Thread: Palm planes in black & white

Beautiful Ian, one of your best yet. One day I might believe you when you say it’s the last plane you ever build! It seems that softer brass is doing the trick for tight dovetails. Did you change the bun at some point? One of the last photos has a different shape bun in it.

Edit: ah that’s another plane!

Stunning again Ian.
If possible can we get a perspective shot, it’s hard to tell there actually size.
(ruler Box of matches hand)
Cheers Matt.


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Ian

I thought you had been quiet of late and I wondered what you were up to. Now I know. Magnificent.

Regards
Paul

Ian

What are the dimensions of those two planes?

Regards
Paul

Wow Ian. You set a very high benchmark. I am still proud of my recently completed 1st ever wooden moulding plane but...��

Wow what a little beauty!

Absolutely great little pieces of art!

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Ian

I thought you had been quiet of late and I wondered what you were up to. Now I know. Magnificent.

Regards
Paul

Sort of like when your kids go quiet Paul.

Beautiful work Ian, hope you have a stockpile of plane making bits for when we are all confined to quarters.

Tony

Originally Posted by jw2373

....... Did you change the bun at some point? One of the last photos has a different shape bun in it.

Edit: ah that’s another plane!

You are very observant, Josh. Indeed there were two planes with Box Elder infill.....

For these planes I used scraps of 1/8" 380 brass bought locally, not the easy-peening H62. I'm getting a bit more cunning & ensuring a good fit of the D/Ts before peening, which makes closing them an easier task. Also, on a small job, my peening arm doesn't get as tired & there aren't as many mis-hits!

And I have been a bit obsessed with rear-ends of late. How to best shape the rear of the bun down to the sole & blend it in with the sides is still a work in progress. I've tried a few different contours but haven't fully sorted it to my satisfaction. The one on the right is my best effortso far, I think - pardon the blue-stain! Butts.jpg

Maybe I should try a coffin shape next - that would give me plenty of challenges on a plane as small as this.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

......If possible can we get a perspective shot, it’s hard to tell there actually size.
(ruler Box of matches hand)......

Fair call, Matt, I realised after I'd posted that I hadn't given any sort of scale to judge the size by. I wasn't going to brave the spiders & possums in the shed last night, so I've taken a few pics this morning to give you an idea of size. There seems to be a pretty loose terminology around small planes - "Palm plane", "finger plane", "thumb plane" ("apron plane"?), all get used with no clear distinction. I think "palm plane makes sense for this size 'cos it sits very comfortably in my palm: Palm.jpg

This one is even smaller & would perhaps qualify as a "thumb plane" (pardon the dirty fingernails, been busy in the yard ): Thumb.jpg

If you prefer a familiar object for comparison, here is a palm plane beside a Bailey #4: Size a.jpg Size b.jpg

Paul, the actual dimensions, which I should have included are 100mm long (sole, the buns stick out a bit front & rear) for the palm plane and the smaller is 75mm long. Both have 1 x 1/8" blades cut from a length of HSS: Size c.jpg

Tony, yep, as my kids have remarked, 'self-isolation' has never been a problem for me! I do have a few more bits of scrap, enough for another palm plane, I think. My (plane) family has expanded rather alarmingly since full retirement, and I think it's high time to practice some serious birth-control! These have all appeared over the last year, for reasons I can't fully explain (certainly not desperate necessity!) :
Sizes d.jpg

But I've put aside enough material for a small English (or should that be British?) box mitre. It's something I have never felt the need of, but the building of one has intrigued me for years, so something might happen there.

BTW, in preparation for a possible attack on a box mitre, I watched Bill Carter's series of videos on the making of one. What a hoot! He's quite the character, and his constant little asides are worth at lest as much as the serious bits. I really identified with his constantly looking for the tool he'd just had in his hand a few moments ago.....

Cheers,

Thanks Ian,
Much appreciated, will excuse the dirty thumb nail.[emoji6]

Cheers Matt.

Thanks Ian. They are all lovely. I agree that the shape in the far right fits the hand nicely (if it’s similar to my m.ebony one) and by the looks of the pics gives the best transition between wood and metal. From an aesthetic perspective, I reckon the profile of the middle one appeals most to me (beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say). I reckon doing a coffin style would certainly test the skills but would be something else! Next time I visit I’ll bring a burl block that’s been stabilised, that could also solve the void issue you encountered with the elder burl?

When I cut a lever cap out of a chunk of brass, I'm left with a couple of very odd-shaped scraps which are pretty substantial for a 1/2" or 3/4" thick blank: LC cut out.jpg

I didn't have a clue what to do with them, but chucked some in a box with other off-cuts that "might be handy some day". The other day I was looking at one of these bits & inspiration struck. They would make perfect "adjusters": Adjuster.jpg

I just needed to tidy them up a little & drill a hole in the centre, which I flared with a small round file, and attached a handle. Bingo - every plane can come with an appropriately-sized adjuster (two, if you like; very handy for old codgers who keep losing the tool they had in their hand 2 minutes ago . )

Nothing wasted in my shed......

Cheers,

As I said above, I still had some small scraps of steel & brass after making the last couple of palm planes. The brass was 2.5mm thick H62 (Chinese-made), so I decided to make a curved-side example just to see if I could. In my "manual" I suggest a teeny-weeny plane is probably not the best option for your first try at a dovetailed body. It's less work in some ways, but more fiddly, and fitting the woodwork to curved sides is especially fiddlesome - you can't see what's stopping your carefully-prepared infill from dropping into place once it's halfway in.

The body went together easily enough, though I was a bit over-confident with the peening & didn't follow my usual procedure of putting it aside for a while when I think I've got it right, then going over it all again for good measure. So I got a couple of small flaws in what are otherwise very tolerable dovetails.
It's extremely annoying but a few small pin-holes or faint lines won't affect strength.

I wanted ti infill with Box Elder again, but I'm down to the very last scraps and the piece I used isn't quite as clean as what I put in the previous - a few little knots here & there spoiling the marbling a bit.

At least I'm getting a bit better with overall accuracy. This is the first attempt at making some shavings, before I'd finished cleaning up the stuffing or properly lapped the sole: 1st shavings a.jpg

As you can see, the (heavy) shavings are concertinaed which I suspected was at least partly due to the lever-cap being too 'blunt' where it met the blade. So I filed it down to make the top meet at a more acute angle, and the next lot of shavings was about as perfect as I could wish for: Fettled.jpg

So now I have to decide which one to keep. I'll hang onto both for the time being, and compare them for comfort - they perform pretty-much identically, so it's a matter of seeing if one feels better to use. I also want to study those rear-ends & see if I can give them better-looking butts. They both look a bit unfinished where the rear stuffing exits the sides:Rear view.jpg

The side profile looks ok though: Done.jpg

Cheers,

Ian, they both look awesome.
Curious to see which one you like more in the end.
I also like the new "adjuster" design I see there in the background of one of the picks. Looks sleek too.


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