Thread: Replacing a dado plane nicker

Tim .
I was just thinking before of all the uses in building furniture that I can come up with where a Dado was used.

A good one for a 1/2 inch is a type of furniture I really like . Ive got to build some one day soon . Although Id be trenching with power. The type of utilitarian sets of drawers made for seed storage which were for just practical storage but are now so desirable . The carcases were usually 1/2 inch softwood housed in trenches across the grain of the sides.

Other uses Ive noticed were some drawer construction , eg holding the drawer back in place + with nails . And trenching cabinet sides for adjustable shelf supports in the 18th Century Bookcases. A nice way of having adjustable shelves. Fixed glued shelving as well .
A Dado may also be a nice way of cleaning up the bottom of a trench done under power. Ive got dado blades on my radial arm saw and they don't leave a pretty bottom. I have to clean them up with a rebate plane if I'm doing visible ones like in shelf supports . The dado especially with a skew blade and depth stop would probably be much better.


Have you or anyone any good ideas of other uses in furniture.
I think in architectural use they were used for housing of wall paneling into floor boards . Is that right ?

Rob

Originally Posted by IanW

Just last week I made a blade from a very worn-down iron - a 2" Record blade out of a #5 or 4, probably pre-WW2 vintage, but I culdn't put an exact age on it. It was worn to about 15mm or so from the keyhole, so pretty much 'used up', but I reckoned I could get a couple of nice 1/2" dado/shoulder plane blades from it. It was surprisingly easy to cut & shape, and I noticed it was soft enough to file easily right to the cutting end. No probs, thought I, & I proceeded to harden it. Oil quench, water quench, air cool - none made the slightest difference; it stays dead soft. So did this blade have a tool steel end that's since been used up, leaving the mild steel body, or what?. I didn't think blades for run-of-the mill Bailey type planes were laminated or forge-welded in the 1920s & 30s?? Or is there some dark art to hardening some steels that I'm ignorant of???

Cheers,

Hi Ian
according to the two record plane info sites I checked, metal Record bailey style planes were introduced from 1931 onwards.
The 1931 catalog talks about one "outstanding feature" being the Tungsten Steel blade. It's quite possible that during WWII and immediately after, a short tungsten steel cutting edge was welded to a softer iron blank.

Originally Posted by ian

....... It's quite possible that during WWII and immediately after, a short tungsten steel cutting edge was welded to a softer iron blank....

That's a thought. I haven't seen any published info on what wartime savings were made on hand planes in Britain, but it's quite plausible that some efforts were made to conserve as much tungsten steel as possible for munitions, etc.

When I went to the shed this morning, the dado plane was still lying on the bench in pieces after I'd measured the blades last night. So just for fun, I gave it a quick sharpen before I reassembled it. I noticed the wedge was far too tight, so I scraped the sides a bit to get a proper sliding fit (sorry about the lost patina): DT 1.jpg

Before putting it away, I took it for a test drive. It wasn't a very good test, I just clamped a piece of scrap Camphor to the benchtop with a handscrew to act as a fence, set the blade for a fairly coarse cut, & went at it. It hogged out nice curly shavings that spilled nicely from the skewed throat, but I got a bit of spelching of the sides for the first 25-30mm of the trench: DT 2.jpg

At first I thought it was due to mis-alignment of blade edge & nicker, but most of the remaining side was fine. So I planed a bit more & the penny dropped - I wasn't drawing the plane back fully after each stroke, so the nickers were starting each stroke well inside the edge. Something to watch when doing a 'real' job! It did show me that you can plane a pretty useful trench rather quickly, and probably make a much neater job of it too, if you pay attention!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by auscab

Tim .
Have you or anyone any good ideas of other uses in furniture.
I think in architectural use they were used for housing of wall paneling into floor boards . Is that right ?

Rob

I have no idea what they were originally used for. I was just thinking of using the plane for making a shelving dado, or the odd cross grain dado when I make toys for my niece. If I had found a 1/4" one I would have preferred that, however, I saw this one and thought it would be fun to give it a go.

The plane now cuts a 10mm dado. I ground down the blade to the same width as the nicker, but then the plane body was a little too tight in the groove as it got deeper. So I planed the face flat and reduced the thickness by 1-2mm, flattened the sole and squared it to the face, and re ground the knicker slightly so that it was flush with the registration face. I also shaved a little bit off the wedge. It is still a very tight fit. I think this is predominately due to the shape of the blade having a curve in the thinner section pushing up against the wedge. Completely ruined the patina, but it now works, so it will have a chance to develop some more. The end result is pretty good. If I spend a bit more time getting the nickers to produce a finer slice, and both sides a little more even in height, then it will be even better. I was getting a nice curly shaving with pine, but on Jarrah and Tas Oak it was a little more chip like.

DSC_0186.jpgDSC_0187.jpg

Thanks all,
Tim