A13 dovetailed infill plane continued (7)
Facing up the bed area.
It is important that I get things back to centre at this stage and I do this with an edge finder. All my co-ordinates work from the centre line.
Now that everything is back on centre I can drill through the fixing bar for the adjuster.
Whilst I still have all my co-ordinates and work holding I hand tap the previous drillings for the adjuster fixing.
There are many jobs in the making of this plane which don’t get mentioned and these pictures show the blade pads for bedding.
Boring for the blade pads. I drill to a suitable depth where I can engage part of the plane structure. The pads are then cemented in – on previous pictures you can see the retention recesses turned onto these pads.
Some browsers seem to make my nice round holes like polygons!
Handles ready for fitting, and trimming pads
The handle in position with temporary rivets
Most of the planes one sees out there have an open handle. What lead you to create planes with a closed handle, that more resembles a hand saw? Do you think it adds to the operation of the plane, or is it just a design decision?
Comment by Torch02 — August 13, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
Hi
I think there are a lot of planes with closed handles, but probably not so much on the modern stuff. The reason for the closed handles is that they follow the original Norris specifications. On my own designs I favour the open handle e.g. No 98 and No 982.
I do find that with the closed handle it is usual to put three fingers through the handle and the index finger rests on the fore section of the handle, and you can monitor a lot of feed back like this. I however prefer the open handles – it is user preference. It seems that the contemporary builders use open handles.
k
Comment by admin — August 13, 2009 @ 6:25 pm