Thread: Looking for small block plane recommendations

Originally Posted by IanW

But out of curiosity, I'd like to hear from anyone who has managed to reduce an over-large mouth on a BU plane successfully....

Not quite closing a mouth...but...

A few years ago I picked a beaut Stanley 65 but had major issues getting the blade square to the mouth and taking an even cut... until I discovered that the bed wasn't coplaner with the sole

I did consider re-machining the bed but that would thin out the material at the back of the throat more than I'd be happy with as even when machined properly this area is prone to cracking and chipping. So my solution will be to float the blade on a thin bed of Devcon "liquid metal" epoxy compound to bring it back to parallel.

Just got to find that dammed round tuit....

Chief, I've thought about doing something similar in the past too, but have so far chickened out.

How "metallic" is this Devcon stuff - can it be filed & scraped like a soft metal? Because it's not really possible to get at the bed with a file, you'd want to find a way to get the compound pretty close before it cures so there would be minimal work getting it straight & level.

Perhaps it's just easier to think of you plane as being a mild skew & grind the blade to match the skew...

Cheers,

Not a fan of skewing the blade edge to accomodate the incorrect bed angle; it makes repeated quick sharpenings a bit of a PITA as I can’t just lob it straight into a honing guide or on the Tormek without fiddling.

It’s extremely hard and glassy; there are different compounds to suit different applications. I’ve used it to level corroded machinery bedplates, to replace smashed castings and to rebuild worn areas of shafts. It machines, files and scrapes very well and you can drill and tap into it also.

The way I’ll do it will be to clamp the body down tight to a flat surface and sandwich the compound between it and the blade. Done carefully enough there will be little to no filing or scraping required beyond maybe getting rid of any excess squeeze out. I’ll be practising with a non-setting compound like playdough first to judge the correct amount needed. I might deliberately aim for a bit of squeeze out around the blade sides so that the blade is prevented from lateral movement. I apply a PTFE based release compound onto any areas that I don’t want it to stick to.

Sigh… looks like I’ll need to search for that tuit before I get home in a couple of weeks!

PS regarding the difficulty of filing the bed; I have files that can go round corners! I inherited a fair bit of precision toolmaking toys including around a hundred or so Swiss needle files and rifflers. Check out THIS CATALOGUE; I have most of the weird looking rifflers starting on P24.

Bridge city hp-8 mini block plane with depth skids high-quality tool steel blade ideal for planing chamfering and precision woodworking Sale - Banggood.com