Thread: Quick and dirty jointers

Hey, great job Arron! Really great job.

Now let's see some curlies.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Derek. If by "curlies" you mean shavings then how about this four metre job coming out of the plane with the racingstripe.

The oak/rengas plane is excellent, but the all-oak version found its way into the offcut bin today. In heavy use the blade kept moving around, which I guess is indicative that the blade seat was not made with enough care.

cheers
Arron

Arron

Impressive!

I assume you are going to try again, that is build afresh the oak plane. I suggest that you do one at a different cutting angle. The above one looks to be 45 degrees. That would be good for pine. Now what about a 60 degree one for hardwoods?

Regards from Perth

Derek

:eek: No way :eek:

Arron,

Can we see the bottom of it?

The oak/rengas plane is excellent, but the all-oak version found its way into the offcut bin today. In heavy use the blade kept moving around, which I guess is indicative that the blade seat was not made with enough care.

Arron

Don't be too quick to discard the oak plane. All that may be wrong is that the wedge does not fit well enough. It needs to seat fully. If this is the case, you may be able to fix the existing one, or make a new one that works better.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Great work, Arron. Well done. Particularly impressed with that 2-mile long shaving!

Do you know whether Paul's still have any of those Mujingfang planes left ?

Col

Aaron, I'm impressed!!!!! I shouldn't have looked at this post cos now I'm getting ideas. I noticed that the blades are positioned towards the end of the plane. Most of the smoothers I have seen (i.e. old ones at the markets) have the blades positioned towards the middle. Is there any reason for this and does it affect the performace?

Also Derek, you mentioned a 60 degree plane for hardwoods. I saw a reference to this on a another site but I was wondering if there is any changes needed for the bevel angle or if you just put a normal blade at 60 degrees?

Once again well done - a nice piece of work

Matto

Matto

Regarding your question about building a plane with a 60 degree blade angle, the answer is "yes", all you need do is seat the blade at 60 degrees. This is optimum for the hardest and most difficult timber.

I am not sure what you mean by "normal blade". I suspect you mean blades that are seated at 45 degrees (as in all Stanley bench planes). If you have a spare blade what you can try is to add a 15 degree backbevel to the blade. This will effectively convert it to a 60 degree cutting angle.

Blades used at 60 degrees are going to have more of a scraping action than a cutting one and this puts more stress on the blade. So a thicker blade is preferable, or a standard Stanley thickness with a thicker cap iron. Really thick blades, such as the HNT Gordon's (1/4" thick) do not need a cap iron after 55 degrees.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Some replies:

Matto
actually the blades are not as far back as they look in the photo. The sole is 430mm long and the blade comes through at a point 240mm from the front. Also, I think they are jointers, not smoothers - I think a wooden smoother would be about 220mm long and yes I would put the blade in the middle or a bit towards the front.

Wongo
I dont have a picture of the bottom but really there is nothing to show - just a slot with the blade poking through. The slot is about 7mm long and about 1mm wider then blade (which is 45mm). It may be worthwhile to add a brass lip - although I am not really after longevity and I doubt it would alter the performance.

Driver
When I went into Pauls a couple of weeks ago they only had about a dozen Muji. planes left. They were hidden all over the joint - mostly on or under that long table in the entranceway or immediately opposite the registers. There were about a dozen separate blades as well. However, they have been just about to sell out for months and then every now and then they get a few more from somewhere. The staff member I spoke to said he may get a few more from the warehouse soon - but he thinks there is just a few left there too.

Derek
Too late with the oak plane - already trashed. I have found that with the limited tools and time that I have it is nearly impossible to improve an inaccurate abutment or blade seat working freehand from above. It is better to just make another one, so today I made a nice matched pair in oak. One is at 45degrees and the other is at 60degrees.

I have a bit of oak left and was wondering about making a third as a low angle. Can you tell me please what constitutes a 'low angle', what is it used for, and is there any real purpose in having a low angle plane at this length (430mm).


In case anyone is interested, I have attached a photo of a plane before gluing up. Note that the most important thing is to get the blade seat and wedge abutment cut absolutely accurately - across all three pieces as they join up. Any slight inaccuracy leads to a blade that will work out of adjustment as you use it. I can get that accuracy with very careful work on a table saw by sneaking up, but not with hand tools. The way the rest of the plane is shaped doesnt seem to matter much and is probably just a matter of what looks cool. I only spend about 15 minutes on shaping using a spokeshave and linisher.

cheers
Arron