St James Bay Plane Kits

After following the tale of the

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Adjustable mouth SJB infill smoother that Stephen built. It's seems a milling machine is in order. It's my understanding that rough castings are just that "rough". I think it would be a lot of work to prepare a casting using handtools only. I have never seen one in the flesh, just passing on what I've discovered.

If you are particularly interested *LINK*

Bruce, a MN galoot

>in how a bunch of Galoots did them, let me know. Somewhere in the innards of this computer is the inital discussion on the oldtools list. I'll email it to you, but first let me know if you want it.

I'm about 75% done with mine. It can be done without a milling machine. However, a belt sander is nice to hog off the rough stuff from the sides and bottom. I did a lot of scraping and then decided to take the belt sandah after the sole, to remove the majority of the roughness. I've scraped the rest to within a GA of dead flat. The most difficult part is the amount of filing it has taken to form the bed. I don't have access to a mill, but I'm not sure it would help. It just takes work. The best advice a machinist friend gave me was to get a new mill file and use it only for the bronze. Apparently, a file that has been used on iron and still is very good for iron just doesn't work with bronze and brass. Don't know why, but that has been my experience, too.

The castings are bronze alloy and are rough, but they're heavy, substantial and well made. I'll finish my plane this fall.

You can also go to the Oldtools search page to cash in on other galoot's experiences.

Bruce


oldtools archives

Re: SJBTC Kit

Barry Va Beach

>I did one panel plane ( the equivalent of a jack plane) from rough castings and a smoother from the machined casting kits. The Panel plane has much more metal to be removed than a smoother, but it is also somewhat easier to work in that it is much more open ( tough to explain - just trust me on it) and its not overstuffed. If you are using rough castings, in my opinion you will need several ( I think I bought 6 ) new files. - the oldtools list describes them, but in general you need a couple of really aggressive ones to flatten the bottom, then you need several thinner files - ( some aggressive, one safe edged, one fine) to open up the mouth. I had no real mechanical training before these kits, and I never saw one in person and still got both completed. The panel plane took most of a year ( off and on). The smoother ( machined castings) took a few weeks to get working, then a few more as I redid the handle. Good luck, I am sure you will enjoy it.