Monday, July 30, 2007

How Low Can You Go?


Spent some quality time in the workshop over the weekend. First task - Operation Cleanup!!
Took an hour and a half to get the place half decent but it was well worth it. There's nothing worse than a messy workshop - you can't get things done when you can't find anything :)
So with the workshop renewed I got started on some planes. First up, a plane for a Mate. Lots of headscratching and drawing on scrap and finally I get to resaw some Santos that I've been waiting to use. Lots of flattening and smoothing and the lot went in stick until I'm ready for the challenge.
Next up - a low angle plane. I'd been asked on a forum if it was possible to make a bench plane with a low angle - the feeling was that a wooden plane wouldn't be strong and the bed would collapse. So I did some research, and sure enough there were plenty of examples of low angle planes. Search for Box, Flogger and Miter planes.
Now, if you attempt a 12 degree bed in wood it is going to disintegrate. But that pitch was used in metal planes (and they used the iron bevel up, so when you work out the effective pitch they really weren't low angle planes anyway!) So I went for 33 degrees. That's a much stronger bed, and with the iron bevel down you get a real world 33 degree plane.
I've has some 6mm tool steel lying around - it's pretty OTT for a plane. But I thought it would be perfect for this plane, so out with the hacksaw. And it adds a real heft to the plane - its a heavy iron!
So I'll hopefully have this one finished soon and I'm looking forward to testing it out.
Stay tuned,
Philly

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice work Mr Edwards!

I like the John Smiths no nonesense approach to the blade, that should sort out any wimpy chatter!!

Looking forward to seeing how this latest jobby turnes out!

Woodbloke said...

Phill - interested to see how this latest one works out. Agree that a 12deg bed in a wooden plane is a non starter....unsure that 33deg BD is going to be effective, tho' a 6mm thick cutter might make a hell of a difference - Rob

Anonymous said...

hey! whatever happened to the "making a plane blade" vid :)?


-nick

Philly said...

Byron
Thanks - you can't beat a small amount of overkill!!! ;)
Rob - what do you have doubts about? The angle or bed being wood?
Nick - stay tuned. Just need a little time to get the video finished. I have not forgotten!
Cheers
Phil