Thread: Making Planes/Planes Blades

Originally Posted by CCS

Hi all,

I am trying to source some information on making a decent block plane including plane blade. Surprisingly there is little on the Youtube regarding this matter. I have some decent spring steel (recycled truck leaf springs) and the time and enthusiasm to make something.

While undoubtedly the steel can be used as is, usually it would need heat treatment of some kind mainly to mainly make it easier to sharpen. Do you have access to heat treatment facilities? i.e. ability to hold the steel at red heat for a good 10 minutes?

Additionally i picked up an old coffin plane with a J P Arns, German Iron in good nic. Unfortunately the wooden body is cracked and in pretty rough shape. I am wanting to put this old iron back to work but unsure of what type of body to make for it. I will be using manly WA hard woods and am after a smoothing plane type body. Again, very open to suggestions.

Why not make a similar new body to start with as you have to old one there for comparison.

There are plenty of plane kits available with documentation online. Most are based on a Krenov style plane.
Some examples include:
HNT Gordon: Gidgee Kit Planes
Hock Tools: Kits for Planes, Spokeshaves and Shoulder Planes
Lee Valley: Veritas® Wooden Plane Hardware Kit - Lee Valley Tools
These are fairly straight forward and don't require specialised tools.

If you want to make a more traditional style, there are quite a few build alongs here on the forum.
You would probably want to invest in a few plane maker floats to get the mouth opening right first time:
Planemakers Floats

Duplicate post

I can use the workshop (at work) and an oxy to heat treat the steel. I figured it would already be hardened and therefore i dont think i should anneal it completely, perhaps just give it a heating through the oven 450F for a couple of hours to soften slightly, then crack on.

With the bent sections i will no doubt need to heat and straighten and then harden again in oil prior to slightly soften it to get an edge going.

I was figuring this free resource (which i have plenty to share if anyone is interested?) would be good for holding a sharp edge for hard woods?

Originally Posted by CCS

I will be using manly WA hard woods

I'm trying to work out if that was a typo or not.

So as it turns out, yes, it was a typo... However at least it fits well in this situations.

I have realised there are some other posts dating back to 07 etc surrounding this topic, however, please dont hesitate to provide some more modern replies on this thread.

Originally Posted by CCS

I can use the workshop (at work) and an oxy to heat treat the steel. I figured it would already be hardened

If it was fully hardened it wouldn't be used as a spring because it would be too brittle.
Besides you have to cut it and depending on the process that might destroy any hardness anyway.

I don't want to discourage you from having a go, I'm just trying to save you some headaches and time.
Ideally it should be annealed, shaped, and then properly hardened and then tempered.
An oxy is OK for small chisels and point tools like punches but it may struggle to hold a wider piece of steel at an even temperature for long enough. I have never obtained reliable results playing the oxy back and forth on anything more than about a 3/4" blade but you may be more patient than I have been. If you decide to try this I strongly recommend setting up a small fire brick castle around the work to reduce heat losses. Remember you really should heat treat at least a couple of inches of length of the the blade to ensure the heat treatment is right for subsequent sharpening. Maybe you should try using the spring steel to make something like a small chisel first to check your process.

With the bent sections i will no doubt need to heat and straighten and then harden again in oil prior to slightly soften it to get an edge going

It will be much easier to anneal the whole piece completely, not just to be able to straighten it, but to get the back at least close to flat and generate also the primary bevel, otherwise you will have to spend a long time working it. If you try and grind the back flat and grind the primary bevel without annealing you may end up destroying the temper.

I was figuring this free resource (which i have plenty to share if anyone is interested?) would be good for holding a sharp edge for hard woods?

Steel from springs is not all the same and sometimes won't form as fine an edge as proper O1 tool steel and you have to be much more careful while sharpening it that it does not lose its temper.

As BobL said, it's probably a good idea to start by making a new 'coffin' body for the blade you have. I don't know what woods are available to you, but I'd advise selecting a reasonably easily-worked wood. Chopping out abutments and getting a properly flat blade bed can be quite a chore in very hard, brittle woods. As Hiroller suggested, a couple of planemakers' floats are very nice to have when building traditional style woodies, but not essential, you can wing it with ordinary files and sharp chisels.

Building a laminated body (aka 'Krenov' style) is the easiest way to go for your first attempt at a plane. They have their pros & cons, but I reckon you are more likely to get a usable result first time, by going that route (though not necessarily, my first laminated plane was a miserable failure! .)

Bob knows more about metal than I'm ever likely to know, but I would've thought vehicle springs would be a bit soft in their 'natural' state for cutting blades. However, I may be wrong, I've never taken a file to raw leaf springs. You'd probably want to anneal the material to start with, anyway, so you can flatten & shape your blades more easily. When I made a couple of draw-knives from an old truck spring, I annealed it so I could shape them more easily, then re-hardened & tempered them. More by good luck than my skill, they ended up at a very usable hardness.

Cheers,

Could you try making a spokeshave first?

You could keep the spring curve and it would let you see how well it holds an edge.

Thanks for all the input guys. Certainly have some good ideas there. Does anyone know a good source of Tool steel in Perth WA?

I've had success ordering online from gameco.com They have a blacksmith and knife making catalogue that has all sorts of carbon, tool and stainless steels. Some CPM steels too

HI guys,

Back to this topic... Please direct me to a thread if another already exists, however i am looking at plane bevel angles vs plane bed angles. Am i correct in guessing the bed ultimately determines what angle the cutting edge contacts the timber? And if so why does a bevel angle matter so much?

Again, if anyone can point me in the direction of good resources on this it would be appreciated.

Kind regards,
Headband Warrior.

Originally Posted by CCS

..... i am looking at plane bevel angles vs plane bed angles. Am i correct in guessing the bed ultimately determines what angle the cutting edge contacts the timber? And if so why does a bevel angle matter so much?....

There have indeed been numerous posts on the topic, CCS, but some are buried in threads where they'll be hard to find. To get you started on the topic, you have to decide first if you are talking about bevel-up or bevel-down planes.

If you are talking bevel-down (typical bench planes), with parallel irons, then yes, the bed angle is the cutting angle. The bevel angle 'matters' because it determines 'sharpness', which has to be traded off against edge robustness. Bevel, or sharpening angles for most steels range from about 25 to 35 degrees, so on a 'standard' 45 degree bed bench plane you have about 10 degrees of 'clearance' behind the cutting edge, even at an 'extreme' sharpening angle of 35 degrees.

Bedding higher than 45 (a la Gordon planes) is no problem for clearance angles, but higher bedding angles increase wear on the cutting edge and are harder to push for a given amount of blade penetration. Bedding angles lower than 45 are possible, but you have to think about clearance, and by the time you get to about 35 degres you are hitting the practical limit for the B-D configuration.

So you move to bevel-up, and now the bevel angle matters because it determines the cutting angle. The bed angle becomes the clearance angle. A typical 20 degree bed, with a blade sharpened at 25 degrees gives you a cutting angle of 45 Degrees. Hmmm, you start to get the idea that we are going round in circles, here, don't you? However, despite having the same cutting angle, a B-U plane bedded at 20 degrees & sharpened at 25 is a very different animal from a B-D plane bedded at 45, and there are several reasons for that.

There has been endless debate on the various merits of BU vs BD planes. They each have pros & cons, and neither is superior in all situations. Most of us end up with at least a couple of B-Us and B-Ds and will prefer one or the other for certain jobs. Which style you prefer in which situation is largely a question of personal preference more than any other single factor, in my view. No doubt there'll be a few dissenting views......

Cheers,

John Whelan: The Cutting Action of Planes