Thread: Plane challenge 2020 - 2021. Bushmiller

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

It has been a long time between drinks and I had to go back to my earlier posts to see just where I am at: That's always a little confronting for me as I think to myself, "Did I really say that?"

Well, there has been a little bit of progress, and a disproportionate amount of trials and tribulations. Some of my work is a little ahead of itself. I have settled on Hairy/Bull Oak timber for the infills and one problem I had was not having a large enough piece for the handle. This held up the timber decision until I then realised I could glue a few bits together. Except they were not long enough to run through the thicknesser to obtains the correct even thickness so this is what I devised:

Attachment 491217

The medullary rays actually lend themselves very well to a glue up and largely remove the need to match the grain. Of course the long guides will just be cut off.

The next problem was that my only piece of brass flat bar was way too small and it left a huge gap at the mouth. The brass will be a shoe ahead of the blade and removes the difficulty of filing a tight mouth with the bevel up blades. The brass will eventually sit up against the bun infill.

Attachment 491218

Simplicity came to the rescue with some offcuts of brass (thanks Matt: Much appreciated) and I made up two more pieces. They were oversize for the piece of pine but somehow in transferring to the Oaks the gap is again more than I wanted!. I will drop the bed angle down a little. I think that should take up the difference.

Attachment 491219

The next issue was the blade adjuster. The banjo (I think that is what it is called) I just could not get right. Four attempts in all!!!!

Attachment 491223


Part of the problem was that my timber spacer in the drill vice was not square. I kept drilling the hole to be threaded at an angle and the thread came through the side. I trued it up and it worked better.

Attachment 491225


I used the Odd Job tool to mark the centre. I think it is such a cute little tool

Attachment 491224

Here are the adjuster components. The three messed up banjos are there to remind me that life is not easy. The rod on the left is 1/4" and that on the right is 5/16" The piece in the middle with the hexagon is a 5mm bolt. The 5mm end will go into the thicker rod while the other end has been slimmed down to 4mm with the thread removed. The left hand end was threaded at 4mm and will go into the thinner rod with the banjo. This "thinning" was just done on a bench grinder as I don't have a metal lathe. Keep rotating it until the thread disappear and you are done. It is hidden and will be glued as well as screwed. Both bits of rod, which started out life as conventional bolts, are for the moment too long and will be cut down to suit the dimensions of the blades. There will be three blades with different sharpening angles. This will allow for different timbers including the cranky ones.

Attachment 491226

I am still planning in my minds eye how I will drill and tap the holes in the rods.

This is how the rear infill will sit in principle, but still has to be shaped. You can see the too large a mouth. ( Who said big mouth?)

Attachment 491227Attachment 491228

A little more work was done on the cap iron

Attachment 491221Attachment 491222

The Anti-Body will have to have a clean up as I got some surface rust when a rain storm blew into the shed. Fortunately it is fairly easily fixed.

I should at this point say how influenced I was by a well known plane maker who resides in Alstonville. His A55 adjuster is such a good device and my adjuster is very similar. I say similar because his adjuster does not come apart and I have guessed at how it was done. I also wish to assure him that I will not be going into production and he can relax on that score. OK, he was never really worried. On the basis that imitation is a sincere form of flattery I would like him to consider himself soundly flattered.

Regards
Paul

Paul,
I had know idea you were doing an adjuster for your plane, that is very brave, especially not having a metal lathe.

The Infills being Hairy Oak is that an attempt to win the attention of at least one of the judges?, if so well done.

Now with the “Body” donating off cuts, due to your mouth issue, I will keep my own mouth firmly closed[emoji6].

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by Cklett

That's looking good. Coming along nicely.

Although Iam still not sure if I understand how your adjuster works. Can you elaborate?

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

CK

Stay posted. I may be able to get a bit more done today.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Paul,
I had know idea you were doing an adjuster for your plane, that is very brave, especially not having a metal lathe.

The Infills being Hairy Oak is that an attempt to win the attention of at least one of the judges?, if so well done.

Now with the “Body” donating off cuts, due to your mouth issue, I will keep my own mouth firmly closed[emoji6].

Cheers Matt.

Matt

Talking of mouths, I hope I have not bitten off more than I can chew!

Regards
Paul

I have had a little success and multiple trials and tribulations, possibly mainly due to a too casual approach or lack of skill or both, but to remind you I was making up the adjuster from these components:


P1070208 (Medium).JPG

The challenge was to drill a reasonably straight hole and then tap a thread. My wood lathe would be ideal but I don't have a set of jaws that will clamp anything less than about 30mm diameter. So I trued up one end of a piece of angle iron and clamped the larger rod to it. I aligned the drill in two directions to check everything was straight: Quite pleased at this stage, but when I drilled it was horrible. I think the drill bit wandered off line, but I did not pick up on that until I had finished drilling.

P1070210 (Medium).JPGP1070211 (Medium).JPG

So I discarded this method and grabbed my other drill vice, which I remembered had a vee cut out to hold round objects. I drilled the larger rod and although not perfect by a long stretch it will probably work. The smaller rod could not be clamped as the Vee cut was too big and I solved that one by using a piece of timber with a groove filed in it as depicted here:

P1070216 (Medium).JPG

The hole in the 1/4" rod was just about perfect much to my surprise. For those of you not familiar with the HNT Gordon adjuster that Terry uses on his planes, this is it:

P1070212 (Medium).JPGP1070214 (Medium).JPG

This is my effort, which needs modification comprised of cutting the threaded portions down a little. To eliminate backlash the rotating hexagon piece must be flush with the two rods but not tight


P1070217 (Medium).JPG

In these two pix the adjuster is in position

P1070218 (Medium).JPGP1070221 (Medium).JPG

The adjuster sits in a neat fitting hole like below but also needs a trench (marked with felt pen on this scrap wood) so the underside of the blade can sit flush with the blade bed.

P1070224 (Medium).JPGP1070225 (Medium).JPG

A last pic showing the matching heads of the blade adjuster and screw cap lever.

P1070226 (Medium).JPG

Regards
Paul

Nice work Paul, lookin good.

Drilling through the end of the bar was a very courageous move!

I reckon your original set up would have worked with one minor adjustment; starting the hole with a centre bit:
A1A2AFC0-0EF0-4D11-85D9-5A5DE99D62B5.jpeg

Twist drills are pretty good at deflecting away from their desired path until the flutes are through the surface and are able to provide some lateral stability. Especially hand sharpened bits... The centre drill bit is rock solid and will start the hole perfectly concentric with the quill. Stepped tip drills are another little inovation than helps stop the bit wandering.

Anyhoo; well done!

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

Drilling through the end of the bar was a very courageous move!

I reckon your original set up would have worked with one minor adjustment; starting the hole with a centre bit:
A1A2AFC0-0EF0-4D11-85D9-5A5DE99D62B5.jpeg

Twist drills are pretty good at deflecting away from their desired path until the flutes are through the surface and are able to provide some lateral stability. Especially hand sharpened bits... The centre drill bit is rock solid and will start the hole perfectly concentric with the quill. Stepped tip drills are another little inovation than helps stop the bit wandering.

Anyhoo; well done!

Chief

You are quite right and I have both those devices and never thought to use them.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Chief

You are quite right and I have both those devices and never thought to use them.

Regards
Paul

Ah, too bad - there goes your place on the podium,...

But actually - that's a neat bit 'o construction. I'm still in awe of you guys who can do stuff like this in metal.

Steve

Paul,
I’m still quite amazed and in Orr with you doing an adjuster.

It’s looking fantastic,

Cheers Matt.

Paul, I too am impressed, both by your courage to make the attempt with very basic gear, and even more by the result!

Many decades ago, when I made my very first plane (a laminated woodie) I wanted to fit it with an adjuster - I was still very green & thought a plane had to have a screw adjuster to be usable. My effort was far more primitive than yours, cobbled up with some 3/16" all-thread and a cup for the cap-iron screw-head forged from a bit of scrap 1/8" plate (not easy when my only heat-source at the time was a rather puny butane torch). Unlike your relatively refined effort, mine looked very Heath-Robinson-ish, but it worked, sort of. The plane worked "sort of", too, in fact it was a dog of a thing & I used it about twice before putting it on a shelf & allowing it to quietly disintegrate. Too much ambition coupled with too little knowledge almost put me off plane-making for good...

The HNT adjuster is "back to front" compared with the original Tom Norris concept, and having tried my hand at making these type of adjusters recently, I think I can see a couple of distinct advantages in doing it this way for certain applications. The driving pin/spigot is firmly captured, and it keeps the gubbins up at the top of the bed. That's not so important on a BU blade, but with a BD blade, the cap-iron screw can be an obstruction on smaller, more compact planes, as I discovered the hard way (making & fitting a rear bun once per plane is taxing enough, doing it twice is a big chore! ). Anther advantage of the HNT version is having a single, fine, driving thread - the additive LH/RH threads used on both the Norris & the Veritas versions need ridiculously fine threads to slow them down enough to be user-friendly.

If making your own blade, or using a HNT blade, the pre-drilled driver holes will be in the right place, but the Veritas holes are much lower down on the blade because the driving spigot is on the opposite side of the threaded fulcrum. Standard bench-plane blades are also a problem because the lateral-adjuster slot extends up to near the top, so there's nowhere to drill any holes. The original gets around that problem by having a cup or 'banjo' that engages the head of the cap-iron screw. But the driving spigot idea that Stanley used on their 62 & other block planes, which Veritas subsequently adopted is much easier to make than the banjo, and I've been looking for ways to adapt it to a BD cap-ironed blade. The best idea I can come up with is to drill holes in the cap-iron for the driver spigot. It means having a longer (& probably more robust) spigot, but the Bailey cam works very well by engaging the cap-iron, so I don't see any reason why a Norris style adjuster can't do the same. It's on my list of "experimental designs" to try out, some time....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

The HNT adjuster is "back to front" compared with the original Tom Norris concept, and having tried my hand at making these type of adjusters recently, I think I can see a couple of distinct advantages in doing it this way for certain applications. The driving pin/spigot is firmly captured, and it keeps the gubbins up at the top of the bed. That's not so important on a BU blade, but with a BD blade, the cap-iron screw can be an obstruction on smaller, more compact planes, as I discovered the hard way (making & fitting a rear bun once per plane is taxing enough, doing it twice is a big chore! ). Anther advantage of the HNT version is having a single, fine, driving thread - the additive LH/RH threads used on both the Norris & the Veritas versions need ridiculously fine threads to slow them down enough to be user-friendly.


Cheers,

Ian

I used existing threads (on the bolts I pirated) for the thread through the banjo and into the adjuster nut at the top. A fine thread would have been superior at the banjo, but I have gone with the coarse thread, which I think will just mean a smaller rotation will result in the same level of advancement or retraction. Having spent close to three days nutting out the issues and wrestling with the drilling I was reluctant to devote still more time on tapping a fine thread on what could be classified as a refinement. I will have to see whether it works as expected.

I have located my centre drill, which I had not seen for years and was lurking at the back of the cupboard reserved for drills. I have one more 5/16 bolt and I will attempt to re drill the hole there as it was not quite straight enough.

Regards
Paul

Paul, you will manage with the coarser thread, but it may make adjustment more "jumpy" and harder to get really fine increments of blade exposure. Low-angle blades are a bit easier, the edge moves less in the vertical plane on a 12 deg bed than on a 45 or higher bed for a given turn of the screw. The adjusters I put on my chariot & shoulder planes operate on M6 or M5 studs, which at 1mm & 0.8mm respectively have a slightly finer pitch than 5/16 NF (24tpi), but coarser than 1/4" NF (28tpi). At any rate, they make fine adjustment not too difficult for arthritic fingers.

The first Veritas adjusters are far too coarse for my liking & I find mine a real pita to adjust finely. Such experiences were enough to make me wary of trying to add screw adjusters to any of my early metal bench-planes, but I have been fiddling with screw-adjusters again lately. I fitted one to the small smoother I made to take a Veritas block plane blade & it is semi-satisfactory, but still a ways from what I would wish it to be.

I fully appreciate your problems with getting a concentric hole in the bolt - have tried it myself using similar techniques & ended up giving up in frustration. I would go out & buy a brand-new drill bit as well as starting with the centre bit. A new bit makes a far better fist of running straight - they get them far more accurate in the factory than I can get mine on my drill-bit sharpener. If all else fails, the adjuster isn't absolutely necessary to getting your plane "judge-ready", so do your best & if you can't get it to your satisfaction, sometime when you are on your way to or from Brisbane, drop in with the bits & we can tidy it up on the metal lathe......

Cheers,

Ian

Thanks for your offers and comments.

In fact I did use a brand new drill bit and not only that it was a good brand name as opposed to the volume bits I buy that are suitable for rough work and wood. I think it still moved off centre and possibly it was my centre punch that led it astray: I don't really know now. I hope to have another go with the drilling tomorrow.

Regards
Paul

One advantage of this style of adjuster, that I have not pointed to, is that the banjo is free to rotate in the location hole. While this is very restricted because of the the trench the shaft sits within, it does give a small degree of lateral adjustment to the blade for squaring up.

Regards
Paul