Thread: reeding planes

Nice bit of work fixing that plane, Denim. I am a bit slow this morning & it took me a few seconds to figure out the steps from the pics., but after a couple of runs-through, I saw the bleeding obvious. The 'negative' profile of the scraper was required to make the new sole insert for the plane. It's a good demonstration of how good a result a scratch-stock can produce. For the short runs of mouldings on furniture, they are often my weapon of choice.

It reminds me of the time I made a new arm for this old plough: pic1.jpg

I restored it in two stages (briefly described here). The thread was an odd size & pitch, so there was no hope of finding a factory-made tap & I was at a bit of a loss as to how to make a new arm to match the remaining good one. Then I had a light-bulb idea to use the remaining bit of broken arm to make a tap by tapering it off & driving in a series of wood screws that I filed into 'cutters' matching the thread behind them. I put about 6 cutters in, from memory, going from barely above root diameter to full thread diameter. To my surprise, it worked very well & I was able to tap a nut in some not-too-hard wood, which I used to make a threading jig for the router. With this I was able to thread a new arm, and my dodgy 'tap' held up while I threaded a set of new nuts (the originals were all missing or so badly split I didn't think I could repair them sufficiently well to be usable). I had enough Rosewood to make the new arm, but nothing of a size I could make the nuts from, & Brazilian Rosewood was already on the "no more being made" list, so I found some suitable Boxwood instead. A bit of a stark contrast, but it is one of the traditional wooden plane materials, and it was a doddle to turn & thread.

With my threading jig, I made a second, 'better' tap, which I intended to use to make new nuts when I came across some suitable Rosewood, but it hasn't happened yet, and looks less & less likely as the few remaining bits of Brazilian Rosewood in captivity disappear. I don't use the plane all that often, but it's a nice old thing to haul out when it's appropriate, like re-grooving a repaired drawer side on an old piece...

Cheers,