Thread: Luban plane blade adjustment

Cheers Kuffy, mine measured at 67mm.

Thanks Ian, followed your instructions to the letter, the chipbreaker protruding the mouth by about a <1mm, the said chipbreaker then had about a 2.5-3mm gap between the top of the rectangle hole (brass screw hole) and the brass screw itself, the C.B was sitting nicely in the cam slot.

Does the 67mm on my C.B influence my troubles, compared to Kuffy's 70mm on his C.B?

Any light, at the end of the tunnel!, my synapses is breaking down.

Regards
Stevo

Originally Posted by Not enough!!

.......Does the 67mm on my C.B influence my troubles, compared to Kuff-misters 70mm on his C.B?

.......Any light, at the end of the tunnel!, my synapses is breaking down. ......

Based on my expereriences with Stanley & Record planes, 3mm difference from optimum should be ok, just!

Cheer-up, Stevo, we're getting there!

I think you've now established that it is only the hole for the lever-cap screw that's stopping the blade/cap-iron assembly from travelling any further. That was pretty clear from your first pics, but I thought it advisable to check that the slot for the depth-adjuster cam is somewhere near the money - I expected you to come back & say the depth-cam slot was way off, indicating a totally mis-matched cap-iron. You should be able to get your plane working by simply extending the lever-cap screw hole up a few more mm - iirc, you could extend it about 5-6mm before it encroaches on the hole for the cap-iron screw?

However, you shouldn't have to do relatively serious surgery on a brand-new tool. That there cap-iron is not the right one for your plane, and the supplier should cheerfully replace it (or the plane) with a new one. I think the pic you posted with the cap-iron sitting on the lever-cap screw tells the story well enough to convince them, & it'sin their interest to be aware of problems like this in case it occurs on others in the batch. Frustrating as it is to have to wait even longer to get your nice new plane up & running, I think the best course initially is to have them remedy the situation...

Cheers

Thanks very much Ian, hope the seller hears from the factory soon and they can send me a new properly sized cap iron.

cheers
Stevo

Originally Posted by Not enough!!

Does the 67mm on my C.B influence my troubles, compared to Kuffy's 70mm on his C.B?

Yup, that's the problem. Imagining things in the extreme makes it clearer in my mind rather than dealing with small numbers like 1-2mm. Picture your chipbreaker as is, with a leading end, a couple of holes in it etc etc. Now grind 50mm of length off the leading end of the chipbreaker. Now clearly way to short to span the distance between the fixed location brass screw and the sharp blade edge. Your missing 3mm is a huge amount. I have about 2.5mm clear above screw so I could continue to advance the blade forwards another 2.5mm before everything starts to bottom out.

Kuffy, 3mm is certainly a lot when it comes to placement of the adjuster cam slot on a cap iron, and could be a big problem, depending on which way it's misplaced. I can attest to that, because on the first cap-iron I made I got the adjuster slot off by about that much and although it worked, I had to have the adjuster wheel wound out so far that the yoke was binding on the sides of the groove in the wheel and it caused the wheel to be very stiff. I put up with it for a while, but eventually made a new one. I was a lot more careful with my measuring for #2!

However, I think we've established that the adjuster cam slot is most likely not the problem here. If the slot & the adjuster cam match pretty closely when Steve checked as I suggested, it indicates to me that it's in roughly the right position & should allow enough travel to expose the blade. The telling shot is one of the pics he posted early on, where the top of the slot in the cap-iron is hard up against the lever-cap screw, but the blade is still not sufficiently exposed to cut. If the adjuster cam is engaged and there is still adequate travel left on the adjuster wheel, but the cap-iron has hit the lever-cap screw, it seems pretty plain to me that the lever-cap screw slot is the culprit. It's an odd thing that I've not sen before, and hard to imagine how it happened other than that it's a cap-iron from a different model with a frog which has the lever-cap screw in a slightly lower position, or that the slot was simply stamped in the wrong spot by some strange quirk of a machine or its inattentive operator....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by Kuffy

I just had a look at my two Luban planes. A number 4 and 5. They are both setup similarly with the chipbreaker set about 0.3mm back from the cutting edge. They both have about 2.5mm of clearance between the hole in the chipbreaker and screw. That is with the blade in position for taking a fine smoothing cut.
Attachment 434451Attachment 434452

possibly the issue is that too much material was removed from the leading edge of the chipbreaker when they ground the bevel

I think they copied their initial dimensions from a lie nielsen plane, and there were lie nielsens that would not allow the blade to be advanced into the cut if the cap iron that was set close. I think LN has since remedied this, but here in the states, exceedingly few people were setting a cap iron close and LN didn't know that was an issue until we all started setting them close.

I had a 7 that was like that, and I sold it rather than dealing with the back and forth with LN (which would've been easy, I just figured I wasn't using it enough and would sell it to someone who wouldn't care about the cap iron in the first place.

If you are seeking adventure, you could increase the adjuster slot by filing it larger in the direction away from the edge, then pein the entire assembly shut with brass and re-drill (and file) the slot into the brass so that your adjuster slot is further up.

If you're not feeling that adventurous, I haven't got any easy suggestion.

(in so much as you can do well copying something perfectly, you can also end up copying its flaws. The fact that yours is just running out of travel but works fine at 2 or 3 mm involves a little bit of humor in that the copying was done so well so as to be the same even in the amount of the problem. IT reminds me of a former client that I had who had a buyer rip him off by taking a trademarked design of his and getting it reproduced in china. The copy that they took from him had some damage, and when the copies were made, they all showed identically recreated damage. )

Cheers D.W, i emailed the seller again stating that the C.B is most likely the culprit. Also asked if the there was any news from the factory etc, but alas NO REPLY, if he read the email it only takes a minute to reply yay or nay.

Buyer beware is all i can say!

Originally Posted by IanW

Kuffy, 3mm is certainly a lot when it comes to placement of the adjuster cam slot on a cap iron, and could be a big problem, depending on which way it's misplaced. I can attest to that, because on the first cap-iron I made I got the adjuster slot off by about that much and although it worked, I had to have the adjuster wheel wound out so far that the yoke was binding on the sides of the groove in the wheel and it caused the wheel to be very stiff. I put up with it for a while, but eventually made a new one. I was a lot more careful with my measuring for #2!

However, I think we've established that the adjuster cam slot is most likely not the problem here. If the slot & the adjuster cam match pretty closely when Steve checked as I suggested, it indicates to me that it's in roughly the right position & should allow enough travel to expose the blade. The telling shot is one of the pics he posted early on, where the top of the slot in the cap-iron is hard up against the lever-cap screw, but the blade is still not sufficiently exposed to cut. If the adjuster cam is engaged and there is still adequate travel left on the adjuster wheel, but the cap-iron has hit the lever-cap screw, it seems pretty plain to me that the lever-cap screw slot is the culprit. It's an odd thing that I've not sen before, and hard to imagine how it happened other than that it's a cap-iron from a different model with a frog which has the lever-cap screw in a slightly lower position, or that the slot was simply stamped in the wrong spot by some strange quirk of a machine or its inattentive operator....

Cheers,

Agree with IanW's assessment. If it were me I would just file that slot 1/8" higher and not bother stuffing around with the supplier.

Name of supplier so I can avoid him?

IanW, just for clarification. At no point in time was I ever speaking about the adjuster cam slot. That was never going to be the cause of the problem being discussed here. The adjuster cam slot may have been another issue which presented itself as an actual issue AFTER rectifying the cause of the problems around the screw slot. could have been one of three things, I guesstimated the most likely.
1. The hole in the chipbreaker which allows the lever cap screw to pass through it is in the wrong location
2. the hole in the frog which accepts the screw is in the wrong location.
3. the leading edge of the chipbreaker was ground away too far not leaving enough length to span the distance all the way to the blade edge. I figured this would be the most likely because the operation of grinding the leading edge, in my mind, was probably a secondary process. possibly done by hand or in a jig/fixture. the machining of the frog and chipbreaker shape and slots would be done in a single operation as best I can guess how they do it.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

IanW, just for clarification. At no point in time was I ever speaking about the adjuster cam slot. That was never going to be the cause of the problem being discussed here. The adjuster cam slot may have been another issue which presented itself as an actual issue AFTER rectifying the cause of the problems around the screw slot. could have been one of three things, I guesstimated the most likely.
1. The hole in the chipbreaker which allows the lever cap screw to pass through it is in the wrong location
2. the hole in the frog which accepts the screw is in the wrong location.
3. the leading edge of the chipbreaker was ground away too far not leaving enough length to span the distance all the way to the blade edge. I figured this would be the most likely because the operation of grinding the leading edge, in my mind, was probably a secondary process. possibly done by hand or in a jig/fixture. the machining of the frog and chipbreaker shape and slots would be done in a single operation as best I can guess how they do it.

Cheers Kuffy, it's ok, there were so many questions & answers flying back & forth, I may have given you the impression I was disagreeing with you, but I don't think I ever meant to. I agree entirely with your suggestions of the likely source of the problems & in the same order. I got confused too, when Derek started talking about the lateral adjuster slot, which is highly unlikely to impinge on depth adjustment travel, it's also in the cutting iron, not the cap-iron.

I think we could all see the lever cap screw butted up against the top of the slot in Steve's first pics - that there blade assembly wasn't going any further south by any means. Clearly, it needs to be extended up a few more mm, or whatever it takes to allow a practical amount of blade exposure. But what I wanted to establish was, if he did that, he wasn't going to discover the cam slot for the depth adjuster was also out of whack. It seems like it is ok, & at that point, I would've got the files out & altered that screw slot. However, I accept not everyone is as gung-ho about ripping bits of metal out of a new tool part as I am, so I understand if he'd rather get the problem sorted by the seller - it is his right, after all.

If the seller is who I think it is, don't despair, Steve, I've made several inquiries there & always had a reply, eventually, but it can take a week or more to get a response. I think they just need to check their email more regularly!

Cheers,

It seems I may be a little more gung ho about grinding and modifying things than you Ian. I would have seen the chipbreaker crashing into the screw and instantly picked up a file with my only thought being "I hope this isn't hardened steel".

Originally Posted by Kuffy

It seems I may be a little more gung ho about grinding and modifying things than you Ian. I would have seen the chipbreaker crashing into the screw and instantly picked up a file with my only thought being "I hope this isn't hardened steel".

Yeah, I probably would've done the same 20 years ago, but having made a few chipbreakers, I have discovered the damn things are a bit fussy - that adjuster slot does have to be within a coupe of mm of the optimum spot if you want the plane to work smoothly. Didn't want to see Steve following our advice and still having a beast of a plane that wouldn't adjust smoothly.....

Never struck a hardened C.B, they are just mild steel, certainly not hardened, anyway, so hacksaw, file, no worries, go at it!

Cheers,