Thread: A split-sole plane (part 1)

Ian,
you make have provided your reasoning in the past an I may have forgotten [emoji17].

But I’m fairly certain Konrad of Konrad Planes inserts is stuffing on his planes before peening them together,so i would assume(hate that word) he is acutely using the stuffing as the peening block.

But yes a lot times it could be in the way,but other times it could possibly be a benefit???

This is all only hypothetical because as you well know, I’m very new to plane building.

Cheers Matt.

Looks like it's coming together nicely!

I have a poor man's trick for final surfacing of the sole to get the voids to go away - it's always worked for me, but I could see it not working if there are several at different levels.

It works like this - you start leveling a sole or cleaning up pins and tails, and a small void starts to show. Rather than continuing closer to finished level to try to get to the beans and then fix it, take a good relatively broad ball pein hammer and lightly tap the void until it shuts (it generally will). No more than is needed but make sure it's closed.

Continue leveling. If there are a couple, they may need this treatment twice or so or as you're cleaning up another, but you can sneak up on a finished look and the peins are only very shallow so they come out quickly draw filing, or lapping or whatever you like to do to remove material.

I've chased two or three on one side of a plane a couple of thousandths of metal depth ( in removing metal until the last pein mark is gone), but they do seem to close with just a little depth, so you have wiggle room. I used to also worry about "what will happen if I ever true a side? They'll come back", etc. but must admit my first infill was 11 years ago and I haven't touched a side since.

My spouse dropped my skew shooter infill on a concrete floor (she despises my hobbies, but just did that out of carelessness trying to clean something) - and it took a little bit of cosmetic damage (the pins telegraphed from the impact), but again, I have to admit I never did anything about it as it still works fine.

First two planes were O1, so everything else has seemed to pein nicely after that other than 360 brass, which appears to pein nicely and then just crumbles when it's had enough.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

........But I’m fairly certain Konrad of Konrad Planes inserts is stuffing on his planes before peening them together,so i would assume(hate that word) he is acutely using the stuffing as the peening block.

But yes a lot times it could be in the way, but other times it could possibly be a benefit???

This is all only hypothetical because as you well know, I’m very new to plane building......

Matt, I've read quite a few of Konrad's blogs over the years, he was one of my main inspirations when I was first thinking about this plane-making business (& in fact, I got a lever cap from him via a mutual friend for my very first effort). I can't say I ever got the impression he uses the stuffing for the peening block. He may have done that on occasion & I missed it, but he often talks about making the stuffing, & even makes a mock-ip from scrap if he's worried about a complicated fit or wants to iron out the details (as I do).

Not sayin' it isn't possible, and maybe you could save yourself some time, but it seems to me you'd be likely to give yourself more problems doing it that way. It is a bit of a pain in the butt having to make peening blocks, especially for bodies with curved sides, and even more of a pain when you never make exactly the same plane twice & just chuck it in the firewood pile as soon as it's finished (like some dope I know ).

If you ever go into full production, you can have a set of blocks for standard designs that you could use over & over - there's no reason they'd ever wear out....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by D.W.

......
I have a poor man's trick for final surfacing of the sole to get the voids to go away - it's always worked for me, but I could see it not working if there are several at different levels.

It works like this - you start leveling a sole or cleaning up pins and tails, and a small void starts to show. Rather than continuing closer to finished level to try to get to the beans and then fix it, take a good relatively broad ball pein hammer and lightly tap the void until it shuts (it generally will). No more than is needed but make sure it's closed.....

Yeah, I always leave the body on the peening block & keep a sharp watch as I start cleaning up, and if it looks like a pin or tail hasn't been hammered down enough, it's back to the anvil quick-smart for a bit more treatment. After my first couple of planes I've had few problems with the pins. It's the brass of the tails that causes me grief if I'm using the 380 brass (the only grade easily obtainable here in suitable sizes). I imagine 360 is very close to the same as 380 when it comes to peening, it will tolerate some, but not much compared with softer grades like cartridge brass (260, etc.), which you can hammer out into paper-thin sheets if you so desire. Where I came to grief with this plane was having too much extra brass protruding - as you quickly discover in this business there's a real Goldilocks amount to have, and if you leave too much of the brittler brass, you are bound to get splitting before you can fill the voids properly.

I've had several bits of Chinese-made brass designated "H62" by their system. It's a fairly high zinc content alloy, but without the lead of the "machinable" brasses, and I don't know if thet's the reason, but it peens like a dream.

My experience so far suggests that of the steels generally available, cold-rolled mild is the best choice for a learner. It's the same as hot-rolled to cut & peen, but has far less scale & takes less cleaning up.

I used 5mm O1 for the sole of my panel plane and 304 SS for the little brother: PPs cf.jpg

They were about the same to peen, & very little harder than mild steel, but the SS was better to file. Once I got past the hardened surface, it filed very nicely, without the "crumbing" that mild steel is so prone to (O1 is marginally better than mild steel in that respect, I've found).

The worst-peening steel I've struck so far is some gifted SS of unknown alloy. It was a bear to work, I had to hit it harder & longer to close the pins but it didn't show the slightest sign of cracking or flaking. It was harder to file, too! But when I finally got it all licked into shape, I had a lovely little smoother that should still be usable 250 years from now (if there's still any wood available to plane!)... Bull oak 170mm.jpg


Cheers,

Didn't get as much time on the new plane as I hoped, yesterday, so just a quick entry on the little bit of progress made:

I made a bridge, & a cross-piece for the back (something to attach the adjuster to). These are both riveted in place. I used 3mm brass rod, tapped into the fitted piece, then peened into recesses on the sides:
5_1.jpg

The bridge & the back of the rear cross-piece were finished & polished before riveting in place, since they won't be accessible after installation.

Now for the front bun and wedge. I had some nice western rosewood (Acacia rhodoxylon), that was meant for the job - it has some subtle figure that should be more obvious when finished, & the flow of the grain even matches my proposed wedge!
5_2.jpg 5_3.jpg

At close of business last night, I had the woodwork roughed out:
5_4.jpg

Unless fate intervenes, I promise there'll be some shavings tonight....

Another partial day & still a ways to go, but as promised, I can show you some shavings at last:
6-1.jpg

Today's effort was all about shaping the wedge, fitting a brass cup for the thumbscrew to bear on, and giving it a quick polish to see how the "rosewood" scrubs up. I'm quite pleased with it, it's not highly figured like ring gidgee, but it has a deep lustre with fine golden highlights that many Acacias have. It's also very tactile & feels as good in the hand as the Macassar ebony of it's smaller sibling.

Tonight I left it with the front bun and a filler piece for the blade bed glued in to cure over night:
6-2.jpg

Tomorrow, I'll decide whether to pin the bun or just rely on the glue (I checked the other one & I've pinned it, so I suppose I should do the same on this one). After that, I'll give the sides a thorough sanding & a polish. I don't like the current knob, it's one I dragged out of my odd bits'n'pieces drawer & has the diamond knurl I put on everything when that was the only knurl I had. So I'll probably make a new knob with the parallel knurling I currently favour. Then I can do a "studio portrait" for you..

The sole needs a bit more lapping, it's level, but there is a bit of a low spot just in front of the mouth that I'll work out when I feel like doing that. But after this one is done & dusted, I'm quitting the plane business for a very long time, if not forever. I neither need nor want another plane (in fact a few will need to find other lodgings!), and I have a couple of nice furniture projects coming up that will see at least some of them get a good workout, and that'll keep me well occupied for the foreseeable future....

Cheers,

I like that little brass cup in the "wedge" trick. IF I remember I might borrow that one one day.

Originally Posted by IanW

Yeah, I always leave the body on the peening block & keep a sharp watch as I start cleaning up, and if it looks like a pin or tail hasn't been hammered down enough, it's back to the anvil quick-smart for a bit more treatment. After my first couple of planes I've had few problems with the pins. It's the brass of the tails that causes me grief if I'm using the 380 brass (the only grade easily obtainable here in suitable sizes). I imagine 360 is very close to the same as 380 when it comes to peening, it will tolerate some, but not much compared with softer grades like cartridge brass (260, etc.), which you can hammer out into paper-thin sheets if you so desire. Where I came to grief with this plane was having too much extra brass protruding - as you quickly discover in this business there's a real Goldilocks amount to have, and if you leave too much of the brittler brass, you are bound to get splitting before you can fill the voids properly.

I've had several bits of Chinese-made brass designated "H62" by their system. It's a fairly high zinc content alloy, but without the lead of the "machinable" brasses, and I don't know if thet's the reason, but it peens like a dream.

My experience so far suggests that of the steels generally available, cold-rolled mild is the best choice for a learner. It's the same as hot-rolled to cut & peen, but has far less scale & takes less cleaning up.

I used 5mm O1 for the sole of my panel plane and 304 SS for the little brother: PPs cf.jpg

They were about the same to peen, & very little harder than mild steel, but the SS was better to file. Once I got past the hardened surface, it filed very nicely, without the "crumbing" that mild steel is so prone to (O1 is marginally better than mild steel in that respect, I've found).

The worst-peening steel I've struck so far is some gifted SS of unknown alloy. It was a bear to work, I had to hit it harder & longer to close the pins but it didn't show the slightest sign of cracking or flaking. It was harder to file, too! But when I finally got it all licked into shape, I had a lovely little smoother that should still be usable 250 years from now (if there's still any wood available to plane!)... Bull oak 170mm.jpg


Cheers,

That's my experience with 360 - if everything is very precise, no problem. When I've pushed it (like the diagonal rod in the skew shooter, trying to get that to fill more than just its sized hole (hard for a guy with no machine tools to drill diagonally into a steel side). It seems to pein fine, and then all at once at some point, it will just crumble. 260 brass isn't hard to find over here, but it's not always easy to find for a reasonable price. I guess the 360 is so popular because few want to make something without machining now, and they want "less gummy" materials.

Originally Posted by Picko

I like that little brass cup in the "wedge" trick. IF I remember I might borrow that one one day.

I'll waive the licensing fee in your case, Picko.

This was one of my very few "original" ideas (or so I thought). It occurred to me when I wanted to add an adjuster to one of my early laminated shoulder planes. It already had a simple wedge, but I wanted some way that the wedge pressure could be released quickly & easily for adjustments. A screw bearing on a metal cup in the wedge seemed like a good bet, and yep, it works a treat.

But anyone familiar with some of the less common Norris planes could have told me that I'd been beaten to it by about 100 years. There's an identical system on the adjuster versions of Norris thumb planes & shoulder planes. It doesn't appear that he patented it, and it's possible he "borrowed" it himself, but it's a pretty obvious way to go (must be if I thought of it! ) & patent law disallows things that are too obvious. I can't remember exactly how it's phrased, but this would probably fall into that category.

So just give another nod in Tom Norris's direction when you use the idea......
Cheers,
Ian

Hi IW, What fantastic work! I love the idea of gluing the wedge to the job as a filing guide . Gave me an idea about how to do the rough work to correct the bevel and edge without a grinder on some very badly banged up Japanese chisels I have . I saw that D.W. gave you some great tips about hardening . A thought I had about tips for forging and tempering might be to look at knife-nut forums like bladeforums.com or similar . They are always trying new tricks to see if there might be another way to do something especially with limited equipment . Those guys change the steels they use like other people change their underwear so there is usually info about all sorts.

Originally Posted by pianoman

...... A thought I had about tips for forging and tempering might be to look at knife-nut forums like bladeforums.com or similar . They are always trying new tricks to see if there might be another way to do something especially with limited equipment . Those guys change the steels they use like other people change their underwear so there is usually info about all sorts.....

Thanks pianoman. D.W. has just put up a thread on steels & hardening & linked to a blog that tells you more than you ever wanted to know about hardening blade steels! Having read through it, I'm 98% convinced my troubles are all with quenching. I've just re-made my "coffee-can" forge and it needs to dry & cure thoroughly before I fire it up again, but I have one or two more blades to harden when it's ready, & I'll see if I have solved my problem.
Cheers,

Got some unexpected bonus shed time today, so I finished it off (sorta, still debating if I'll add a screw adjuster or not).

I lapped the sole a little bit more & got rid of the low spot in front of the mouth:

2 ETP2 mth.jpg

I gave it another test run and it feels pretty good & is easy to set for fine shavings:

1 ETP2 shavings.jpg

The new plane is wider & longer than the "prototype", which is just a tad shorter than the Veritas apron plane. Number 2 is a tad longer & wider:

3 ETP sizes.jpg

So here's a "studio portrait" of it in its prime

4 ETPb.jpg

Now the dilemma is, which one gets the guernsey? I really like #1, it is very comfy for one handed use, but is ok with two hands, too. The new plane feels a bit chunkier in my smallish hands, but still ok (it would probably be better for anyone with larger fists), and is a bit more comfy if used with two hands. The only way to decide is to use 'em both for a while & see which one tends to be taken out more often.

5 ETPs.jpg

This is a pretty simple & straightforward little plane to make when you feel you are ready to try a split sole - I'll add it to the "manual" shortly. But I would suggest you stick with mild steel for your first attempt, the SS isn't all that much more difficult as far as the peening is concerned, but it will test you quite a bit more in making the sole joint....
Cheers,

Beautiful Ian, just beautiful! And they work!! Re. making last plane, what will you do with shed time then? Clean up???

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

....... Re. making last plane, what will you do with shed time then? Clean up???....

You're spot-on there china! My shed is a dog's breakfast atm, I'd be mortified if any of you walked in tomorrow. Been coming & going from working in the yard, fixing chainsaws every second day ( ) piling stuff on two of my 3 benches to clear enough space to work (luckily, a plane doesn't need much), so yes indeedy, it needs a major cleanup!

But before I do that I've got to take the head off the ride-on mower - it's running like a hairy goat & has about half the compression it's supposed to have, & I think it has cooked a valve. When I was 16 I loved engines & was never happier than when I had a spanner in my hand - now I loathe it & put off touching the thing 'til it became beyond a joke

Once that's out of the way, it's a big spring clean then into some real woodwork at last. It'll be such a pleasure to get my woodwork bench back, free of brass & steel filings!

Cheers