Thread: Something new for me - refurbishing an old cast-iron plane body

Well, the die was cast when I parted with my $44, so I’m committed to giving it my best shot.

First up, I wanted to see how much work is really needed on those sides. Less than I expected, as it turned out, and all but the very deepest marks soon disappeared after a bit of draw-filing. Cast iron files very differently from mild steel or gauge-plate. While it’s a little bit harder, it cuts very cleanly & comes away as fine filings that don’t stick in the teeth of the file causing nasty grooves like mild steel likes to do, so it’s actually quite easy to put a good surface on it. I’ve just straightened the sides up & removed the blemishes at this point, but most work went into fairing & levelling the tops of the sides so I can mate the woodwork to it more neatly. I will polish it up more after the woodwork is installed, but it already looks a lot more respectable:
CS 7.jpg

I intended to use Rose She-oak (Allocasaurina torulosa) for the infill, but to ‘over-stuff’ as was done with the original woodwork, I needed a hefty chunk 75mm wide and about 55mm high for the bun. Finding a piece of she-oak large enough & with suitable grain orientation proved difficult. I had a single piece I thought would just do it, and spent some time cutting it out to fit. But it just didn’t cover enough of the sides at the widest part & looked silly, so I scrapped it & used River-oak (A. cunninghamii) instead. This came from a tree that blew down on the creek at the bottom of our property about 8 or 10 years ago, with about half the trunk on our side of the fence. Of course it had to be removed, and the fence repaired, but I had some small compensation because several good-sized billets ended up under the house. This particular tree has much finer medullary rays than any torulosa I’ve seen, apart from the colour. It could almost pass as Beech, but this tree had a jet-black centre and spalt-lines running into the inner heartwood. I assume this is due to a fungus (it has a sort of “fungal” odour when sawn). You could pass the centre wood off as Ebony, but unfortunately, the blackest wood checks severely when drying. It also makes the wood harder on cutting edges, which is odd, I would’ve thought any fungus would make it softer, but this stuff takes the shine off even PMV11 blades in jig time. However, I got enough sound wood to make a bun, with some interesting spalt lines as a bonus. Getting a really neat fit was a chore because of the irregularity of the inside of the casting, but with the help of several cardboard templates to set out the shape, sawing off the bulk of the waste, followed by some careful chisel & rasp work & lots of test-fitting, I eventually got it to snuggle in with only a very minor gap in one corner. The reject torulosa piece shows the complex shaping required for the bun: CS 9.jpg

The rear stuffing is typically made up from three pieces, each starting at about 25mm thick. I made several templates, trying to fit a usable handle into the available space without too much overhang at the back. By making the finger-hole a lot smaller than on the original, I was able to achieve sufficient forward slope on the grip & still have enough wood connecting to the blade bed. Here are the 3 bits cut-out, before any shaping was begun: CS 8.jpg

Before glueing the rear stuffing up, I shaped the grip because it’s a lot easier working on it without the cheek pieces in the way. I finish-sanded all but the bottom of the grip, which will be blended into the cheeks & cleaned up after it has been cut to fit in the body. Last job for today was to glue up. To keep the cheeks registered (& also act as clamps), I temporarily screwed them to the centre piece. I dipped the screws in paste-wax, so that (I hope!) I’ll be able remove them easily in the morning. There’ll be a lot of sawing & rasping to fit this in the casting! CS 10.jpg

Cheers,

I couldn't upload pics last night, so you get two days work in one..

My waxed screws resisted the glue & came out easily, so I proceeded to fit it in the body. First, I made a template of the outside of the body & traced that on the base, then sawed away the waste, leaving a fair bit extra to flush with the sides when it’s in place. Then templates made to match the inner sole & side profiles were traced on the wood, and the waste removed with saws, chisels and rasps. CS 11.jpg

Once you lose the parallel sides, the tote assembly becomes difficult to hold in a vise, but with a little help from my friends, I was able to hold it in the various positions required to get to work on it: CS 12.jpg

Being a casting, the interior is not as regular as in the fabricated coffin planes I’ve made, & it took quite a bit of fiddling to get a good fit, but eventually, I managed to remove all the little bits that were getting in the way, and the stuffing finally snuggled into its place: CS 13.jpg

The original builder used only two screws each side to hold the rear stuffing in place, which I think is a bit skimpy (they were also only 5G and about 19mm long). I like to have two screws placed up close to the blade, where all the action is, so I added a couple of extra screw-holes below & further forward of the existing front hole: CS 14.jpg

It’s beginning to look like a ‘real’ infill now. Here’s a shot of the new woodwork, with the old tote assembly behind. Compare the angle of the grips - I think the new grip angle is much more user-friendly: CS 15.jpg

The woodwork is virtually complete now, it just needs some final sanding & it can be set in place. I will use a layer of epoxy on the sole to even out the roughness & bed the wood solidly on the metal.

Now to deal with the missing metal parts. First, I need a lever-cap. I remembered the hassles I had fitting the LC in the first coffin-shaped smoother I made, so I thought it would be wise to begin with a wooden mock-up, & get that fitting nicely, before destroying an expensive slab of brass. So a wooden lever cap was made and adjusted to fit the (slightly assymetrical) sides. I discovered the holes drilled for the pivot pins are higher than usual & one is a mm higher than the other. What that meant is that there was slightly less distance from pivot point to thumbscrew than from pivot to the end meeting the cap-iron, on my mock-up. So I increased the length for the final design. You can see the curved sides which are necessary to allow the LC to rotate in the curved throat area, & the ‘short’ top on the model which needs extending by 15mm or so for the real thing: CS 16.jpg

With the shape & dimensions sorted, I spent a happy hour cutting out my LC from a chunk of 75 x 13mm brass (it's slow-going cutting 1/2" brass with a jewellers' saw!). CS 18.jpg

Doesn’t look much like a LC at this stage, but another hour of filing & sanding and it looks a bit more like a ‘proper’ lever cap: CS 21.jpg

The existing pivot holes in the body were some odd size, and one was smaller than the other (?), so I reamed them both out to 6.5mm.The steel screws were turned up on my mini-lathe, with 6.5mm heads and about 15mm of 5mm thread.

I then made a cap-iron from some 3mm stainless steel: CS 22.jpg

My panel-plane kit came with two blades, one thick & the other even thicker. I ended up using the thicker of the two so the thinner blade will never be suitable in the panel plane, it would cause too wide mouth, so I had no qualms about cutting it down a little & using it on this job. I trimmed it with a cutoff wheel. By clamping the blade between two pieces of 3/16 steel, I got a straight cut and the blade didn’t get over-heated – it was cool enough to hold in my bare hands after cutting, so no fear of softening it.

I couldn’t resist assembling it and giving it a test-run. Well look at that – some quite acceptable shavings. I reckon it’s been a while since anything like that came out of the old girl! CS 25.jpg

Well at least it looks like it’ll work, so thus encouraged, I set the stuffing in permanently. The original screws were teeny little 19mm 5G things (like the two in the front centre), CS 24.jpg

so I had a rummage through my tin of used screws & found some more appropriate sizes.

I finish-sanded the wood and sanded the sides (to 240 grit, which gave it a pretty decent satin finish), spread a couple of mm of epoxy on the sole, & clamped the tote in place while the screws were driven in. I applied a coat of Danish oil and set it aside for the glue to cure.

Basically, it's done - I'll do a clean-up and put it through its paces properly tomorrow, I hope.

Cheers,

I've got to go out tonight, so I thought I'd do the 'done' post now.

After letting the epoxy cure overnight, this morning I cleaned up a couple of glue dribbles, and filed some small dags off the bevel of the mouth. The blade doesn't actually touch the metal of the sole, the bevel (of the blade) starts right at the end of the wooden blade bed. This is something I thought might affect performance, and I considered putting in a 'chatter block' so the bottom of the blade would sit against metal, but decided there was no non-risky way to fix it in. I certainly wasn't going to try riveting cast-iron, as you would with a steel sole. But I reasoned that wooden planes work perfectly well with an all-wood bed, so it should be ok as it is.

I tensioned up the blade (without it protruding) & lapped the sole a bit. It was in pretty good condition, actually, probably the best job the previous builder did on it. It's not perfect, but pretty close. I'll have another go at it maybe, sometime when I've got nothing better to do: CS 26.jpg

I gve the blade a final hone, & after a bit of tapping & coaxing, it made some nice 1-2 thou shavings: CS 27.jpg

So, summing up - was it worth the fuss? I think so - it's cost me about $70 by the time I bought the brass for the lever cap & the stainless steel for the cap iron. The all-wood bed seems to be just fine, it has a rock-solid feel and the weight (2.4 Kg all-up) sits it nicely on the job. So for my money (& a little bit of time ) I have a hefty little smoother that is nice to use and will do a good job on 'sensible' woods.

Is it a 'great' plane? Nooo, the person what put it together in the first place did a right royal number on the mouth. I've straightened it up internally, but he filed it at the wrong angle, & by the time he got the blade through, the front of the mouth was displaced several extra mm forward. If I were to neaten it up as I would like, the mouth would end up about 4 or 5mm wide! So it can't be a fine-mouthed plane unless I put a 5 or 6mm thick blade in it, which I'm not seriously considering atm, (a) because I don't have one, and (b) because I think I can control the shavings well enough with a well-set cap-iron.

At least it has returned to the world as a usable tool, & gets a place in my plane portrait gallery: CS 29.jpg

Cheers,

Nice work and if it does the job I guess the satisfaction level is OK.

I hve not seen a plane of that shape before so an interesting post.

Plenty of similar planes to be found, Artme (& some strange ones that come up when I typed "cast metal coffin smoother"). Actually, Google isn't so clever, the first image it shows us is the Spiers A7 with a dovetailed, not cast body, but the shape is pretty close.

As I understand it, Norris used cast bodies at the end, but I'm 99.5% certain this ain't no Norris! I picked it up in Toowoomba, but who knows where it originated? You could buy castings back in the 1920s & 30s to complete yourself, but I would expect anything produced in some numbers like that to have some sort of id cast into the inside or somewhere, but I've not held one of these in my hand so I don't know if that's true or not. This one has absolutely nothing on or inside it to pin it on anyone, so I was thinking it could've been made as a one-off in a local foundry. If it was, the bloke what done it must have known his business, 'cos he did a pretty good job of it. I don't think the person who went on to complete it was up to quite the same standard.

A small update - the blade I used wouldn't hold an edge very well. I tested it on some She-oak and it stopped cutting after about 4 strokes, so I tried it with a file & you can quite easily mark the business end. I rummaged through the blades I've accumulated over the last 40 years or more & found one of the right width that came from from LV, in their very early days. I'm not sure who made it for them back then (Mifer?), but anyway, it's a lot better and holds an edge quite well. At least it withstood the She-oak test for what I consider an acceptable number of strokes. This blade is tapered & meant for a wedged plane, but I can't see any real problems using it with a screwed lever cap? Just as you have to tap the wedge to re-tighten after advancing the blade, you just twitch up the LC after adjusting (I always slacken the screw slightly when adjusting anyway). There's a small bonus with this blade, it's thicker at the cutting end, so it closes the mouth up a bit. As I said above, it seems to perform pretty well despite the less-than-perfect mouth. I fed it some of my horrible Blue-gum and it gave a much better account of itself than I expected, and I didn't have the cap-iron set particularly close, either. In fact, I'm having trouble with my cap-iron, it tends to slide back about 2mm as I tighten it down. I had the same problem with one of the other planes I made recently, which I discovered was due to a small gouge on the bearing surface of the screw where the die had run against it. I cleaned that off & it was fine after that. But I can't see any blemishes on the screw of this one, so I'm going to have to take a good long look to figure out what's going on. It's very annoying & has to be fixed!

Cheers,

Looks like another great plane, Ian. I'd certainly say it was worth the cost and effort, if for no other reason than knowing it wasn't being left to rot!

Red Cedar in a plane is definitely an interesting choice... Was its hardness notable? I know some of the old growth stuff is bordering on being respectably firm. Maybe this bit was from "back in the day"?

Either way, I'm glad your plane making continued for at least another build. I feel like I learn several things every time you post one.

Cheers,
Luke

A further thought...

You've done one in steel, one in brass, one in both, one in gunmetal, and now one in cast iron.

Is that the full spectrum of metals out of which English style planes were built?

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

..........Red Cedar in a plane is definitely an interesting choice... Was its hardness notable? I know some of the old growth stuff is bordering on being respectably firm. Maybe this bit was from "back in the day"? ......

Luke, it was pretty good stuff for RC, probably from an old tree and perhaps from an elevated or southern origin (they seem to grow a bit denser in the cool). But still an 'interesting' choice, as you say.

Um, dunno if I've covered the full gamut of metals, but there aren't many other choices, are there? I think steel, cast iron, and bronze (not brass) were the principal metals used 'back in the day'. Spiers was using cast as well as fabricated bodies from an early date, according to one history I read.

Of all the metals I've used, I'd say bronze is far & away the nicest to work with, it peens, cuts & files nicely, so ticks all the boxes for the building part. Steel peens ok, but is the hardest to cut & file. In fact it's a bear to file because chunks tend to gouge out of the surface, catch in the file teeth and leave a great big groove before you know it. Murphy decrees that it almost always happens on that last stroke of the file, just as you think you've got things nicely levelled.

Using brass is a relatively modern thing it seems. It cuts & files pretty well depending on the particular alloy, but it may quickly work-harden when peened (again depending on the alloy). I was under the impression that the 380 alloy I get was not good for peening, but I was reading the blurb on a supplier's website a couple of weeks back & they rated it as 'good' for cold-working (compared with the other brass alloy they were offering). So there you go - don't try using a brass that's rated 'poor' for cold-working! The 380 is quite ok as long as you are careful and don't try to knock it down too much. I had a bit of trouble with my very first plane, because some of the gaps I had to fill were a bit wider than they should've been, but I've been a lot more careful (& maybe learnt a bit meself?) with subsequent builds & had no real bother at all.

But if you can get gunmetal in suitable thicknesses (which you can, where you are), I would strongly advise using that for sides & either gauge plate or ground mild steel plate for soles. I've shied away from brass for soles on bench planes as I fear it will mar too easily, but it's been ok on my shoulder plane, so maybe my fear is unfounded.

And yep, a good part of the pleasure in this job was giving that old casting a new lease of life..

Cheers,