Thread: Plough Plane Fence

Martin, that is an interesting idea. I always applaud those being creative! I have no doubt that this "mod" to your fence will make the plane move more smoothly, but I doubt that it does so for the reason you believe.

What you have done is create a fence with a narrow reference area. In other words, since only the centre of the fence is making contact, you may as well have a fence that is 1/4" high. What you have lost in this change is the registration to keep the plane tracking squarely.

My own ploughs (I have a few) all have (removable) deeper secondary fences. These are wood, and waxing them provides the type of smoothness that one does not get from a metal fence. I do not believe that one is intended to use metal fences without secondary, user-made sub-fences. One hand pushing forward and the other hand pushing laterally.



Regards from Perth

Derek

Martin, while your modification obviously works for you, like Derek, I'm a bit puzzled as to how a rounded fence stops twisting. My thought-analysis would suggest a rounded fence would make it more susceptible to tipping.

I have certainly experienced the problem myself with plough planes, the thin skates don't register on the work the way the broader sole of a rebate does, so you have no reference whatever from the sole. I've found that it's all in the grip for me, I keep my left hand on the fence and hold it against the face of the work. The long fence-arms on my old wooden plough make a useful guide, I keep one eye on them judging if they are parallel with the work surface. I find it most difficult when grooving narrow drawer sides as I was doing yesterday, where there is very little for the fence to register against. I have simply accepted I get less-perfect grooves in that situation, minor imperfections are usually inapparent once the bottom is slid in, and some of the old drawers I've repaired had much rougher grooves than any I've made, so it would seem the old-timers had their issues with plough planes too!

Another source of wobbly cuts with my old Sandusky is not ensuring the the fence is perfectly parallel with the skate.
pic1.jpg

It's a more fiddly job setting up the screw arms, & those who use more modern ploughs with steel fence arms should have less of s problem there, but I've found even with my 78 rebate that the fence doesn't always line up perfectly parallel to the sole when it's slid into position, so it may be worth checking that aspect.

I have a a similar situation to the plough with my dovetail plane when starting it - only the corner of the blade is cutting and just the sharp edge of the sole contacts the work for the first few passes. I can see by the cut it leaves that the plane is wobbling a bit despite my best efforts to hold it straight. The fence is quite shallow, but there is no point in making it any deeper because it's already deeper than the majority of boards I'm ever likely to cut sliding D/Ts on.
Test.jpg

If I concentrate hard on holding it square, it sorts itself out as the cut gets deeper & by the time the blade is making a full cut, I can usually see the planed surface has straightened up & all is well (usually!).

I think a big part of the problem for me is simply lack of constant practice. If we were doing these jobs repeatedly day in & day out I'm sure we wouldn't have to think about it, it would be all muscle-memory. But the sliding D/Ts I made yesterday were the first lot I've done in possibly 2 years, so it was almost like starting from scratch!

Cheers,

" like Derek, I'm a bit puzzled as to how a rounded fence stops twisting. My thought-analysis would suggest a rounded fence would make it more susceptible to tipping."


Though exercise- the distance from the top of the connecting rods is about 40mm. A 1 degree tilt if leveraged from the bottom of the fence is 1.238mm.
Say the skates are in the groove say 4mm. By themselves a rotation of 1 degree at 4mm deep is only an error of .1238mm- 10x smaller.
But unfortunately the skates are firmly connected to the fence and the larger displacement wins.

Conclusion: a rotated fence can leverage the small skates, multiplying an error.
Hence, I tried the rounded fence to see what happens without the amplification.

Derek's use of a deep fence is another way. With a deep fence becomes easier for a guiding hand to resist the leverage from the base of the fence with the deep fence, keeping the skates square

But I have found the I keep can keep plough square without any input from the fence.

Hope this makes sense. One can gather the issue if physically rotate of small block of timber and measure the displacement rather than indulging in math.


Rabbitting on: the strength of the rotation comes from momentum. That's why the excess side wall cut tends to happen at the end of the stroke.

Ian

My first reply was knocked up just before going to work. Adding a couple of things

First - your dovetail plane is rather spiffy, I must say.

Second - every project I start is new. I keep expecting that I will "just" use the skills from prior projects and all will be well. But that never happens, they're always another challenge I didn't consider. One day perhaps I will make the same thing twice.

I have a maxim that when anyone says a sentence that has the "just" in you know there's trouble.

Derek use of a deep fence is another way. It becomes easier for a guiding hand to resist the leverage from the base of the fence with the deep fence, keeping the skates square

But I have found the I keep can keep square without any input from the fence.

Hope this makes sense. You can also see the issue if physically rotate of small block of Timber.

Martin, what this says to me is that you are using a learned sense of plumb to keep the plane vertical (that is what we practice to do). The fence then simply acts to maintain a parallel path.

Incidentally, between Ian and I, we could probably provide enough tools for the forum to use (although Ian is much worse than I am in building tools). Here is one of my plough planes, a bridle plough based on a Matherson, in Sheoak ...








Incidentally, have you joined the Fine Woodworking Association in Perth?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by MartinCH

- your dovetail plane is rather spiffy, I must say....

Completely over-the-top is what it is, Martn. I got carried away adding brass bits. I was inspired by someone else's home-made D/T plane, to which I added a few extra details, including the handle (not really necessary, I've decided). The blade is skewed & my natural inclination would have been to make the leading edge cut the corner, but the bloke in the article I read was adamant it should go the other way, i.e. the trailing edge is to the outside & cuts the shoulder. He didn't give any reasons, but he seems to have known what he was talking about, because it works very nicely this way, cuts the shoulder very cleanly (aided by the nicker), and throws the shavings out of the escapement so they never clog.

Clogging of my plough planes is a real nuisance. Notice how the shavings are curling out & clearing themselves from the skewed blade of the plough in Derek's first pic - one of the benefits, in fact the major benefit, of a skewed blade on these sorts of planes imo.

And dammit, whenever I see Derek's lovely she-oak plough I get the urge to make a new one for myself, in-between the sizes of my Sandusky original & the baby brother I made:

18 sizes cf.jpg

I've found the miniature surprisingly handy for small work like ploughing bottom grooves in boxes and actually easier to use than the full-size job despite its size. So my thinking is that something halfway between would hit a sweet spot. It's not high on the priority list atm, so there's a very good chance it will never happen.

And Derek, whaddaya mean? I think you probably out-weigh me in tools 2 to 1 - I've been slowly divesting & consolidating for some time, as we move toward down-sizing in the not too distant future. If I'm lucky I might have a small garden shed a la Bill Carter, or a corner of a two-car garage, so both work & storage space will be very limited. At least my recent passion for cranking out miniatures will fit the changed lifestyle....

Cheers,
Ian

Yes Derek, that's the one. After 30 generations of plough plane design I am putting up my hand and saying , nah, the fence can be hinderance, use plumb sense alone.


I too, once, suffered from tool accumulation. More than one plough plane, as it happens. Use my 1882 Stanley 42 plough a fair amount as well Have left its rosewood fence alone. But the Record with the round fence is the main user. Light, easy setup.

Neither of them seem to clog much. The Record has a reputation for clogging but has not been a problem for me. While talking about the record the skates are not parallel but that does seem to be an issue in use so I ignore that. The nickers are are a bit to far away from the blade but I am yet to encountered a knicker and then say this is fantantic , this plane works great crossgrain.

Two brilliant sheoak planes. Derek, really like you transitions from flat to curve on the handle, very crisp.

Thanks for mentioning the fine woodworking association. I was not aware of the group. Will email.

Plough plane building
- if I were to make plane, I would perhaps try a low angle plow plane. Perhaps using router style mechanism, vaguely similar to veritas door mortise plane but with detachable skates a round fence and perhaps some "saw" style nickers. But this is musing, not an immediate project.

Originally Posted by MartinCH

.... - if I were to make plane, I would perhaps try a low angle plow plane. Perhaps using router style mechanism, vaguely similar to veritas door mortise plane but with detachable skates a round fence and perhaps some "saw" style nickers. But this is musing, not an immediate project.

Gees Martin, you do like to make your life complicated, don't you?

Coupla thoughts: Ploughs are probably most used for making grooves in long grain, where a BD, standard to higher-angle blade generally copes better than a low-angle bevel-up blade. Second, grooves were most often ploughed in places that are out of sight on the finished item and were not required to be finely finished. Fussing over out-of-sight details is something we modern amateurs have brought to the sport. Nickers are not usually of great advantage when ploughing along the grain (they'd be handy at times), but virtually essential for cross-grain work. These were the tools designed for that role:

Dado a.jpg Dado b.jpg

The skewed blade makes a good fist of cutting cross-grain and the nickers keep the edges clean. They never have a moveable fence because they are intended to cut housing joints, normally too far from an available edge for an attached fence to be practical (or originally, against a wall to house dados, from which the name derives). Used against a board clamped across the workpiece, it's capable of cutting very clean grooves. (Don't take too much notice of groove in the pic., I was setting it up & using it free-hand so the sides are not as clean as they should be.

But these planes came in fixed widths, so you need one for each width of housing you wish to cut. If you want to use different blades to cut various width grooves, you will need adjustable or replaceable nickers. As I said, it's getting complicated....

I'm sure it can be done, & I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Justus A. Trout gave it some thought when designing the Stanley monsters like the 55. It's a wonder he didn't come up with something along those lines, he seems to have thought of everything else! But again, that plane is really all about long-grain work, where nickers would be more bother than they are worth.

Anyway, keep thinking, I'm sure it's feasible, and bringing a bit of lateral thinking to tool design is never wasted. You may not come up with a plane that takes the world by storm (but then again, you might!), but at least you will have some fun, learn more about the tool itself, and quite possibly end up with something that suits your style. Like my dovetail plane - it's a fiddle to set up and would probably drive most people nuts, but once it is set, it's a joy to use and I can finesse the tails so they slide in 90% of the way easily, then tighten to a locking fit that doesn't need glue (on a good day!).....

Cheers,

I remember the late ALF used a vertical length of dowel stuck into a hole in the nose of a Stanley 45 plane to ensure the planed groove was vertical.

"Gees Martin, you do like to make your life complicated, don't you? "

Yah, I considered making it say and knocking out a couple of dozen infill plane and some backsaws..

Seriously though I did once make a long fence for a router. Usedthe long fence counter for some grooves.
Comments
As the blades are low angle it was easier to push, and the blades could take pretty thick shavings. Dropping the depth wasn't too bad but particularly when taking thick shavings the bade could dig in and make mess. Taking thin shavings took the fun out it.4

The idea needed a better mount..

Project inputs.

Range of blades already available
Possible to make skew (forward and back) and dovetail style blades if needed- (one of the standard blades is spear point - that decently a skew blade
Low angle for pushing easy as tearout not a big concern
depth increase automatic as per traditions plane

Basic design
A compact sandard router blade support mounted between two essentially identical but mirrored "skates"
The skates have a saw like ''knicker"

Originally Posted by MartinCH

.....A compact sandard router blade support mounted between two essentially identical but mirrored "skates"
The skates have a saw like ''knicker"....

OK, now I have a better grasp of your idea. That certainly sounds feasible - one of the saw blades could be moveable to allow for different sized blades. It's really an extension of how I cut housings, sawing each side then chiselling/routing out the waste, but your gadget would do all 3 steps in one. It's a commendable idea, but I think I'll leave you to do the development work!

I don't make housing joints very often now, I used to do them fairly regularly, but these last few years very few projects have called for that sort of joinery, so the method I evolved is tolerable when the need does arise. If I was doing them every day, though, I would be thinking about ways to minimise effort. The logical thing would be to go back to using the screamin' demon I suppose, but I have weaned myself off 'lectric routers as much as possible since I retired. I hate the things with a passion, no other tool I know can destroy a piece of wood as quickly & efficiently, but it's mainly the noise I object to! My old Makita has the noisiest bushes I've ever struck, it sounds like a whole herd of banshees in pain. Whenever I fire it up, the dog panics & heads for the hills....
Cheers,

Power routers, they would be great tool if it wasn't for the noise, dust and ability to destroy wood..