Edge Failure

Ugh. This is not a fun post to write. I did say, at the beginning of my skew mitre project, that I might fail…and I have, at least temporarily. Or, to be more precise, steel failed me.
So: I intended to use a vintage W. Butcher iron, that I'm pretty sure was never used. It took a lot of work to grind it to the proper shape and coarsely flatten the back:

You can see that the back is slightly concave, so there is a silver-dollar-size area above the cutting edge that is not flattened. But that's OK. There is a good 3/4" of flat steel above the cutting edge, probably enough to last a lifetime, and the sides where the wedge prongs make contact are also flat.

Next, I polished the back with successively finer grits of sandpaper, then moved to my oil stones, working the back until it was smooth enough to take a selfie in the reflection:

Then I made the wedge. At this point, the plane is not finished--the wedge is not shaped, and the plane body hasn't been shaped and chamfered--but the wedge fits great.

Now I was ready for some test cuts, and this is where everything went south. After just a couple passes on end grain, I started to get ugly scratches. What happened was that the cutting edge was folding over, microfracturing. I increased the bevel angle to about 27°, which is as high as I can go in this low angle (38°) plane before I start to have clearance angle problems. This helped a little, but the problem remained. The blade is simply too soft.

So, for now I am stymied on this plane, but all is not lost. I'm determined to make some lemonade from these lemons. Last summer, I started building a small brake drum forge for basic blacksmithing operations…like hardening steel. I never quite finished, but this blade failure was just the kick in ass I needed to get back to the forge. I've got it done, and in a week or so I'll give it a test run. If all goes as planned, I'll see if I can re-harden this iron. And if that doesn't work, I'll try making a new iron from scratch. Stay tuned!

Skew mitre plane: the mortise

Not much time for planemaking or blogging lately, but I did make some progress on the mortise.
Chopping the mortise was not really more difficult than with an unskewed plane--just more time-consuming.
As usual, the first step was to make a guide block for chiseling. I just used a piece of southern yellow pine scrap. I laid out the lines, cut it with a handsaw, and then did lots of careful planing, checking frequently with my two bevel gauges (set at 38° and 20°) and a straightedge, until the angles were perfect and the surface flat.

Here's a completely phony, posed shot, taken after the fact, that shows how the guide is used.

I generally chop freehand until I get within about 1/4" of my front and rear layout lines, then use the guide to finish off. Here's the mortise roughed out:

Then I use a flush cut saw to widen the bed and define the abutments. The bed cuts are simple--i just lay the saw on the bed and cut 1/4" deep. For the abutment cuts, it helps to make a spacer block. This was the first point in the project where the geometry got a little tricky. My first attempt was a failure, but it helped me figure out the correct the angles. The main angle is 10°--a standard wedge angle. But the skew is not 20°, because I'm referencing off the 38° bed, rather than the sole of the plane, and this decreases the skew angle. I suppose I could have figured this out with trig, but in practice it was easier to just do a little trial and error. The final skew angle turned out be 15°. The sides of the spacer block are angled at around 10° (relative to the bottom of the block) to match the sides of the mortise. Anyway, here's the spacer block:

I shot some Spray 77 adhesive on the back of the block to temporarily hold it in place for the saw cuts. After I was done, the block was easily removed with a few hammer taps.
Finally, I chiseled away the waste between the saw cuts. Here's a shot of the more-or-less finished mortise:

I've got some stupid cosmetic scars on the bed (from chiseling the abutments), but the cutting iron won't care. Overall, I think it's looking pretty good. The next thing is to deal with the iron.

Skew mitre plane: Layout

I'm going to try and do a few posts detailing the construction of a skew mitre plane. I've never built such a plane, so it may turn out to be a total bust, but it will be interesting!
First, some details. The plane I have in mind is a low angle plane, primarily meant for use with a shooting board, but also for planing end grain freehand, with the work held in a vise. I've never had a proper shooting plane--my Stanleys aren't square enough, and my wooden planes are all 50° or higher, so not ideal for a dedicated end grain plane.
This plane will be similar to the Old Street strike block plane--it will be about 14" long with a 38° bed angle--but it will also have a 20° skew, which provides a shearing cut on the shooting board. Phil Edwards (Philly planes) makes a model like this, although his looks a bit smaller. And of course, mine will be a lefty model!
So, on to laying out the plane. This isn't really much different from laying out a "normal" plane. I always start by laying out one side. From left to right, we have the bed, the blade, the wedge, and the front of the throat.

With a "normal" plane, I would then transfer these marks across the sole with a square, lay out the other side, then transfer those marks across the top. If I don't end up back where I started, something went wrong, so I go back and find the problem.
So, for this plane, I do the same thing, just using a bevel set at 20° instead of a square.

The layout on top isn't quite complete--the throat has to flare out so that it's the same width at the front as at the rear. But that's later. The initial focus is on making a trough that is about 1/2" narrower than the iron.
The final layout task, for now, is to mark some locations for drilling. I scribe a bunch of lines parallel to the skew angle, in white pencil so I don't confuse myself. Then I punch centers for drilling.

The basic idea is that all points on a white line will have the same final depth, so I can drill 3 holes before I have to change the depth stop on the drill press. This process is time consuming, but makes chopping the mortise a lot easier.

A new jointer plane

The first plane I ever bought was a Stanley no.7. I laboriously lapped the sole and tuned the plane as well as I could, and for years it served me well. But it's a heavy plane to push for any length of time, and awkward to balance on the edges of boards.
When I moved to Virginia last year, the no.7 sat in storage for months. When I finally unpacked it, I was dismayed to discover that the sole had warped noticeably. I really couldn't face lapping it all over again, so building a nice wooden jointer has been on my list for a while.
And…here it is.

The plane is hard maple, with a soft maple handle and a cocobolo strike button. The iron is a vintage W.Butcher, 8" long and 2 1/2" wide.

I'm guessing the plane is only slightly lighter than the no.7, but the slick wooden sole makes it noticeably easier to push. One of the nicest features though, is how much more pleasant it is to use on the edges of boards. The natural position for the forward hand (I'm a lefty, so my right hand) when jointing is to place the thumb on top, with a couple fingers below the plane to "feel" the board that's being jointed. On a metal plane, this is pretty awkward, but it's very natural on a woodie.

A couple more pics:

 

 

A plane for a customer

Here's the first plane I've sold to a customer. A gentlemen recently contacted me through Sawmill Creek (a woodworking forum that I belong to). He liked the pictures of my mini-coffin smoother and wondered if I would make him one.
I was skeptical at first, but the guy was pretty cool; he didn't try to nickel and dime me, and left me a lot of latitude as far as design and wood choice were concerned.
I decided to make the plane out of jatoba, since I had it on hand. Never again! With one possible exception, I'm done using jatoba for planes--it is just too hard to work. The end result is great, but I'm going to stick to woods that are a bit easier.
Here's the plane:

The project gave me the chance to fine tune the design and really improve the ergonomics of the plane. I shortened it a bit, to 5 3/4", radiused the top of the iron, and curved the sides slightly in the vertical plane (along with the more obvious horizontal curve). These changes made a big  difference…the plane is more comfortable than the first version.  The only thing I regretted about the project was shipping the plane--it was painful to see it go! But I guess I can always make another.

Japanese marking gauge

For quite a while, my only marking gauge has been a Stanley 97, refurbished with some parts from Lee Valley. It's ok, but I need something better…even more than that, I need more marking gauges. It definitely makes marking out easier if you can set a couple different gauges at certain distances, then leave them at those settings until you're done marking the piece out. Saves a lot of back and forth.
Anyway, here is my first attempt, in the japanese style. White oak (scrap left over from the log I bought in the spring) with cocobolo wedges. The knife is made from a piece of old jointer blade, .095" thick.

In the pictures, the gauge is set up for right-handed use, but I've since reversed the beam so it can be used left-handed. This has the added benefit thatpushing on the fence tightens the wedge.
The gauge works very well, especially for a first try. It's definitely an improvement over the Stanley; it marks a much deeper line (when desired) and the big fences is easier to keep registered against the work. Some things that I'll improve on next time:
- Attach the blade to the end of the beam, perhaps using one of the snazzy replacement blades from Hamilton. It would be nice to be able to see the blade while I'm marking, not have it obscured by the beam.
- Scale the parts down. The gauge is a bit clunky; it could be more delicate and graceful, which would make it easier to use.
- I may opt for a knob adjuster, rather than the wedge. The wedge works fine, but it would be nice to compare the two approaches.

Making a rabbet plane

Well, the planemaking madness continues. Until now, all the planes I've made are bench planes. But joinery planes are really essential, too. Various writings by Larry Williams and Matt Bickford have convinced me that a square rabbet is the most desirable rabbet plane, but these are hard to find--most of the rabbets you find in the wild are skew rabbets. A skew rabbet tends to pull toward the board, so it's nice to use with some sort of fence or batten, but very hard to control freehand. Fillister planes are also skewed.
To get a sense of how useful a square rabbet can be, check out this video of Bickford.
Matt also did a nice tutorial that I followed pretty closely.
I decided to make the plane out of a piece of quartersawn jatoba I had. The sole of a rabbet takes a beating, so you either need to make the plane out of something hard, or box the sole.
Before starting the plane, I made a simple saw/chisel guide. These are extremely handy. This one is cut to 55° on one end and 65° on the other, with a groove down the middle that fits over the plane's body.

I started by making two cuts with a backsaw to define the throat, using the guide.

Then I drilled a 1" hole with a forstner bit, and knocked out the waste.

After that, I drilled a hole down from the top, then used chisels and vixen files to refine the wedge mortise. I carved the escapement with an incannel gouge, then refined it with a file and sandpaper.

Here's the finished plane:

I almost forgot: The plane is left-handed! When you live in a righty world, making something specifically for lefty use is always great.