Thread: Some homemade planes

Next is a scratch stock. Scratch stocks are for cutting fine, detailed reeding and beading on timber. They are usually made in the style of a marking guage. In that form, they are vulnerable to twisting, so I thought it would be interesting to make one wherein the centre of force is directly behind the blade. It works very well, at the expense of being able to get into tight corners or do inside curves. The blades are made from any thin, high carbon steel - in this case from an old saw blade. Just think of a shape, and file it up in a few seconds. Again, this is walnut.


Arron
still more to come ...

Next is a fence plane. This is a type of plane of my own design. I have shown one of these on this site previously. This one is made of beech with rengas wear surfaces. The rengas looks like its stained but that is the natural timber colour. After making this one, I cut some timber to make a jointer version. However they take quite a while to make and tune, so before starting I gave it some thought and realised it probably takes about the same time to learn to plane square through intensive practise as it does to make the plane. That turned out to be correct. Still, they seemed like a good idea at the time.

Arron
still more ...

Last is a spoon plane. I saw one of these on Steve Knight's website, where he described it as being ideal for hollowing out chair seats. I immediately thought that was rubbish as no plane could do that job well, but then decided to make one anyway. As soon as it was finished I selected a flat cedar plank and gave it a go - amazing - it works brilliantly. It is heaps better then a scorp, inshave or gouge.

Its basically a scrub plane. Very quick and easy to make - requiring no great accuracy or sophistication. This one is made from a single block of NSW rosewood, with the base shaped by drawknife and the blade slot carved out by mortise chisel and cleaned up by paring chisel. This one was done as a prototype but it worked out as a good user.

Arron

And on the subject of prototypes, I thought you might be interested to see the prototypes lined up for the plough plane. The first one just sets the overall size. The next one explores the pieces and the way they fit together. The next one I attempt to make as the real thing, knowing all the time that Murphys law will intervene and mistakes will happen. Its made of a cheaper timber (beech) and easily obtainable hardware. The last one is the real thing, avoiding the mistakes that were noted in the previous version. There should really be one more as there are shortcomings in the design, but I ran out of enthusiasm at this point.

Cheers, and I hope this inspires
Arron.

Awesome, Arron!

I especially like the last post with the protoypes showing the stages of design. Helps to make it all the more clear.

Very nice, thanks! Mike

can't give you rep for this one Aaron but it is all really really impressive stuff.

Aaron,
Fantastic....... particularly liked the photo of the prototypes showing the design & construction journey.

Greenie sent.

Kev M

G'day Arron,

Magnificent! What can I say? I really hate turning Gumby coloured, but your skills here have succeeded in achieving that.

Major greenie on it's way!

Arron,

I'm left rather speechless... Bloody well done!

Very nice work Arron, thanks for the pics, especially the prototypes.

ARRON,you're an inspiration and indicative of what fine woodworking is all about.

Cheers

Wow! Arron, you've excelled yourself! Great post, and setting the standard for all us would-be tool makers . The prototype shot is a treat too...
I haven't made a spoon plane yet, working myself up to that, but promising to hear it is such an effective tool. Inshaves etc can be strange beasts to work. I made a plain compass or circular plane, for dressing the inside curves of some table legs. It works a treat, hogs out a fair bit of timber, but need to alternate direction more as I got deeper. Its far too agricultural to be shown here!

Well done!

Arron - Great work. In particular thanks for the progress shots. You have a real gift and you're using it well.

Greenie on the way!

Andy Mac - Don't be shy - let's have a look. We don't care if you think it looks agricultural. If it works, we'd like to see it!

Col

Arron

Stupendous! You are pushing the bar higher and higher.

Some excellent ideas there.

The plane bodies all look solid/one-piece. If this is so, how did you chisel them out?

Regards from Perth

Derek