Thickenss of plane blade?

Re: Thickenss of plane blade?

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>Ernie,

I'd think you'd want them as thick as possible (especially the tonguing plane) for a couple reasons. A thick iron will reduce the throat somewhat and limit the size of your shaving. You don't want fine shavings, but you don't want scrub plane chips either. Also, you may not have great support for your blades down low, and you don't want a lot of chatter.

I guess if you want to use a thin blade, you could address these issues in other ways.

Also, just a head's up-

Sounds like you have planking planes, and those are different from match planes, but on match planes the width of the grooving plane's iron is always narrower then the width of the slot in the tonguing plane's iron.

In theory, the result is a joint that won't go together (tongue wider than groove). You can clean up your tongue with a rabbet plane (hurts for days), but that defeats the purpose. What side should you plane?

In practice, I find the boards will not go together edge to edge. But if you insert one into the other end wise and beat it down, it does not crack and makes a fine single panel out of two boards. I make all my drawer bottoms this way.

I suspect it works better on pine than maple. I suspect these planes were designed for use in soft woods.

Adam

Re: Thickenss of plane blade?

Ernie Miller Topeka

>You are so right they are planking planes but they are missing the blades and they are buy a two star maker I figured they would sell easier with blades even if they are the wrong ones than with out any at all. I tore the planks out of a barn when I was young and it was an old barn pinned M&T joints every where and the floor in the loft had T&G planks I bet it took forever to make them by hand like that but on the other hand they probably worked harder than I do. I will measure and see how thick I can get away with.