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:U Yep, saves a minor interrogation & having to reassure the significant other that it won't do the slightest harm to the oven. I make sure I clean all the scale & any residual oil off so it...

Thanks Michael - now all I have to do is find a tree that has just blown over in a storm & not in a national park.... :U

I have not tried to work grey box other than split it for firewood (there's...

The curious thing to me about (genuine) box wood is that it's dense & hard (Janka 2940 lbs ft), though far from the league of bull oak & gidgee with Janka hardness approaching 4,000 lbs ft), yet it's...

David, from my very limited experience (a grand total of 1!), the 59-ish you quoted for the later Norris irons sounds pretty right to me. The iron in my plane was usable, but it could definitely have...

That's more or less what I was implying - if they are happy to call it 'box' then who are we to argue?



There are not many other woods that have the colour & texture of Buxus. There are a few...

Surely that blade wasn't like that when it left the factory, which begs the question of what happened to it in the meantime to cause it to be so brittle? The blade in my (late model) A5 was on the...

Wot's in a name, eh Matt? :U

At least you can feel fairly certain you didn't míss out on a bunch of nice chisel handles, though a lot of hedge woods can make decent handles. I grubbed out a...

Matt, it doesn't look like any box I've seen (not that I've seen a huge number!); the leaves are too pointy, the bark doesn't look right & the growth rings on that cut branch are very wide, they...

Hi Martin, great minds think alike (again!). Been thinking about doing just that for the longest time, but not with steel, I have some aluminium bar that I think might be better than steel in this...

How tight a lever-cap needs to be is a good subject for discussion. It's a bit of a moveable feast, imo, given the number of variables in a plane, especially old & well-used examples, plus the type...

Seems odd to me that they'd make the jaws close on 3 points only, but it may well be they were done that way. Matt (Simplicity) described the same situation with his Disston saw vise a few years...

Rob, it looks a bit 'unconventional', but I can see it might have advantages for on the go adjusting; you should be able to easily get a finger on one of the spokes and give it a tweak as you plane. ...

I've always thought the jaws should flatten out and make contact along the full length. The most recent metal saw vise I used was a Grammercy & it had concave jaws that flattened out when locked so...

Yes, well, I've already said my piece, but thought I might add my old adage that it's also about what you get used to. I've got a couple of saws I reach for because they feel just right for...

Martin, I guess I do have opinions, but I'll leave it to the audience to decide how useful they may be... :)

First, blade thickness (& here my experimenting has nearly all been done with backsaws,...

I'll sharpen 'er up & stand by, Michael. :;

If nothing else we should get a few boards nicely edged......
:U
Cheers

Amused to see the number of machines involved, I was expecting to see some aged, arthritic master doing it all with hand tools, but I guess there's still skill is in the final fitting (not to mention...

If there's a decent slot remaining it's usually very easy to undo the nuts. However, it certainly can be a struggle at times, Ive struck a couple that were seized due to something getting into the...

Amen to that! The Eclipse blades offered in hardware stores are woeful but you can improve them significantly by sharpening them if you have the patience & a suitable vise to hold them. They are as...

That was my point, Matt - on a long cut the work just has to lie down.... :U

And yep, these blokes did go all day & what's more they seemed to enjoy themselves immensely doing it. I might've been...

While that may well be true in many cases Matt, I think the way this bloke is shown using the saw is a genuine technique, I've seen several pics over the years of saws being used so. It may look a...

It certainly looks user- made, as John suggests, by someone who needed a short saw. Having coarse teeth at the toe does suggest it was meant to work its way into a cut from a flat surface, though...

Yairs, the extra mass of my metal plane does give it a bit of momentum in harder woods, but there's a trade off to be sure - the mass increases with every stroke after the first 100! My biggest...

When I looked at the pic you posted I thought your H.O. looked a bit pale, M.A., but when I compared it to a pic of some Paul & I collected a few years ago, it doesn't look much different. And what...

Sadly, Neil, it doesn't take much "bite" from any blade to make me grunt these days.... :C

I rarely use the full width of the 1 1/2" blade on my scrub plane (Veritas). I've maintained the radius...

:2tsup: I think for a first-ever effort, that's a first-class result!

Disappointing the mouth got a bit large, perhaps, but tight mouths aren't so important for end-grain planing. Some of the...

You are amassing quite a collection of these planes CK!

That's a nifty little rebate, double-iron & an adjustable mouth as well. Is the nicker missing, or have you just removed it while you...

And done with Toona no less. That's a wood that I find highly vexing to dovetail, it's so soft & wants to crumble rather than cut even with the sharpest of chisels! I dips me lid to you, squire......

Hi MA., "swivelling" bridges were commonly used on some planes but as I said above, they were not used on mitres for reasons that escape me. It makes sense both from a functional aspect & also makes...

I like Howell's solution - neat, a full socket for the horn and should be as comfortable as the others....

Cheers,

I use 3mm for a 6mm thick bridge, 4mm would be ok, but you'll need to be very accurate drilling the holes for that diameter with only a mm 'spare' on each side. If you're doing a fixed bridge with...

:U You're even more impatient than I am, MA. I'm always anxious to see a plane make some shavings too, but I usually wait 'til I've got the wedge or lever-cap in place (temporarily, at least), and...

This strikes me as a very odd thing to do - to deliberately reduce the mechanical strength of a joint. It's probably still a bit more robust than the dovetailed joint, but why not have the nose...

Yup, happens to me infuriatingly often!.. It's the wretched epoxy glue, it makes an excellent lubricant when wet, and lets the wood slip into places where it didn't want to go when dry. Even though...

Good fix, CK - I hope all those glue-joints hold! :U

That dovetailed joint for the horn does seem to be a major source of problems with these planes; I've seen several with crude "fixes" and one...

Cheer up Matt, I find that front horn awkward too & I'm a decidedly right-handed person! I guess it's a matter of what you are used to, the folks who use "Bismarks" (I'm sure the Europeans don't...

Why do you think it's not "Philippine mahogany", Rusty? That's such a catch-all for so many species from all across S.E Asia both legitimately & not so legitimately traded under that moniker, along...

Hmm, my eye skipped the woodies & landed on those rosewood handles of a nice clutch of vintage Baileys. Looks like some potentially nice planes there too (& maybe another story or two?).

A good...

Yep, well aware of that Graeme, it was the connection between (genuine) oak & (genuine) chestnut that I was referring to. The two can be very similar grossly, so if you can stretch the appearance...

We've often discussed common names for woods & their tenuous connections to northern hemisphere originals & there are quite a few that leave me scratching my head wondering where the connection lies....

Dovetail markers have been kicked about on the forum a few times, with people opting for various styles, any of which does the job, but some suit individuals better or are more convenient for certain...

I studied the late-model Norris A5 I had numerous times to try & figure out the manufacturing steps. As David says, there were linear traces on the sole which could have been from initial flattening...

Dunno about that Martin, my preference for the old low knob has quite a bit to do with the look too! I haven't seen anyone else espouse my theory, so we have an experiment where n = 1 - never a good...

Nope, MA. The only "mitre" plane Stanley made was the #9. That ran from 1870 to 1943 according to Patrick, so it predated the Norris A10 by more than 40 years (Norris introduced his "patent...

I was imagining it would be something along those lines. While you can cut curves into the sides after peening, it's far from easy, as I found out when I decided to modify the side profile of an...

You've got me confused here, Martin. What you seem to be describing is a tendency to plane a convexity, not a concavity (as I was told when very young, the easy way to remember which is which is...

MA, that's an excellent-looking result by any standards but for your first-ever dovetailed body, as Martin said - it's awesomely good! But you've set the bar awfully high for yourself, how are you...

Yes, there's always a bit of apprehension when you begin filing off the excess metal, but by the looks of your effort, you should be rewarded with nice tight joints. I've managed only a couple of...

I guess that's obvious now you point it out - scraping leaves that characteristic patterned surface so it's not like a surface lapped to a fine polish.
:)
Cheers,

That looks like a very thorough beat-up, MA. :U

And no serious mis-hits on the brass that I can see, either - that well-schooled hammering arm of yours did a good job. Should clean up very...