Thread: My Infill Plane

Originally Posted by IanW

MA, that's an excellent-looking result by any standards but for your first-ever dovetailed body, as Martin said - it's awesomely good! But you've set the bar awfully high for yourself, how are you going to better that?

I don't remember seeing any sort of sketch or pictures of what the final product is intended to look like. Or are you deliberately keeping that to yourself to allow for "modifications" should things take an unintended direction??


Cheers,

Your honour, an distinguished gentleman.

Ian is leading the Honourable MA on.

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Now I'm getting to the good part. Only a couple of glitches (except for the dings in the top edge of the brass from every roofing screw).

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That looks Great MA.
Ive been wondering the same as Ian I think. Are the sides staying like they are atm or is there a shape change coming which is a secret? .

Rob

Very few secrets with me but I like Ian's idea to allow for stuff ups. In some ways this is a practise for a true mitre plane (this should answer Matt's question) and so I will be leaving the sides basically as they are. Rob and Ian, both ends will be timber, bun(ish) block at the front and the bed at the back. Brass bridge and timber wedge. The only plan is drawn on a bit of marine ply which does appear in early photos. I am very happy with my dovetails, I brought the plane inside to show everyone. I plan to follow the curve of the sole with the timber (NSW Rosewood) too.

I was imagining it would be something along those lines. While you can cut curves into the sides after peening, it's far from easy, as I found out when I decided to modify the side profile of an assembled body! Norris used the continuous, bent side chassis for their original wedged non-patent-adjuster mitre planes, but switched to an 'open' box chassis for their #A11. That is similar to how I envisage yours will end up, though wedged rather than with a lever cap & no screw adjuster (which you won't miss for a second!).

There are a few variations on this theme - Henley Optical Co. made a mitre plane back in the 70/80s that looked like it was part Spiers & part Norris. It had the open chassis & woodwork similar to the Spiers, but the wedge is retained by a thumbscrew a la Norris (a method I much favour because of the convenience it brings). Norris introduced this wedge/thumbscrew method on several of their models that were "converted" from older, non-adjuster models, like the shoulder & thumb planes. It's a fairly obvious idea, and I actually thought it up for myself & started thinking I was very clever before discovering Norris had beaten me to it by a mere 100 years. I think Thos. Norris was the first & possibly only other maker to use this system, but would be happy to learn if they weren't.

When I was looking for a pic of the Henley Optical plane I came up with this, something I'd not seen anywhere before today. It's described as "a 16-inch-low-angle mitre-jack-plane", and I guess its rarity is reflected in the asking price! Quite an intriguing bit of kit, & one to file for future reference maybe.....

Cheers,

Great result MA, but it's the way it was always going to be.

Thanks, Ian, for the references. Did Stanley copy that Norris plane?
Thanks, Picko, for your faith in me.

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Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

...... Did Stanley copy that Norris plane? ......

Nope, MA. The only "mitre" plane Stanley made was the #9. That ran from 1870 to 1943 according to Patrick, so it predated the Norris A10 by more than 40 years (Norris introduced his "patent adjuster" somewhere around 1913-14) and actually outlasted the A10 by a few years.

The #9 was the only other mitre plane made that had a screw adjuster, afaik, and it used the Bailey system for reasons only Stanley really knows, but I assume their bean-counters calculated it was more economical to use bits made for other planes. They could have used something like one of their block-plane adjusters, but that would have required a special blade with multiple slots. So they used a regular bench-plane blade & added that short 'cap iron' that can be moved along the lateral adjuster slot (shown in Leach's description). But the only advantage they gained was being able to use a standard bench plane blade, & since the 9 has no lateral adjuster lever, what was the point? A full cap-iron is no use on a BU blade of course, but with a bench plane, fitting the cap-iron at something close to the recommended setback automatically puts the slot for the yoke cam in the right spot to give a usable range of blade travel. I've never had a #9 in my hand and I've always been curious as to how you know where to set this "cap-iron" so it's in the right place. Patrick doesn't go into such fine detail, & maybe it's obvious when you see one in the flesh, but it would need to be reasonably accurate (as well as quick) because there isn't a lot of leeway for the slot position on a 45* plane and there would be less with a low-angle job, which needs more blade movement to alter the cut. It's just idle curiosity on my part, but if anyone can shed light on the matter I'd be grateful.....

Cheers,

Bed and bun are in place, and shaping of ends has mostly been done. Glue spacer block got stuck to bed block as epoxy spread (it even came out of some of the pin holes in the dovetails). Bed will need some attention. It is a little high on one side (which wasn't apparent during test fits, but clamping up for glue must have altered it). I have to flatten iron first. Because I am turning it upside down, the lump that was not a problem in a bevel down orientation needs correcting. I am trying to decide if steel rivets will look okay (my smallest brass rod "in stock" is 6mm)



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Blade in place. Bed trued up (and blade "back"). More clean up and wedge and bridge to come.

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This is looking good. Can't wait to see the next stage.

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Thanks CK. I noticed some of your chisel handles in your plane post. They looked good and I want to copy them. Have you copied them from something.

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Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Thanks CK. I noticed some of your chisel handles in your plane post. They looked good and I want to copy them. Have you copied them from something.

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I didn't exactly copy them from somewhere. I think I took some inspiration. I still have the template. I can have a look later and can send it to you if you like.

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Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

........ Bed will need some attention. It is a little high on one side (which wasn't apparent during test fits, but clamping up for glue must have altered it)....

Yup, happens to me infuriatingly often!.. It's the wretched epoxy glue, it makes an excellent lubricant when wet, and lets the wood slip into places where it didn't want to go when dry. Even though I'm fully aware of it (I warn about it in the 'manual'), and take great pains to get the fit exact, I still get an occasional infill going awry a teeny bit under clamping pressure. It's a real pain if the wood ends up overhanging the sole bevel, it takes a lot of very careful work to bring it into line without damaging the sides in the process. If it's a teeny tiny bit short, I d't get too upset, you still can get a very firm bedding of the blade by biasing the wedge to bear in the right places.

Fitting over-stuffing involves even more care, with multiple mating surfaces to match. My first few were done like this: 1 Nose fixed.jpg

with only the matching along the tops of the sides & at the blade bed to contend with. Then I decided it would look better if the wood overlapped the backs as well as the tops like this: d infill polished.jpg

...which means another set of edges has to meet! I've found that the lubricating properties of Araldite are actually a help when doing this sort of stuffing, it makes it easier to snug it all together when glueing up.

Whether to use steel or brass rivets (or any at all) is a personal choice - folks seem to opt about equally for either from what I've seen. If you decide to go with brass (my preference, but don't let that influenceyour decision!) I advise buying a pack of K&S 3mm rod. Several places in Oz sell that brand, so it's easy to get & will only take a few days to get to you. It peens very nicely, unlike some brass rod I've used....

Cheers,

Shavings are just around the corner now, your doing very well MA.
Bring it home [emoji120][emoji120][emoji120][emoji120].

Cheers Matt.