From the Workshop

April 17, 2020

No 10 smoothing plane revisited

No 10 small finishing plane. The relationship between the sneck piece and the blade.

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The blade is rejigged so that the milling cutter can follow the original contours of the facet.

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The sneck form is milled after the integral rivets have been peined with a fly press. The blade used at this stage has been hardened and surface ground. The hardening is the only item which is outsourced to a heat treatment specialist.

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The finished No 10 blade

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June 3, 2019

Workshop Blog 25 – No 985

Still plodding along.

The first picture is to try and give you some idea of the work that goes into these planes. The picture should be self explanatory. It shows some of the metal (stainless) work and handles. From this you can see it includes spines that are threaded and keyed ready for cementing with epoxy into the handles. This gives the kind of strength and rigidity which would surpass what is normally found on a closed handle.

It is this kind of work that makes me one of life’s misfits.

 

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Now I am on to the handle shaping which is basic hand work. My CNC machine doesn’t seem to have a button for this job. I find pleasure in the wood taking shape and interesting contrasts come to life.

Here the chosen wood is a Honduras Rosewood – Dalbergia stevensonii – still lots of work to be done. The price of the plane goes up and up with the pain of the work.

 

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May 23, 2019

Workshop Blog No 24 – No 985

Slipping behind on postings as I have been so busy.

As a follow on from last posting on upper blade bed, the design is similar to the one used in my No 982. I didn’t want to go this far but I can’t think of anything better. It is certainly solid if nothing else. You just have to bite the bullet and get the work done.

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This picture shows the tooling required for the last part of the operation after much preparation. As you can see this kind of tooling doesn’t come cheap. I always keep plenty of backup – if I get a tool failure I want to be able to change it immediately.

 

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