Thread: Dem bones. And a hand plane .

I’m getting an uneasy feeling in my hands, about wanting too build a Mitre Plane.

I can be strong, I will resist, just after I stop looking at metal suppliers on line.[emoji43][emoji94]

Cheers Matt.

Rob, I think smallness does add difficulty! The size of mine is probably the limit of my comfort zone (it's ~1/2" shorter than yours). The next size down, the mini, is definitely a step up in fiddliness!

I agree with Bill - the bridge seems far longer than it needs to be. I notice he didn't give a thickness in the drawing you posted, but I guestimate from what I can see that it's the same thickness as the sole (1/8"), which is awfully thin & would need to be drilled very carefully. Even with a centre-drill (which I always use to start any critical hole) the drill bit doesn't always follow straight!

I usually use 1/4" brass for bridges on small planes like this mini-chariot: Done c.jpg
it gives me more to work with & looks quite in proportion to me. Something this tiny is getting to the absurd stage - it works well, but isn't great to hang onto for long: Mini chariot b.jpg

Drilling 3/16 for pins or screws is fairly easy, just needs some care when setting up (& wear your good specs! ). So if you aren't fussing about authenticity, you might consider using 3/16 thick material for the bridge & pinning it? To me, putting in the bridge afterwards & drilling for the pins with it in situ seems much easier than trying to line up four angled holes & cutting the bridge to match neatly. That way even if a hole comes slightly off where it was intended, the bridge should still be in he right spot. But we all have our own perceptions & work habits so go with the method that seems most logical & do-able to you. I like the dummy-plate idea, I'll file that one for future use.

Annealing the bend was a good thought, something I've never done. I like to have a small amount of springback to hold the front piece in firmlywhile I set the sides up on the sole for scribing. If I ever make a biggie (highly unlikely!) like some of the behemoths Bill Carter has produced, I think I'll be trying to anneal the stuff for sure - watching him struggle with 3/16" thick bronze it didn't look like good fun.

The rust issue should,'t be too bad. Nearly all of the planes I've made started with pretty mankey mild steel plate as sole material. The pits & rust patches can look pretty daunting, but they all cleaned up fine when lapping. It's likely you'll get a bit more distortion after peening with the thin sides (take extreme care to file all those socket-bottoms dead straight!), and you're likely to need a fair bit of lapping, so it's comforting if the mouth is a bit too tight now, it gives you plenty of wriggle room.

I didn't mean to suggest Davies made more than one plane, there is no evidence indicating he did, I was just commenting on what a good job he did if it's a one-off. His choice of such thin material for the sides is contrary to common practice of the time, which indicates to me it was just something he decided to do one day & scratched around for whatever material he happened to have on hand. I read a bit about that plane somewhere & its history (which is mostly just conjecture since there seems to be no contemporary records). I think it was on the Shepherd piano site, but it's buried amongst a lot of other stuff on mitre planes. I'll see if I can find it later...
Cheers,
Ian

I had a table to finish and a day trip on the road to keep me busy and away from the plane the last two days.

Ian, I don't know how I came up with the idea you meant Davies made more planes when I re read what you originally said! I must have been tired?
You said about info one the Davies plane.
"I think it was on the Shepherd piano site"
Yes Ive seen that. Its where I first noticed the plane.

You mini Chariot is a gorgeous little plane BTW.



I got a little second testing done pressing the bend yesterday.

The annealed test piece I hammered back straight and drilled a hole. And the timber work I adjusted with a pin and hole added.

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That pressed well. One more test to do I think and I'll take a square to the press to make sure the post is square to the base.
And I need better flat pressure at this clamping stage second picture.
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The little gaps need to be flat as they make the side width spread to wide with the clamp taken off.
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Its very close though so one more quick test and Ill try the actual side.
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It seems a good way to get Mitre plane sides side bent and this thin 2mm brass is simple. A hammer instead of a press would probably do OK as well for the bend. Pressing in the sides for that little bow out would have to be done different though.

I'm thinking as I do it how thicker steel Mitre plane sides could be done hot using steel press parts and heating the steel Mitre sides red hot first. It'd be a bit of effort for a one off but be accurate.

Rob.

Rob, you are definitely smarter than the average bear! That pin idea is pure genius and should go a long way to improving the accuracy of the bend.

But what's even better to me, I think we finally have a plausible explanation as to why that screw is right in the middle of the back bend on old mitre planes. It is commonly explained as a 'strike button', but Bill Carter for one has taken exception to that idea. He points out that many early planes had a flat screw that was flush with the surface - not what you'd do if you expected someone to be bashing it with a hammer.

In any case, I've always thought it was not very sound practice to go thumping your plane right on the back of the curve. Apart from the risk of distortion it is likely to loosen the infill. Bill suggests it's for no other purpose than to hold the infill in, but a single screw right at the back is not going to hold very securely, methinks. I reckon Towell & his successors likely used some sort of bending jig which included a locating pin and you've re-discovered the idea. The screw was simply to plug the 'ole.

It's such an elegantly simple solution, & so obvious (now that you've thought of it ) So take a deep bow - you done real good there...

WRT those uncooperative kinks in your sides, you might get them to flatten out better if you put a couple of hardwood cauls either side so the clamp can put pressure all the way back to where the curve meets the straight - as your pic shows it, the corners aren't being squeezed directly. I also wonder if it's a result of the thinner side material you're using? So far, all of the sides I've bent up have come parallel, but the curve is never a precise semi-circle but an arc with more sharply-curved corners where they meet the straight section. I'm quite happy with that, as long as it's symmetrical it looks fine.

One set of sides I bent up came out with the end of one side about 1-2mm behind the other. I tried unsuccessfully to 'dress' the curve like we learnt to do back in primary school when we were taught some simple tinsmithing, but it didn't work - I gained a teeny, tiny bit but not enough to bring it square. I ended up straightening it and re-bending it, being more careful to start the bends from as close to the form as I could lever my wooden 'bending bar' in. The soft brass I was using tolerated being re-bent very well, but I think you'd need to anneal the harder brass before trying to straighten & re-bend it, or there'd be too much residual curve & you'd end up like the proverbial tail-chasing dog.

I haven't gotten back to my mitre plane yet, I've made good progress on the other jobs, but we're having visitors tomorrow & I've got other stuff happening Monday, so can't see me getting back to my mitre plane before mid next week. You may well beat me to the finish line....

Cheers,

Rob,

The hole left from the pin, would look fantastic filled with something, a great chance too be a little creative, tho as I write this, I’m guessing your one step in front of me.

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Rob,

The hole left from the pin, would look fantastic filled with something, a great chance too be a little creative, tho as I write this, I’m guessing your one step in front of me......

Matt, I don't know if you addressed that post to Rob or me, but if it was to me, you are the one who's a step in front.

For my first mitre plane, I thought about putting a cheese-head screw in the back to make it look "authentic", but as I said above, I really don't want to encourage folks to bash the back of my planes (well, by then it'll be their plane, so I suppose they can do as they like ). I decided to skip the screw.

However, if I were to use Rob's brilliant idea, I would be stuck with a 'ole, so yeah, I would have to get creative about what to do with it. Nothing springs to mind on the spur of the moment, so open to suggestions....

Cheers,

Ian,
It was addressed to Rob,
But as you suggest, I’m thinking something out of bone, maybe something like a double Cubid bow( if that makes sense.
Only small an it would need too be cut too fit the body curve,

On a note on bending the curve, if it was me(I’m getting itchy reading what Robs up too, but there is no way I’m saying anything [emoji6]) I would think about leaving two small taps on the top an bottom of the body, right on the centre line of the bend,with a hole in each, that could then be cut off later,if all that makes sense.
Then you wouldn’t have a hole in the center.

Cheers Matt.

Thanks Ian and Matt.
Glad to have stumbled across a solution that works. The pin certainly made the piece stay central perfectly. And historically if the hole came first for easy bending then needed to be filled with something like the screw or strike button. That makes sense. The one end screw is hardly needed for holding the infills . Going through the side with a number of them or pins is probably better than just one up the end.

I have always looked at that bend required on planes and the thickness sometimes used and it reminds me of some of the struggles I had when I used to do hobby blacksmithing. So I've been thinking about other possibilities.
As you know, Once a bend starts going wrong you can spend time getting frustrated going back and forth and ending up at places you never thought you'd be with a piece of metal. Blacksmiths and metal workers use jigs all the time of course.

The thought of a steel jig is exiting. It would be so much better to use than timber and would have suited a plane manufacturers work set up when they have a style of plane and numbers of them to produce in thicker steel.
I gave the timber jig a go on my timber work bench vise and started the bend in the actual side before it went to the press today.
It was a good way to start the thin brass but no way strong enough to do the pressing like the bottle jack in the steel press did. I have some engineers vices but not as large as I think you or certainly Bill Carter have . Bill's Record vice is a huge thing. Ive looked for one but only seen them in the UK.
I watched Bill Carter talking about vintage Mitre planes and he was saying how many early ones had nothing holding the infill in . No glue sometimes. And the early strike buttons were not screws but just a stud that slides in. Possibly glued or just a tight press fit? My Towell Mitre double D end body has such a strike button at its rear. It may have had a little glue in there holding the BRW in but its gone now. The front has a screw. Its a pre 1840 screw. See at mouths edge the no step in of the sole from the side as I was talking about here somewhere. Neat but he has good side thickness too. My little brass Mitre, the sides may be to thin to have done that with. It'l not be heavily used though. Its almost just an ornamental plane really. That hopefully works good.

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Another interesting thing with this plane I notice and was talking about here somewhere back a bit.
How the infill blade bed is a hair thickness hollow so as wedge or lever in this case puts pressure on blade which sits on steel bed angle and rear of timber infill pushing it down to bed well. I mentioned it could have been slight wood movement. I think its designed that way. The under side is the same. where infill sits on sole has been shaved by Towell across the grain and the toe and heel are the contact only points.

Here is the top side on the left that blade sits on. And the lowest point at 45mm in the middle.
Middle picture is the bottom of the BRW infill showing toe and heel and the shaved away center. Right is side view.

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Originally Posted by Simplicity

Rob,

The hole left from the pin, would look fantastic filled with something, a great chance too be a little creative, tho as I write this, I’m guessing your one step in front of me.

Cheers Matt.

I could get creative Matt. I hadn't thought of that.
Bone would be fancy and suit. Not sure how long a well used one would last? They have been seen on front infills I think. So they probably work OK if kept one diameter with no shoulder like the steel ones have. That's probably how their fitted on front infills? I'm most likely going to make a steel strike button like the Towell plane above that suits and is like the one on the original Brass Davies plane. Brass would be good as well come to think of it.

Rob

After a bit more adjusting and testing the sides were bent.

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The first test side was cut up for the front piece. I forgot to include the bottom tenon first time around and realized that after sizing it up precisely of course .
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I did the shellac instant glue method again to hold the front piece in place for marking out the dovetails.
This is very old button shellac Ive had for years that no longer dissolves in metho. An elderly neighbor gave it to me, he had held onto it for many years as well. Still has its uses though . like gluing down metal and for filling holes in traditional restoration jobs sometimes. It has a lovely rich smell when heated like this.
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It takes a little while to cool so you have plenty of time to position the piece. I placed a cold steel block on top to speed up setting time once it had grabbed. I released it with a heat gun this time after marking the DT's. I didn't want to risk bending a DT on the piece by levering it off.
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I noticed a small mistake at this stage below. I rounded the tops like the original to correct height while I was shaping the parts. Once I saw the fit I realized the rounded top should have been left until the plane had been all joined up. A masons mitre is what the side to front piece is going to have on the left and right at the front top. So now its going to be about 1mm under the size of the original when I take it down further. Nothing much really but that sort of thing I wish I noticed before hand.
I built the sides about 8mm longer than the original because the original has a slight problem where the blade runs into the curved brass back . An easy mistake to make on these I think without doing accurate drawings. Making it longer wasn't a mistake on my part, I knew about it being longer but didn't know how much by as I didn't do drawings or figure out exactly how much the bend in the back would take up. And I didn't know where the first DT's after the bend would end up. I don't do that sort of rush in with no drawings on furniture. I'm not doing that again on planes .
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Last picture for the day. The bridge is partially cut out from 3mm steel.
$2 coin for scale as in some other pictures.

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Rob.

I am loving this project Rob. Thanks for the inspiration. 1

Lookin' good Rob!

I think the 'biasing' of the bed was deliberate - it's the best way to ensure things will be tight close to the cutting edge. I've taken to doing something similar; I make the infill at a slightly higher angle than the bed bevel - just the slightest increase so there is a slight dip in the length of the whole bed when assembled only the dip is a bit closer to the mouth than your Towell infill. I don't think it matters too much, the objective is to get firm pressure as close to the working edge of the blade as possible.

WRT the roundover woes, yep, I did something similar with #1, then realised I should've left that until after the body had been assembled. If you want to be truly 'authentic' you should've mitred the top bit of the cross-piece & sides, but I think that would be awfully tricky with such thin material! If your peening is any good, the joint either disappears entirely & it looks like a continuous bit of brass - or at worst, there will be only a very fine line that you need to look at closely to see. Looks like you've got a pretty close fit with the front-piece so it should peen up nicely. It's really awkward doing that front, if you peen that bit after the sides, the bottom pin/tail can only be got at using a punch, but I've found that's the better way to go. If you try peening the cross-piece before fitting the sides to the sole, you will find it devilish hard to hold the sides firmly enough to hammer on the D/Ts (especially with your thin material), but you may be able to devise a better way of holding it than I have been able to.

I do full-size drawings for any plane (& still manage to get things wrong!), so I knew with #1 that I would need to cut down the back a bit. I would like to have made the body a bit longer but I was constrained by the length of brass I could obtain. That's ok by me, plenty of old mitres are cut away at the back, and you really don't notice it when using the plane.

Of course, you can calculate the length of the half-circle once you have settled on an internal width, but bent metal does not always comply with Euclidean geometry, thanks to distortion. You want the rear pin/tail as far back on the sides as you can get it, especially if you are not putting a through-pin at the back (many don't) so it helps clamps the curved section firmly to the sole. On #1 I put the D/T edge right smack on where I calculated the bend finished & it turned out the back of the D/T encroached a wee bit on the curve. It wasn't a major problem, I managed to peen it up ok, just made it a bit more work cleaning up because metal got bashed into the area behind the curve.

Cheers,
Ian

We were cut off from power the phone and the internet from Tuesday the 13th until today Friday the 16th around 2.30. Along with 100s of thousands of other Victorians due to storms bringing down transmission towers trees and buildings. I got out a few times for petrol for the generator which is a must have living where we do. Made a few calls and checked the forum while out and about. The Internet came back on Thursday night, thank goodness! I now know I'm an internet addict. Although I had the generator for the house which ran almost non stop except for when we slept. I had no power in the shed, so it was hand tool work on a table I'm getting ready to deliver. And nothing much done on the little plane.

I had got a little done on the plane before the power cut out Tuesday.

I made a test infill bed piece and a hardwood wedge stained black and decided on a tapered blade thickness based on the one in my Spiers bronze chariot plane. Its about 3mm and tapers down to 2. something? I was comparing it to the Spiers Thumb plane blade. I bought the Thumb plane from NeilS here on forum and Ian made a blade for it which is about 3.2 I think ? A Great blade it is too Ian! It lasts and holds a great edge. I gave it a workout on some chests I recently made.

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I fitted the bed that has a 22.5 bed angle. Scribed the bed angle on the plane side along with two blade thicknesses. One tapered and one at 3.2 not tapered so I could compare. Then the wedge angle and bridge position in black on the side. Ive been trying to get best bridge position and looking at reducing the size of the bridge from the original plane as Bill Carter suggested. The original sort of crowds the mouth. It looks to long. There isn't much room to move though. I think the side view is about right.
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You can see below the length of the original. And Bill holding it on the right shows how its hovering close to over the mouth. The wedge even seems to sit back under it a bit in the picture on the left
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I was almost thinking of going for the much narrower Towell style cupids bow type bridge but ended up reducing the original style and want to stick with that. I'm calling it a Flutterby bridge.

So just before the big storm last Tuesday I cut the bridge out. Then realized I had got carried away and forgot something important I wanted to do .
This one is now a practice run.
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I shouldn't have cut the pins as I did for two reasons . One is they are not in the right position. The original has them at top and bottom of the bridge not stepped in like i did. This could cause problems with space for engraving if I do my version of that on the side.
Most importantly though is I cant accurately mark the hole positions on the brass sides using this. I want to mark and drill the holes with a dummy plate jig first. Fit a brass piece which is internal body width only without pins and mark the hole positions on that. Then transfer the hole positions off that onto the steel bridge then cut the pins. That's my guess at how to accurately do it. If I had cut out the above bridge and left the pins till later it would have been ok. I cut 90% of that bridge out on the steelfast bandsaw then filed it up. The pins are way to long in the picture above BTW. They would have been taken back after rounding them and before fitting if the piece was to be finished and used. The sides have to be spread to get it in then I can peen the whole thing up.

Rob

Rob, I think the slower pace is a good thing, it's giving you time to think ahead. Doing everything with hand tools slows me down enough that I usually don't get very far before realizing I'm on the wrong track (though not always!). If I had a metal-cutting bandsaw I reckon I could double my mistake rate, easily!

If those pins hadn't been on the extreme edge of the bridge like that I would've guessed they might have been done as "clockmakers' pins", i.e. tapered pins driven into holes in the bridge, then peened against the sides. I've used the trick a few times with brass pins, and it works a treat, there's no way the pins will let go once driven into their holes. I reckon it would work with steel pins just as well (ever had a seized morse taper? ). I realise you are sticking with the original concept as much as you can, but it might be useful in a future project - imo it's easier to fit bridges or lever-caps after the body is hammered up.

I think I'd be reducing the length of that bridge myself, it looks like a 'choking hazard' to me, too. I can't see any reason for it being that long. Perhaps the maker felt that bone being more brittle than wood, it needed the pressure distributed over a larger area??

Haven't gotten back to mine, yet, still have a solid day's worth left to go on it. Still finishing some stuff for LOML's charity sale, which is taking longer than I expected (as it always seems to do!).

Hope your weather improves down there - we just had 6 inches of rain between midnight Thursday & mid afternoon Friday and the place is sodden. I won't be doing much yard work for the next week, it'll take at least that long to dry out enough to support the mower. Aw gee, I'm so disappointed....

Cheers,