No 982 smoothing plane in the making – 3
Lever caps
Tamping down lever cap bar (CZ112) for surfacing the lever caps in the mill before cutting them up individually.
The face cutter in action
Removing some unwanted metal for lever cap shape
Using a bullnose cutter to cut the retention groove
The final shape with a radius cutter
Boring hole for the lever cap screw after cutting the bar up into individual pieces
Tapping for the thumb screw – 7/16” 14tpi square thread as traditional
Milling to form the boss area
Boss now complete
Before any further milling it makes sense to do all the polishing on the top area.
Regardless of a comment there is rather a considerable overhang here but with bronze alloys it works quite well. Trust me Mr D. O, I know what I am doing.
Profile now complete
No 982 lever cap now complete.
Note new logo on all the No 98 series.
That is a beautiful piece of bronze. It is amazing the amount of work, effort, and detail that go into such a small part of the plane.
Comment by Torch02 — September 7, 2009 @ 5:51 pm
Hi
One of the advantages of making lever caps out of solid bar is that there are no problems with inclusions or porosity. They are of far better quality than castings. It puts me in better control of quality even though there is a lot more work. If I use my own castings I still over-work them so that I remove rapping distortions and draught allowances.
k
Comment by admin — September 8, 2009 @ 9:57 am