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  1. #76
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    For those who may be interested, check out KK's work bench build. While Mike describes himself as a "relative novice" his bench is in stark contrast to this.

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  3. #77
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    Please gentlemen, just keep calm and stay grumpy, as the T-shirt my sister gave me says (I think she was sending me a message??).....

    Really, D.W., what does it matter if a bunch of hobbyists save a few transitionals from Patricks bonfire, have a bit of fun with them & decide for themselves what they think of them? Some may find them to their liking, some won't, but they'll all learn something of value to themselves & possibly to others. There are a few enthusiasts who extol the virtues of transitionals, and at least one of those I've seen was a pretty competent woodworker. As I said, I tried a couple myself and didn't take to them as enthusiastically as Mike has to his #29, but then it was 40 years ago & I was pathetically ignorant of the ways of planes at the time. He may well find subsequent forays into the genre aren't as rewarding as the #29, but that's all part of learning too.

    We don't all like the same tools for all sorts of reasons, it's not always possible to explain logically why one tool feels just right to you while a similar one doesn't. For instance I've made 3 English thumb planes over the last year or so, they are all very similar, just slightly different widths and slightly different shapes to the wedge/handle:
    Sizes cf b.jpg

    One of them feels perfect in the hand and is the one I prefer to use, but I have yet to figure out exactly why - it's not the handle shape per se, but I think that is part of it, combined with the overall weight. It just feels so 'balanced' in my hand & begs to be used whenever I pick it up. I showed them to someone else recently & they preferred one of the others.

    Different folks like different strokes, let's just learn to accept that & get on with whatever floats our own boats. Nothing wrong with being enthusiastic about what works for us & telling the world, but if someone else prefers to do things a different way, that just adds spice to life, imo. Hobbyists are not in the business to earn their living, efficiency is usually the last consideration - we're here to have fun. I enjoyed Mike's enthusiasm over his 'discovery' & sincerely hope he gets as much pleasure from his "Jenny". If he strikes trouble or finds it a pig & not a hard-working mule, I'm sure he's honest enough to let us know pretty soon.....

    Cheers,
    ian
    IW

  4. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by raffo View Post
    My understanding is that a Badger plane is a large rabbet plane, not a jack.

    The Black Dog's Woodshop: A Badger Plane

    All wood planes in the English tradition don't have knobs. European style smoothers have a sort of horn at the toe.

    In this blog, this guy demonstrates how to hold the plane.

    How To Set A Wooden Plane - The English Woodworker

    Raffo,

    Yes, you are partially correct and so am I. A Badger Plane is a large rabbet plane, but unless I'm mistaken the blade has to be skewed and I think bevel down to qualify as a Badger Plane. And I think it may apply only to the wooden varieties. Both Lie Nielsen and Veritas make low angle (BU) jack rabbet planes but I believe neither qualify as Badger planes because of the reasons above. I am also correct describing it as a Jack plane because the "Jack" descriptor has evolved to describe the size of the plane. Planes with soles 14"~16" in length are usually called Jack planes. I think planes around these sizes were called Jacks because they were considered to be a "Jack of all Trades" but master of none, i.e. they could be used to perform reasonably well as a large smoother, a short jointer, a large scrub plane, etc but weren't usually good as planes that specialised in each of those tasks. And for the record, when I tested my Badger, I cut a 20mm wide rebate into the edge of a Tassie Oak board.


    Cheers,
    Mike

  5. #79
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    Please gentlemen, just keep calm and stay grumpy, as the T-shirt my sister gave me says (I think she was sending me a message??).....

    Really, D.W., what does it matter if a bunch of hobbyists save a few transitionals from Patricks bonfire, have a bit of fun with them & decide for themselves what they think of them? Some may find them to their liking, some won't, but they'll all learn something of value to themselves & possibly to others. There are a few enthusiasts who extol the virtues of transitionals, and at least one of those I've seen was a pretty competent woodworker. As I said, I tried a couple myself and didn't take to them as enthusiastically as Mike has to his #29, but then it was 40 years ago & I was pathetically ignorant of the ways of planes at the time. He may well find subsequent forays into the genre aren't as rewarding as the #29, but that's all part of learning too.

    We don't all like the same tools for all sorts of reasons, it's not always possible to explain logically why one tool feels just right to you while a similar one doesn't. For instance I've made 3 English thumb planes over the last year or so, they are all very similar, just slightly different widths and slightly different shapes to the wedge/handle:
    Sizes cf b.jpg

    One of them feels perfect in the hand and is the one I prefer to use, but I have yet to figure out exactly why - it's not the handle shape per se, but I think that is part of it, combined with the overall weight. It just feels so 'balanced' in my hand & begs to be used whenever I pick it up. I showed them to someone else recently & they preferred one of the others.

    Different folks like different strokes, let's just learn to accept that & get on with whatever floats our own boats. Nothing wrong with being enthusiastic about what works for us & telling the world, but if someone else prefers to do things a different way, that just adds spice to life, imo. Hobbyists are not in the business to earn their living, efficiency is usually the last consideration - we're here to have fun. I enjoyed Mike's enthusiasm over his 'discovery' & sincerely hope he gets as much pleasure from his "Jenny". If he strikes trouble or finds it a pig & not a hard-working mule, I'm sure he's honest enough to let us know pretty soon.....

    Cheers,
    ian

    Ian,

    Thank you for your reply and your kind words of wisdom. I'm happy to share my woodworking adventures warts and all. I'll post an update about my other transitional planes , including Jenny, when I get them and start the restoration and customisation process. I'm never afraid to report about my mistakes and failures, and if Jenny proves to be a recalcitrant plane, then be assured I'll give an honest account even if it shows that I was wrong. But we may be counting our chickens before they hatch. It's been a few days since the auction for Jenny ended and there has been no movement according to the tracking info I was given other than the shipping label had been created. I suspect the seller may have found out the collectibilty of Jenny and is unhappy with the auction price and is having 2nd thoughts. I hope not.


    Cheers,
    Mike

  6. #80
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    To D.W.

    I am aware you have posted another reply in this thread despite my explicit request for you to stop doing so. Please be aware that I have not read what you wrote and that all of your future posts will be hidden from me because I have placed you in my "Ignore List". I urge you to reciprocate and place me in your ignore list as well. That way all of my posts will be hidden from you and you won't be triggered by whatever it is I do that you find so offensive.

    This next bit may seem like a parting swipe at you, but I assure you that it's not. I cannot help but think that with your dour and serious attitude, there is very little fun and joy in your life. For your sake I hope I am wrong, but if I'm remotely close to the truth, then I urge you to seek professional help. I wish you all the best and may our paths never cross again.



    Regards,
    Michael Morante
    A hobbyist woodworker desperately trying to get better at transforming big bits of wood into smaller bits of wood but having heaps of fun in the process.

  7. #81
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    Quote Originally Posted by raffo View Post
    My understanding is that a Badger plane is a large rabbet plane, not a jack.....
    Sort of, Raffo, but a badger is more than a big rebate plane. They are actually quite odd beasts, the blade is not only skewed, but leant over to the left so that only the very tip of the blade peeks out through (usually) a very small opening on one side. The opposite side is closed, so if you wanted to use them in earnest you needed a pair. And they were made both with wooden & all-metal bodies, Spiers most certainly made infill badgers, for one, & Konrad Sauer has had a go at some too.

    Badgers have a unique construction, & just why they were made so I wish I knew! I have searched quite a bit to find out what I could about them & turned up little on what their specific purpose was. The story seems to be that badgers are of Scottish origin, but there seems to be very little on who needed these planes for what precise purpose. I can't figure out what a badger can do that a skewed rebate can't, the only suggestion I have is that having one full side side and only a small opening on the other side makes them sturdier than a typical rebate plane.

    Quote Originally Posted by raffo View Post
    .......In this blog, this guy demonstrates how to hold the plane.....

    How To Set A Wooden Plane - The English Woodworker
    Actually the bloke you linked to isn't holding his plane in the "traditional" English (British?) way according to an old book I have. His thumb should be on the side of the plane. Apparently, many an old jack plane could be found with quite a deep indentation worn into the side from years of being gripped by a horny workman's thumb. IIRC, I've seen a picture of Jim Kingshott holding his plane so. Why they do/did that beats me, it looks awkward & when I tried it, I found it was awkward, but then I've never used wooden jack planes seriously & the ones I tried never grabbed me the way they do some......

    Cheers,
    IW

  8. #82
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    In an attempt to cleanse the bitter taste the last few posts left in my mouth, and at the risk of upseting the purists amongst us, I have another wood in consideration for my customised transitionals......


    20220622_142015#1.jpg














































    ......farm-fresh Macassar Ebony just picked this arvo and straight onto my plate !!!

    Some of these pieces are barely a whisker from my required finish dimensions that I'm gonna hafta dimension them entirely with a handplane. That'll be a first for me. Previously, I've had the luxury of using my machines to bring them close to the finished sizes and then cleaning the machine marks off with a hand plane. I couldn't help myself and I had to see what I could expect the finish piece to look like......



    20220622_155531.jpg20220622_160115.jpg















    ....so out came the #29. TBH, it was still on the bench. I know, I know - I gotta get into the habit of putting things away and being a lot cleaner. One of these days....My depth of cut is quite thick because with this particular piece I have enough thickness-wise to use my thicknesser but only a millimetre to spare width-wise.


    20220622_155615.jpg












    In my enthusiasm, I made a classic rookie mistake - I planed one edge.....

    20220622_160331.jpg
















    .....and then one face before remembering to see if I first had to get rid of any twists, wind, or cupping. Luckily for me I realised my mistake before I got too far into it. I was even luckier that the face I planed ended up completely flat when I checked it against a flat surface. It's good enough to use as the reference face when I run the piece through the thicknesser. I've got about 3mm to play with thickness-wise. It was too much to ask for the edge I was planing to be square to my reference face. Lucky for me it's not out by much as I only have a mm to play with and I'll have to get both edges (which will become the sides of the plane) square, smooth, and parallel to each other. It may be easy for some, but as I keep telling people, I'm still very much a noob so follow me at your own risk!!


    20220622_160602.jpg20220622_162049.jpg














    I'll leave you all with a couple of shots of the planed reference face. If things go to plan, this piece will become the wooden base of my transitional Jack Plane and this face will be the top. The close up shot is with a lick of metho to show the grain but I'm afraid my photography skills wasn't up to the challenge of capturing the figure and chatoyance of the timber. If you look closely you can see the "track" marks left by the #29. I'll set up the Sargent 3412 as a dedicated smoother with a slightly cambered blade so that I don't get these "track" marks in the future. I'll be able to interchange the blade assembly between the #3412, #29 (fore plane), and my Jack plane as they'll all have the same size blades - 2 3/8". At least that' the plan. I've yet to source a donor for my Jack plane. Jenny (also a smoother) will a blade interchangeable with my future jointer. Both use a 2 5/8" frog and blade. Yep, that's not a typo. Jenny is quite a short and phatt lady. She's only 13" long but has the same size blade a #8 jointer !!! AFAIK, she has no metal-bodied equivalent and probably no all-wooden either.


    The last shot is taken inside probably 20 minutes later after the metho has evaporated.


    And just in case anyone is still interested, the #29 handled the Macassar Ebony {Average Dried Weight: 70 lbs/ft3 (1,120 kg/m3); Janka Hardness: 3,220 lbf (14,140 N)} without skipping a beat.......but by now I was expecting it to.





    Cheers,
    Mike

  9. #83
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    Raffo,

    Below are some photos showing the skew of the blade and how it sticks out on one side as Ian described.


    20220622_172204.jpg20220622_172209.jpg 20220622_172232.jpg



















    And below are a couple of photos of the blade/cap-iron assembly.


    20220622_172411.jpg20220622_172432.jpg
















    In case you missed it, I'm aware the connection between the blade and cap-iron isn't perfect. Not only do I need to first fix the mismatched skew, but it's quite evident upon close inspection that I need to get rid of some more scratches and pitting where the blade meets the cap-iron in order to improve performance. But the first task is to fix the skew. I didn't fix it initially because I was unsure which one had the correct skew angle. There was a chance that neither were right and both needing correcting. It's only after I installed them back into the plane that I was satisfied that the skew of the blade is correct, or close enough, and it's the cap-iron I'll need to fix. It's why I haven't done a "review" just yet. Once I've fettled it where I think I cannot improve it any further, then I'll share my thoughts and experience. But one thing I've definitely made my mind on is the ergonomics of the plane. It is terrible !! I back up Ian's experience and I'll be seeking to remedy it with the addition of a front knob once I learn to use my lathe. I know this will upset the purists. The plane has already been modified by a previous owner - the fence is not original. I can tell because it's of a different material (Mahogany is my guess) and the quality of the fence is not consistent with the workmanship of the rest of the plane. The ends of the fence still had rough saw marks which I had to get rid of with my shooting plane. I feel this justifies my intended modification and if the purists are still upset, well I think I've made it quite clear that I do things for my own pleasure and not to gain the approval of people I've never even met.




    Cheers,
    Mike

  10. #84
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    Sort of, Raffo, but a badger is more than a big rebate plane.
    They are a top escapement rebate plane and some are made to work more like a moving fillister. not sure if any text ever listed them, but they are one sided only - there is no need given the cap iron from them to have an opposite side. the iron is askew to cut end grain, the size is for trying type work to bottom a large rebate or field a panel, and the iron tilts to reach the bottom of the plane only to preserve the cheeks on a jack or large jack-sized plane, and preserve the escapement shape. Or to be more clear, there's no other way to arrange the iron in the plane if it's going to be a relatively simply made iron, have it cut to the edge, and not have the plane be flimsy -see comment about two types below, as there as more than one type....

    I've got two types - one is a mathieson closed handle jack or short trying plane with a huge wide iron and the side is slipped. It can be used as a skewed jack with the slip left on the plane - the iron is skewed - or the slip removed to use it to cut flush truing or sinking a large rebate where the bulk work would've been done ahead of time with a jack plane or a draw knife or hand saw. This was a factory offering from mathieson.

    The second type is the more typical type where the iron leans to the edge of the plane. Before these were common, large panel raising planes existed to bottom wide rebates or field panels. I had one of those two - john bell, philadelphia - single iron 3" wide. Planes of this type were usually cast aside when the front corner of the mouth started to wear as they ceased to feed reliably.

    Badgers would've been used on agreeable woods if the rebate was wide as they usually don't have a nicker and the width makes it necessary sometimes to have a dowel installed on the front (sometimes the old panel raisers had that), or for trying (middle, prepping for surface finish) removing the wonks left by a jack plane or draw knife that removed most of the material.

    it's not easy to find a use for a badger plane unless you're working entirely by hand and have very pleasant wood to work. I've had types that had depth stops installed (looked original) and not, and with a moving fillister type fence on the bottom, and not. Never seen any that look like they were made after the very early 1900s and would guess they were eliminated by power shapers becoming more common.

    The ability to get a double iron in the plane for middle work would've made it far more useful than a single iron skew rebate plane -faster to use, only one plane needed to go all the way around something like a large door panel or to cut a large rebate, though you can find tons of examples of handled side escapement single iron planes with nickers on both sides.

  11. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    Please gentlemen, just keep calm and stay grumpy, as the T-shirt my sister gave me says (I think she was sending me a message??).....

    Really, D.W., what does it matter if a bunch of hobbyists save a few transitionals from Patricks bonfire, have a bit of fun with them & decide for themselves what they think of them?
    it doesn't - my first comment was basic advice. if you're really into woodworking, then don't get too fascinated with transitionals. I have no clue who the OP was and I can tell that despite having a 6 year old login here, he's not seen much thus far with planes. That's life. The outsized reaction is what caused the follow up. When I started in woodworking, there as a fellow from australia doing gobs of playing with a stanley 55. I think he liked that it tested him, but his advice when anyone asked him about it was generally "I wouldn't buy one to do this". I've bought/made my share of tools that ended up being throw-away. A group of transitionals was in that, as were my early wooden planes, which were single iron.

    can do on the stay grumpy order, though.

  12. #86
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    Sort of, Raffo, but a badger is more than a big rebate plane. They are actually quite odd beasts, the blade is not only skewed, but leant over to the left so that only the very tip of the blade peeks out through (usually) a very small opening on one side. The opposite side is closed, so if you wanted to use them in earnest you needed a pair. And they were made both with wooden & all-metal bodies, Spiers most certainly made infill badgers, for one, & Konrad Sauer has had a go at some too.

    Badgers have a unique construction, & just why they were made so I wish I knew! I have searched quite a bit to find out what I could about them & turned up little on what their specific purpose was. The story seems to be that badgers are of Scottish origin, but there seems to be very little on who needed these planes for what precise purpose. I can't figure out what a badger can do that a skewed rebate can't, the only suggestion I have is that having one full side side and only a small opening on the other side makes them sturdier than a typical rebate plane.
    I have a couple of them, one in working order and the other needs repair. I looked them up also when I first learned about them. The link below has some information about its creator.

    The Valley Woodworker: Panel raising or Badger planes?

    They were still sold in 1938, see page 81 of the catalog below. I've seen them listed in Mathieson catalogs as well.

    https://toolemera.typepad.com/files/marplescat1938.pdf

    They were indeed made in right hand and left side versions, I haven't seen a left side one.

    The bedding of the iron is rotated in addition to being skewed, that characteristic is what differentiates these planes from panel raisers. The rotation allows the corner of the blade to be exposed on the side of the plane, thus being able to cut a rabbet of arbitrary depth. In contrast, a panel raiser has a built in maximum depth, see the examples in the first link above.

    I don't pretend to be authoritative about the whole range of uses these planes had, but cutting rabbets, large ones, seems to have been their main purpose.

    Since they sport a double iron, the quality of the surface of the rabbet is better than that of single iron plane. Another thought that occurs to me and that is that most rabbets cut with a single iron rabbet planes are not for show.

    There's an american plane maker that makes his own badger plane (Badger Planes), I think I saw him explain he uses them to cut the rabbets on some of his moulding planes.

    Raf

    P.S. Here's a plane I was too slow to pull the trigger on from Patrick Leach's monthly list, a boxed Badger plane, approx. US$175. If I remember correctly the boxing was dovetailed.

    Boxed Badger Plane 01.jpg

    The Badger plane is at the top in the next picture

    Boxed Badger Plane 02.jpg

  13. #87
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    Quote Originally Posted by KahoyKutter View Post
    But one thing I've definitely made my mind on is the ergonomics of the plane. It is terrible !! I back up Ian's experience and I'll be seeking to remedy it with the addition of a front knob once I learn to use my lathe. I know this will upset the purists. The plane has already been modified by a previous owner - the fence is not original. I can tell because it's of a different material (Mahogany is my guess) and the quality of the fence is not consistent with the workmanship of the rest of the plane. The ends of the fence still had rough saw marks which I had to get rid of with my shooting plane. I feel this justifies my intended modification and if the purists are still upset, well I think I've made it quite clear that I do things for my own pleasure and not to gain the approval of people I've never even met.
    Planes of these size have a strike button near the front of the plane to retract the iron when setting it up, so a knob may get in the way. If you think adding a knob will make this plane easier to handle, go for it. I've had no issues with my badger plane, nor with any of the wooden jack planes or coffin smoothers on my shelf. Ergonomics is always a factor, the height of your bench may be the issue.

    Perhaps this may be helpful regarding the holding of the plane, these are pages from a book, ca. 1955, by Charles Heyward on woodworking, chapter on planing.

    Planing_1.jpgPlaning_2.jpg

    As a bonus, here are a couple of pages on the use of the cap iron, this also concerns D.W., I think I remember him posting or telling me about the lack of information on the use of the cap iron. Well, what do you know, it's right here, the book is The Complete Book of Woodwork by Charles Hayward, 1955. By the way, it was from D.W.'s 2012 article, on another forum, where I learned to use the cap iron.

    Planing_Cap_Iron_1.jpgPlaning_Cap_Iron_2.jpg

  14. #88
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    Quote Originally Posted by D.W. View Post
    ....... I've bought/made my share of tools that ended up being throw-away. A group of transitionals was in that, as were my early wooden planes, which were single iron.......
    Yes, and with each "throwaway" you no doubt learned something useful. Relating one's own experiences may be helpful to others contemplating or following the same road, but we should always bear in mind that personal experiences are limited, coloured by our own precepts & prejudices, and just might be dead wrong on occasion....

    Cheers,
    IW

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    Quote Originally Posted by raffo View Post
    Planes of these size have a strike button near the front of the plane to retract the iron when setting it up, so a knob may get in the way. If you think adding a knob will make this plane easier to handle, go for it. I've had no issues with my badger plane, nor with any of the wooden jack planes or coffin smoothers on my shelf. Ergonomics is always a factor, the height of your bench may be the issue.....
    Good point raff, and it looks like there is a strike button on the toe end of Mikes' plane. You can, of course tap either the top of the toe or the back to loosen/retract a blade so putting a knob on the front wouldn't be a game-stopper, though I find tapping down on the toe to be more effective & controllable than tapping the heel with my infill planes.

    Also a good point about bench height, something that is really critical if you do a lot of hand planing; even an inch or so off optimal can make a huge difference to how I feel after an hour or two of serious planing. Unfortunately, bench height is one of the big compromises in life, so most of us end up with a bench that suits the majority of tasks (or doesn't!) and tolerate the discomforts. Over the years I've been bothering wood and reading w'work mags I've seen upwards of a dozen plans for height-adjustable benches. It's quite a job to make a bench that is both readily adjusted and solid, and most of the ideas I've seen simply wouldn't fit one or both of those criteria. But probably the main reason I've never contemplated going that route myself is that when building anything substantial, I switch from one operation to another & I'm far too lazy/stupid to stop & adjust bench height.

    How you hold a plane is almost entirely a matter of personal preference imo. We are a variable species, and I don't think we should be too prescriptive about what is a "correct" hold for just about any tool. With jacks & jointers I like to get my whole body into the action & holding a plane in the approved "British" tradition just throws me off-balance. I like to hold any two-handed plane with my left hand flat on the knob or bun & fingers curled over the front edge. That way, my wrist is in a more neutral position, not twisted around to hold the plane body, but folks who are more flexible may not find it bothers them at all.

    A flat-palm grip with the left hand has an added benefit which I discovered very early on in my career with my first #4. The first time I did any substantial planing with it, holding the knob in the typical way, I got a huge blister from the edge of the near side rubbing against the bottom of my palm. Switching to a 'palm flat on the top' relieved the blisters and had the added benefit that it improved my technique. This grip encourages pressing down on the toe at the start of a stroke & easing the pressure & transferring a little downward pressure to the heel once the plane is fully engaged. At the time, I was planing a bunch of short boards & getting frustrated because they were all coming out with a curved top. Suddenly, they started coming out flat...

    Later, I discovered the "low" knob that Stanley used up 'til some time between the wars, and the flat top made a palm-down hold more comfy. Now any Bailey type plane that falls into my possession promptly gets a "low" knob with a more exaggerated flattening than the original.
    Rehandled 5.jpg

    I reckon I've seen hundreds of user-modified tools in my lifetime. The mods may be slight or major; some I could immediately recognise the potential benefits for, while others.......

    But tools are tools & I see no reason not to change anything about a tool that you don't like or add anything you think will make it easier/more pleasant to use, unless you are buying them as an "investment" & not for your personal use....

    Cheers,
    IW

  16. #90
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    Quote Originally Posted by raffo View Post
    Planes of these size have a strike button near the front of the plane to retract the iron when setting it up, so a knob may get in the way. If you think adding a knob will make this plane easier to handle, go for it. I've had no issues with my badger plane, nor with any of the wooden jack planes or coffin smoothers on my shelf. Ergonomics is always a factor, the height of your bench may be the issue.

    Perhaps this may be helpful regarding the holding of the plane, these are pages from a book, ca. 1955, by Charles Heyward on woodworking, chapter on planing.

    Planing_1.jpgPlaning_2.jpg

    As a bonus, here are a couple of pages on the use of the cap iron, this also concerns D.W., I think I remember him posting or telling me about the lack of information on the use of the cap iron. Well, what do you know, it's right here, the book is The Complete Book of Woodwork by Charles Hayward, 1955. By the way, it was from D.W.'s 2012 article, on another forum, where I learned to use the cap iron.

    Planing_Cap_Iron_1.jpgPlaning_Cap_Iron_2.jpg


    Mate, your research on the subject no doubt goes a lot further than mine and I bow to your greater expertise. I readily admit my "research" was superficial at best. I did know about the strike button after asking specifically about it in my Badger Plane thread. My plan is to replace the strike button with a knob made out of a dense species of hardwood to act as a "strike knob". I may even install a steel/brass rod and strike cap like some high end screwdrivers have. I find the ergonomic issue isn't limited to the planing stroke. I tend to lift my plane up on the return stroke instead of dragging it back across the workpiece and usually with just the one hand and the other hand checking the planed surface. As you can imagine, this gets tiring quickly when using such a heavy plane. The balance of my badger exacerbates the issue. The tote is so far back that it makes the plane extremely front-heavy. If you notice on my #29, the tote is more towards the middle which makes it more nimble and effortless to use IMO.

    In my Badger Plane thread, Mountain Ash also described the correct grip, which is I how I held the plane when I tested it out. No doubt the height of my bench is a factor and I surmised in an earlier post in this thread that it's probably explains why the benches of that era were much lower than modern benches. Obviously It'd be stupid to modify the height of the bench to suit the one plane (much simpler to add a knob to the plane), but most, I imagine, would build their bench to suit if they used predominantly planes of this ilk.

    And I realised I had forgotten to mention the cant of the blade to get the tip of the blade to poke out in the corner, but IanW did a much better job at explaining what constitutes a Badger Plane so I didn't bother going back to correct my post. And he also corrected one of my incorrect assumptions (i.e. Badgers are all woodies) when he pointed out there are infill versions of the plane. And that is why I remind everyone of my inexperience and to take everything I say/write with a grain of salt.

    Thank you for the links and photos of the relevant pages. I hadn't read up on the correct usage of back irons specifically for Badger planes. I just assumed they would work similarly to other chipbreakers and you set mine up accordingly, i.e. get it as close you can to the cutting edge and make sure there are no gaps where the iron meets the blade. It's good to see that my assumption is correct. Now I just got to a better job of flattening both the cap-iron and blade.




    Cheers,
    Mike

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