Thread: Jewellers' saw blades

Originally Posted by IanW

And that was it for today. I've got another interrupted day coming up tomorrow, but I hope to find enough time to get it to the stage of making some shavings for you, but the detailing & final fettling may have to wait a bit longer. With mothers' day coming up, we are likely going to spend the weekend with the "children" so I expect shed time will be severely curtailed...

Cheers,

You can't host Mother's day in the shed? Mmm... I can see the problem: Space primarily, ambience secondarily. What do you take to combat withdrawal symptoms?

Regards
Paul

PS: Yes, the plane still looks good.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

...... What do you take to combat withdrawal symptoms?......

A glass (or two) of that red medicine helps....

As expected, I got very little shed time today, but at least I got some shavings:

1st shavings.jpg

It's far from finished. The front bun is only rough-shaped, so it needs finishing properly, then the sides fine-sanded & polished. I will also fit a screw adjuster, not an absolute necessity, but adds a final touch.

I've part-lapped the sole, but there's a way to go to finish it. The sole ended up slightly convex after peining, which is a first for me. All the other split-sole planes I've done ended up slightly concave, which is much easier to lap. If it's convex, you have to be ultra careful to establish a flat in the centre or you'll just keep lapping a curve. I have managed that ok thankfully, and it is 3/4 flattened, but the old 90/10 rule (it takes 90% of the effort to get that last 10% flat), means I have a ways to go....

With luck, I may get a bit of time on it over the weekend
Cheers

Originally Posted by IanW

The sole ended up slightly convex after peining, which is a first for me. All the other split-sole planes I've done ended up slightly concave, which is much easier to lap. If it's convex, you have to be ultra careful to establish a flat in the centre or you'll just keep lapping a curve. I have managed that ok thankfully, and it is 3/4 flattened, but the old 90/10 rule (it takes 90% of the effort to get that last 10% flat), means I have a ways to go....

With luck, I may get a bit of time on it over the weekend
Cheers

Ian

Was that measured before or after the red medicine? Also the wood looks to be darkening unless it is my imagination or a trick of the camera.

Regards
Paul

No medication required yet Paul, the weekend hasn't begun.
Actually due to projected poor weather & other late developments, it looks like I might get more shed-time than anticipated...

I think any perceived darkening is just my poor photography. Based on prior experience, it will probably take a couple of weeks to change significantly, and 6 months or more to go really dark.

[Edit: I just looked at the the pic, & it shows the 'wedge' from the side that was near the surface of the block, so it is darker than the material from further in..}

Cheers,

I was in luck & got a few hours in the shed today, so I have essentially finished my new English thumb plane.

First job was to make & fit the adjuster. This involved cutting a slot in the end of the blade & turning up a thumbwheel with a disc to engage the slot.

1 adjuster.jpg

The thumbwheel rides on a 6mm stainless steel stud that is screwed into the rear cross-piece of the plane. This part of the job always gets me very nervous - stuffing it up would give me a real headache to fix it. I lined up the plane in my home-made drill-press vise very carefully (note extra clamps to ensure nothing moves during drilling & tapping!):

2 drilling stud hole.jpg

To start the drill straight, a centre-bit (as shown) is essential. If you try drilling into a sloped surface like this with a regular bit, it will skate off & your hole will not be in the direction intended. Even with the hole well & truly started with the centre-bit, a 5mm bit can still flex off-course, so I took it very slowly & thankfully, all went well and I ended up with my stud in the right spot & parallel with the blade (whew!):

3 Stud in place.jpg

I must have done a dozen of these by now, but I'm still pretty tense until I see it's ok...

With the adjuster fitted & working smoothly, the plane is essentially finished, but I still need to lap the sole a little more. I had another short session on it & have reduced the low spots at front & back a bit more. I can see faint scratches on them now, so they are almost level - maybe another thou or so to come off to have it perfect:

4 sole.jpg

Despite thinking I'd cracked it this time, I didn't end up with as fine a mouth as I was aiming for. I think it's the best I've done so far at a shade over 0.5mm, but I was hoping to get it finer. It's not a disaster by any means, the one I made about 6 or 8 months back that performs very nicely has a slightly larger gap (~0.65mm), so I think I'll be happy enough with the mouth I have, if it was any finer it would probably be too prone to choking. Here are the two together (new plane on the bottom).

5 mouths cf.jpg

The mouth gaps look a lot larger than they actually are on both due to light flare, but you can easily see the difference - the top gap is a bit over 20% wider but looks even more than that.

So now I have to decide which one to keep & which ones to drown:

6 ETPs.jpg

Up 'til now, I have been leaning to the smaller plane on the left, the one on the right is a bit les comfy in my hand, which is why I made this last one in-between hoping it might be the Goldilocks size for me. I'll put it through its paces for a month or three & see if it knocks the others off their perches. The two planes on the left have Solomon Islands ebony infill (Paul - note how much the original has darkened compared with the new one). The one on the right has Western rosewood (Acacia rhodoxylon) infill. They all feel very nice in the hand, but the SIE is perhaps a little silkier.

And that's all folks. I used a full dozen of the Super Pike blades making these two planes, which I reckon is very tolerable, & I can unreservedly recommend the brand for cutting mild steel & brass. I doubt I'll get even half the mileage on stainless steel but I most definitely have to put any thoughts of working with SS aside for a long time, I have several (NON-planemaking) projects I've been procrastinating on for too long already which I must get stuck into. And besides, I'll need to invest in a whole set of new files before even thinking of making another plane....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Despite thinking I'd cracked it this time, I didn't end up with as fine a mouth as I was aiming for. I think it's the best I've done so far at a shade over 0.5mm, but I was hoping to get it finer. It's not a disaster by any means, the one I made about 6 or 8 months back that performs very nicely has a slightly larger gap (~0.65mm), so I think I'll be happy enough with the mouth I have, if it was any finer it would probably be too prone to choking. Here are the two together (new plane on the bottom).


Cheers,

Ian

Have you considered an adjustable mouth for your next effort, not that you will be making another plane of course? It would be an additional challenge, but as this is completely hypothetical it is entirely appropriate to ask such a question.

Regards
Paul

Any one have any hints on how to run a betting syndicates, I reckon I see a sure thing.
Asking for a friend of a cousin’s friend of course [emoji6].

Cheers Matt.
Another nice plane Ian.

to both of youse......

Orright, so I know I'm a hopeless case, but I don't think I'll be accepting that challenge any time soon. Just for the record, I have done an adjustable mouth, a very long time ago, & on my very first 'infill' plane, no less:

6 SP.jpg

I made it this way because I didn't think I could fit a large enough wedge slot in the plane to get the blade in & out from the back end. It's perhaps more a "removable toepiece" than a mouth adjuster, it tends to be put at the one fine setting & oeft there. Making the damn thing accurately enough to work properly was a chore that taxed my rather limited plane-manufacturing abilities, but it did solve the blade-removal problem.

Fast forward forty years and the re-make got a fixed mouth, and the blade can be easily withdrawn through the body as on the infill shoulder planes of yesteryear:

JW lge.jpg

The solution wasn't so difficult - just start with a wider piece for the sides.

This one looks a lot better (to my eyes, anyway), & performs a bit better than #1. I guess a bit of experience acquired in the meantime made a difference....

Cheers,

I've been doing some painting I promised to finish several years ago, it involves a whole lot of trim, a truly tedious & unrewarding job! So for being a good boy, I nicked off to the shed every now & then, whilst "waiting for paint to dry" (shhh, don't tell LOML that water-based enamel can be re-coated in 2 hours... ).

I looked about for for some little job to fiddle with, and an odd-shaped strip of brass caught my eye. One type of plane that I haven't tried making is a "box mitre" plane. These typically have sides formed by bending a continuous piece around a former, then dovetailing that to the sole. Being low-angle jobs, they also need a "split sole" to form the bevel without making the mouth huge but I have done half a dozen or more split soles now, and am not too fazed by that step. It's the bent sides that worry me - getting the bend with the accuracy required seems very tricky. Even watching the video series by Bill Carter, where he makes it look like a walk in the park doesn't altogether reassure me!

Anyway, I reckoned this odd bit of scrap was unlikely to be much use for anything else, so I decided to use it as a sacrificial guinea-pig & see if I could bend it neatly. Unfortunately, this was all done spur-of-the-moment, so I didn't take any "in progress" pics. I used a piece of 7/8" bras rod as the former, and more or less followed Bill's procedure. The bend turned out really well, symmetrical & straight, proving I could do it (at at least at small scale).

Now I had a U-shaped piece of brass, about 20mm wide & 45mm long - mission accomplished & I was about to toss it in the scrap tin & look for something else to do. But the piece had started with a notch in the middle & it occurred to me that it already looked a bit like a little violin plane, so I thought I'd have a go at turning it into one. Because I worked on it in dribs & drabs over the last week & a bit, I didn't take any pics, which I should have; there were a few "interesting" incidents along the way.

Marking out & cutting the dovetails on the already-bent sides is something only the foolish would do, it was much harder to cut out & file the mating surfaces accurately! But I managed it ok, and things should have gone smoothly after that, but didn't. I messed up one cut on the sole sockets and one of the front D/Ts ended up with a nearly 2mm gap on one side (I have no idea how I managed that! ). So I used a trick I've tried before, I tapped a sliver of brass in the gap to fill it, & it peened up quite nicely, though you can see a fine line in the brass from the sole side.

The next near disaster was I snapped a 1.5mm drill bit drilling a pilot hole for the lever cap screw on one side (I was using the fine bit because my last #1 centre bit is cactus & I haven't had time to go & get some new ones - I will now!). Getting the broken part out of the brass proved to be a very tricky job, more difficult than I could've imagined, and I came awfully close to wrecking the whole job in the process. However, after thinking about it overnight, I had another go & managed to drill down from the inside a bit, then punch the broken drill bit out, then finish the screw-hole from the inside.

So here is the result of all that fiddling - another miniature. The blade is a scrap of 18 x 2mm HSS :

VP3a.jpg VP3b.jpg

I put a mild camber on the blade & it peels off shavings very nicely:
VP3c.jpg

In fact, it might be the most comfortable to use mini I've made so far. The bent sides weren't as difficult as I'd feared, so perhaps that box mitre might someday make its debut after all....

Cheers,

Ian,

Another fabulous build, it was very handy having that bit of Brass pre notched[emoji6].

Gentleman Bets In please, I need too stock up on some Brass!!!!.

Cheers Matt.

Don't get too excited Matt. It really was a nondescript scrap I started with & I simply wanted to see how it would take a bend of about an inch diameter & if I could bend it accurately so the two sides ended up straight & parallel. If it had cracked or shown signs of stress I would've binned it without another thought & that would've been that.

It was only after I'd bent it that the notch in the front made me think it looked a bit like a little violin plane. Had I been planning to actually make a plane when I started, I assure you I would have cut some dovetails before trying to bend it. Trust me, cutting them after bending is a really dumb way to go about it! I'm most surprised I managed to get as good a fit of the D/Ts as I managed, they were all god but for the one I mentioned.

But I am encouraged by that little taste of success, so I just might have a crack at something more serious when I work through my current "to do" list. I'm afraid having ignored it much longer than I should have, it has grown quite long....

Cheers,

Ian actually, I thought the notch you were talking about was number 1.
Yes but now I see what you mean, number 2 was all ready notched, that makes sense.

Um yes cutting the dovetails, then cleaning then up, with a stroke range of what about 20 mm would have been a test of patients.
Well done for perseverance there.

Cheers Matt.