single plane does everything perfectly, so decide on a configuration that interests you, and give it a go. The good thing about wooden plane-making is that the body doesn't involve hours of cutting, filing, peining and yet more filing, so you won't have wasted as many hours if it all goes to hell in a hand basket. Plus, you've still got the metal bits to start over with.

I reckon I've learnt more from the not-so-good planes I've made (several, over the years!) than the ones that worked well straight up, because what makes the difference between ok & good can be subtle, & take a good deal of tinkering before the penny finally drops. Success or failure, you'll learn much along the way - that's the fun of making your own tools.

Cheers,

It's an unfortunate (or fortunate) truth that the best way to make a good plane is to make some bad ones that don't beat any of the "store bought" planes that you have around.

Making a couple of duds and then putting them on the shelf (and being disgusted about the wasted time making those planes) is what motivated me to make good planes. You could make a plane out of plywood to get proportions and you'd know what you need to know. Whether it's wedge or lever cap is insignificant compared to the weight, location of the mouth and relative location of the handle.

There's a relatively common forward angle in plane handles, too - if you make a handle that's more upright or less upright, you won't like it, and the hump on western planes is where it is for a reason. Easy to test with scraps. Just use a roundover bit to contour test handles (I didn't do that, but I'm assuming you can pretty easily).

Best way to get a comfortable handle is to find an older plane picture that's straight on from the side and then blow it up with MS paint or something until the room between the top horn is about .25 inches more than the width of your hand (across the knuckles) on an open handle, or 3/8" to 0.5" on a closed handle.

Thanks for your comments gentlemen. I'm chopping mortises for a new bench at the moment so while I'm at it the plane will get a good hammering as well.

Cheers

Originally Posted by m2c1Iw

Thanks for your comments gentlemen. I'm chopping mortises for a new bench at the moment so while I'm at it the plane will get a good hammering as well.

Cheers

Ooooh! I'm not sure you should do that. I have seen shifters at work that somebody has written on in texta saying "I am not a hammer." Perhaps your planes should have the same annotation?



Regards
Paul

Ps. Making planes could be considered one of the high points of tool making in woodwork.