Thread: Stanley #50 as Kerfing Plane

I found myself recently more and more often to resaw small boards for making boxes and others. I could do that on a table saw, but mine is too crappy and I just don't like the noise, etc.

So, I do the resawing more by hand. My sawing skills are not quite there yet so I make a kerf around the board for the hand saw to run in first.

My first approach was to use this jig to establish a kerf.



It is simply a board with two slots to screw an other board onto it. This allows to adjust a ledge underneath the top board of the distance you want the kerf to be from the edge of your board. The jig is then clamped into the vice together with the board to be resawn. I use a back saw to then run along the edge of the top board to cut the kerf.

It works ok and was easy and quick to put together. But with the small teeth it takes a while to make a nice deep kerf. I was always playing with the idea of a kerfing plane. In my scrap metal box I found a cut off from the toe of a hand saw. And I still had a #50, which I restored a while back, but without cutter.

I saw some people used #45s and alike to make a kerfing plane, so I thought why not with the #50 as well.

First I drilled the holes for the rods and clamping screw with my Lazarus drill. It really works so well for saw plates. I have drilled quite a few saw plates now with it without any issues. I use some inexpensive HSS Cobalt drill bits and they just eat their way through. I think with the lower speed and constant downpressure they do not overheat easily. Anyway, I love it.



After having all the holes right I shaped the blade to clear the handle, cleaned and sharpend it. The blade sits in the plane body to give a max of 16mm deep kerf.




For the fence I had to drill and tap two M4 holes to screw a bigger wooden fence onto it. This is to give a better reference area and also the smaller fence would not reference at the beginning of the cut as it sits too high. This was the only permanent alteration to the plane.



It worked very well right away. On the wood I used to test however it tended to clog and I had to frequently brush out the dust. For me that is a minor issue for now. I did not change the TPI in the plate and kept it at the original 6TPI.



Kerf was now cut fast and my big hand saw tracked well in the kerf.
A frame saw for resawing is still on my list as I see myself doing more resawing of small to mid size stock in the future.

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