Thread: Home Made Round Chamfer Plane Using A Stanley Smoothing Plane

Home Made Round Chamfer Plane Using A Stanley Smoothing Plane

Here’s my version of a cheap round chamfer plane made from an old Stanley 4 Smoother.
It has a added “sole” made from a scrap of 200 mm long 2mm thick “Zincanneal” steel, bent up on a brake, and attached to the Stanley sides with two 1/4 BSW RH machine screws.

Most dimensions are non-critical; if you make one, you can easily see at a glance what is required.

It is still in “prototype” stage (even after ten years use!) hence the lack of finish, and rough holes.
It has an offset “V way” to achieve two sizes of chamfer radius by rotating the sole 180 deg. The rough larger holes in the V way 90 deg bend and the elongated attachment holes on the sides allow “mouth” adjustment. (The V way holes were made with an end mill in a drill dress, and it didn’t work well, hence the rough appearance).

As I recall, the bends are a little harder to make than it looks, so as to allow for bend radius of five bends, achieve the 90 deg “V”, and also fit the Stanley sole width. But it doesn’t have to be perfect to work well.

The plane cutter is hand ground and honed to give two small round (in my case, more oval than round) cutting notches of different radius, and my cutter protrudes about 2.5 mm below the Stanley sole.
Make the cutter notches only after you bend up the sole, so it is positioned correctly laterally. Make the notch radius match the radius of the V bend, for the smaller notch. You could have multiple cutters for varying radius sizes.

It works remarkably well in practice, and better than my other corner chamfer plane, mostly because the sole holds down the work immediately before cutting. Light cuts are best, followed by a finish wipe with abrasive paper.

And you can actually place my plane directly down on any surface, as the cutter is protected.

Cheerio, mike