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  1. #1
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    Default Never be too confident!

    I've made a few of these mini planes & reckoned I had it pretty well-sorted. When working at this scale, a blunder or blemish seems to stand out even more than it does on a regular sized plane, so you need to concentrate on what you're doing more than usual. Either I just wasn't paying full attention, or I'm getting clumsy or something because this plane gave me more trouble than most!

    I usually mock-up the infill from bits of scrap to sort out any wrinkles, but I thought to myself, heck, I've made enough of these to just plunge in. So first I messed-up the rear infill & had to start over, then I messed up the front piece & had to re-do that! At this stage, I reckoned I'd made enough stuff-ups for any one job, & the rest should go smoothly. Not so! I manged to drill the axle hole for the lever-cap off-line!: Misaligned screw hole.jpg

    The cause wasn't immediately apparent, & it wasn't 'til I took a good look at my #1 centre drill and discovered the tip had chipped off, which must have thrown it off-centre or caused the LC to move a bit in the vise. The hole is only about 0.5mm out of alignment, but it's enough to prevent the axle screw from starting. I have plugged a misaligned hole in brass before, but I'm making this for a very good friend who is a meticulous worker & I didn't want an obvious blunder to go out of the shop. Besides, with such a small bit of brass there's little lost, so I started over on that, too!

    This time all went as planned & eventually I got it all together. I can never resist popping a blade in at this stage, just to see how it feels, & despite the sole not being properly lapped & the blade not honed, it made some acceptable shavings: First shavings.jpg

    So with that encouragement, I went ahead and cleaned it all up ready for its final polish.

    One of the reasons I had so much trouble with the rear stuffing is that I tried a different approach with the fitting. I've not been entirely happy with the tail end on any of the preceding models, so on this one I cut the stuffing so it overlaps the top & rear of the sides. That makes it easier to round the back off smoothly, but it adds another edge that has to be cut with utmost precision to avoid gaps. It took most of an afternoon of careful cutting & paring & testing to get it there, but I'm happy with try #2. And comparing the much neater rear end of this plane with that of my last effort, I think it was worth the fuss:
    Two minis.jpg

    With the sole lapped, the blade honed properly and a bit of sanding & polishing, it looks the part, I think (& takes very nice shavings, which is really the acid test, of course): Done.jpg

    The blade is a bit of an industrial hacksaw blade, which I used just to test, & a bit thin at 1.6mm. I'm waiting for some 2 x 20mm HSS to arrive which I think will make it an even more solid little performer.

    Cheers,
    IW

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
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    Default

    Ian,
    Glad once again you perceived with it.
    Are you playing with a new Lever cap screw design?
    I noticed the the little detail.

    Cheers Matt

  4. #3
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    Matt, do you mean the LC or the thumbscrew? My LCs all vary slightly from plane to plane, since they are hand made & have to fit very different sizes of plane, but my basic design hasn't changed over the years. However, I have fiddled with the thumbscrew patterns quite a bit. A couple of months ago I got some new (straight) wheels for my knurling tool, to try & copy some of the old ones I've seen - diamond knurling isn't common on oldies. I'd like to have a "rope" pattern to match the really early types, but the cost is out of my price range, so they're not likely to happen. And up until the early 1900s, it was common to put a little pimple on the top of the TS, usually referred to as the "Turk's cap" style, and I've been adding this touch for a while now (they are turned 'freehand' by twirling the cross-slide & feed wheels, so no two are exactly the same): 1 LC.jpg

    When looking at the pics as I was preparing them for posting last night, especially the one alongside my own Rosewood-stuffed plane, I realized I'd been far too tentative in shaping the bun on this one. The back curve looked too sharp, not rounded enough: 2 rear end.jpg

    So this morning I took to it with a rasp & knocked a few more grams of wood off: 3 Rear stuffing reworked.jpg

    Once I was satisfied it looked like a proper bun, I re-sanded & polished it. Looks way better now, I think: 4 Butts cf.jpg


    Cheers,
    IW

  5. #4
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    Ian, yes I meant the the thumbscrews.

    Cheers Matt.

  6. #5
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    Default One more thing:

    I didn't have a clear picture to illustrate what I was talking about when fitting the rear stuffing, so here's a clarification (I hope).

    When fitting a bun as the rear stuffing, you want the butt end to look "finished" & blend into the woodwork. That's easy enough if you make the sole the same length as the sides, as would seem logical: stuffing term d.jpg

    But with these little planes, there isn't much rear bun to wrap fingers around, so I extended the stuffing past the sides. On my early attempts, I made the sides parallel & kept the woodwork inside the sides, but had it stick out a bit at the back to give a bit more wood to hang onto: stuffing term e.jpg

    But I've always liked the neat look of over-stuffing, so I had another go & it looked like this: stuffing term f.jpg

    Again, I was trying to make it easier to wrap a finger round the back when pulling the plane rather than pushing it (these little planes work well pulled or pushed depending on what you are trying to do). But this still looked a bit ungainly.

    I also wanted to set myself the challenge of doing a miniature with curved sides, not sure I could manage it at this scale. It was fiddly, but not as hard as I feared. On this one, I extended the sole and carried the woodwork out over it: stuffing term g.jpg

    I wimped out on trying to fit the stuffing over the back of the sides - too many surfaces to get to fit! But that left the little depression behind the sides, which I blended in as best I could, but it still has a bit of an "unfinished" look.

    Finally, I plucked up enough courage to try a "complete" over-stuff, and after stuffing up the first two attempts, managed to get the fit I was after. stuffing term h.jpg

    So I think I'm going to close that chapter now.....
    Cheers,
    IW

  7. #6
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    Looking good; what did you use as a finish? Also; how small are these? Any chance of a coin or something to give us an idea of scale?

    I sympathise with your struggle to get the stuffing in tight and blending with the metalwork; when I did the same for The Nuke I only had one tiny piece of bog oak available. No margin for error!
    Nothing succeeds like a budgie without a beak.

  8. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chief Tiff View Post
    .... what did you use as a finish?.....
    My favourite lazyman's brew, Chief. Shellawax rubbed in like French polish & buffed out with a cloth wheel...

    Quote Originally Posted by Chief Tiff View Post
    ....... Also; how small are these? Any chance of a coin or something to give us an idea of scale?....
    No problems a'tall, I think I have given some measurements elsewhere, but I like the idea of a familiar object for scale, it gives an immediate sense of size, so here y'go:

    First the baby (82mm long, 20mm blade): Mii.jpg

    This one, which is more substantial, is 100mm long with a 25mm blade, very similar in size to the Stanley 100: Su mii.jpg

    This one I'll call a "midi", it's 160mm with a 35mm blade. It gets a lot of use where a small smoother is required: Midi.jpg

    And here's a family portrait, beside a handled plane that is the same size (roughly, it is a bit narrower) as a Norris A5: Fmily.jpg

    That should help get the idea of size.
    IW

  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post

    Finally, I plucked up enough courage to try a "complete" over-stuff, and after stuffing up the first two attempts, managed to get the fit I was after. stuffing term h.jpg
    Ian

    I was wondering if this is the origin of the euphemistic phrase "a stuff-up?"

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  10. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bushmiller View Post
    I was wondering if this is the origin of the euphemistic phrase "a stuff-up?"
    When one stuffs it (the stuffing that is), the original stuffing must be knocked out of it first (first un-stuffing the original stuff, to clarify).

  11. #10
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    Stuffed if I know, but what I can tell you is that stuffing a plane can involve a lot of stuffing-around and frequently incurs stuff-ups which requires finding other stuff to stuff it with & being more careful when stuffing that stuff that you don't stuff it up again....
    IW

  12. #11
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    Default Nice

    I’ve never really paid attention to these plane threads, but that is a beautiful tool. How much time is involved to put it together?

  13. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by riverbuilder View Post
    ....... How much time is involved to put it together?
    Um, didja have to ask me that, RB?

    OK, all-up I'd estimate around 20 hours. I don't keep a time-sheet, and it was a stop/start operation spread over a bit more than a week with several full days & some part-days taken up doing other jobs, so that's just an estimate, it may have taken a little less or a little more time.

    I should have been quicker than that, but I'm sure you know what it's like with a stop/start job. Each time I re-start I have to scratch my head for a while figuring out where I'd got to, & what needs to be done next! I also had a painful time fitting the buns, as described, wasting over an hour on each failed attempt, then for an encore, I screwed up the first lever-cap, but I'd only invested 20 minutes or so in that before making the blunder with the screw-holes. The week or so from first cut to finished plane was a slight improvement on my very first infill which took at least 5 years from start to eventual finish. I plead for lenience on that one, those were some of the busiest years of my working life.

    I just made a rough count, and this would be about the 32nd infill I've made over the last 12 years. I thought I was getting reasonably slick at it, and it was partly over-confidence & partly the piecemeal build that led to my blunders. The good news is that a larger plane takes almost the same time to make and is actually easier to manage than these minis - I would strongly advise starting with something a bit larger as a first-ever project!

    Cheers,
    IW

  14. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by riverbuilder View Post
    I’ve never really paid attention to these plane threads, but that is a beautiful tool. How much time is involved to put it together?
    RB, the plane builds are the best bits on this forum!! I hardly get out of the unpowered hand tools section

  15. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mountain Ash View Post
    RB, the plane builds are the best bits on this forum!! I hardly get out of the unpowered hand tools section
    Well, it's really a matter of where you're at in life & the priorities you have to manage, I think. I've long ago made all of the stuff our house needs & though there's a couple of things I'd like to make just for the challenge of it, the minister for war, finance & interior decoration says we don't need any more clutter, & certain decisions are final. I get very few requests from my offspring, & what I do get is generally more like something from Ikea than "real" furniture, & there's little fun in that for me. So I have to look elsewhere for interesting challenges, & making tools tends to fit the bill, there's always room to do better.

    Life is full of ironies. I made a pile of stuff back when all I had was a bare-bones a tool kit & I beavered away using tools that were not very good & certainly not fettled to the standard I expect now. For special jobs I modified things picked up at flea markets & made things from scratch (which were pretty basic!), but they helped get the jobs done. One of my best discoveries early on was the scratch-stock - a bit of old saw-blade, a couple of 3.16" bolts, & a scrap of wood and I could copy any moulding the job required. Of course anything complex took a very long time to produce, but you get there with a little perseverance. Now I have lovely tools appropriate for just about any job, but fewer opportunities to use them. So I'm a bit embarrassed to confess that making the tools themselves has become at least as much of a passion for me as doing the jobs they are supposed to make easier.

    But it is satisfying to have tools that look ok as well as making tasks a lot easier than making-do with less suitable tools - even simple jobs become more enjoyable. For example, this afternoon I finally fixed the jamb on our front door that I've been meaning to fix for ages. I used a 78 for the "long blows" in the middle where most had to come off, but the top & bottom needed a smidge off as well. Once I would've had to transfer the blade to the bullnose position on the 78 to get into the corner at each end, which is not all that big a deal, though I always find it harder to get the cutter just right in the forward position. Instead, I just pulled out the little 1" bullnose I made a couple of years ago and finished the job in a minute, very comfortably & feeling just a little bit smug: B_N rebate.jpg

    Now, I just have to fix another 99 door jambs and it will almost justify the time & effort to make it......

    Cheers,
    IW

  16. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    Well, it's really a matter of where you're at in life.......Now I have lovely tools appropriate for just about any job, but fewer opportunities to use them.
    And this is one of life's greatest conundrums!

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