Milled a Bailey *PICS*

Re: LOL - I did almost the same

Larry Clinton Frankfort, Indiana

>thing, but went another route. My son and I traded a handgun we had for a Boyer Schultz 6 X 12 surface grinder. It has a new 1 hp 220V single phase motor! The ways had been scraped in by the previous owner and it will hold .0001 tolerances. I had an old import vise, ground it first so it was parallel to the magnetic grinder base. I jury rigged an old Dunlop plane and indicated it in while clamping - using a fairly fine A-60 wheel, I groung the base flat. Took me quite a while as I didn't want to heat the plane. It really turned out great - I have about 12 or 14 Stanley Baileys that I will do after I rig up some coolant mist and make some better holding fixtures. I also ground the blade Flattened the back, then made a wood wedge with the proper angle to support the blade in the vise to grind the bevel. After about 2 or 3 minutes of hand finishing - stroping buffing, I shaved a patch of hair off quick. Darn junk plane works pretty good considering I couldn't get the bed perfectly flat- May make some fixtures to hold the rest of the parts. (Luckly I am an Engineer and have a tool room at work to help :~)). Think its going to be great on my chisels too, sharpened a couple of old no names, did a real pretty job.

Re: more machining on Bailey planes

paul womack

>There was a Remarkable post from Jeff LaCoss a while ago on the Wreck.

Plenty o' machining to go yet...

:-)

BugBear

Reply and Obscene Images *PICS*

WoodburnBob

>Paul, I think Jeff's post is right-on about the late Bailey frog bedding points. To me, it is a far more challenging fitting problem than getting the sole flat. A few times I've filed, scraped, abraded trying for best fit by blueing with each iteration. It seems like penance for a sin I didn't commit. This is why I think tuning a bedrock frog is like falling off a log. As you know the early Bailey frogs have just one horizontal plane which also makes fitting the frog easy. Also, as you know, this makes little difference since the front half of the frog is totally unsupported!

Larry's late post on his surface grinding really stirred up my avarice quotient. Hope you saw it.

Finally, you asked about hand grinding for sole flatness. Prepare to cover your eyes:

This is a very damaged Spiers infill I worked on last year. A straight edge told me how very bad it had become. Spotting it lightly produced this pattern!

Rolling it a little front to back while spotting produced this.

At that time in my quest for the grail I'd become pretty experimental (impatient) and decided to try the angle grinder. Who in their right mind would take an angle grinder to a Spiers infill. Instead of dragging the basement surface plate to the garage I used a very flat previously scraped plane body as the reference. I'd spot, grind, oil, run over with the small stone, clean, respot and interate. I used a light touch with the grinder but not that light.

Here's about where I quit, having gotten the mouth, a front plane and a back plane coplanar...more or less.

The process worked fine. I think I decided not to post it anywhere...worried it might give someone angina or nightmares. I spent about an hour or so. It was noisy and dirty business and didn't really suit my sensibilities. I did this with three or four planes and haven't gone back to it but would if necessary I suppose.

Re: wow!

paul womack

>Are you sure you haven't ruined a highly rare and collectable Spiers compass plane?

:-)

BugBear

Re: OK, what was the story?

R.J.Whelan

>I built a sole flattener out of an old barbeque motor some scrap wood and a bell crank.

In practice the motor would turn a bell crank with a rod (with heim (sp)joints at each end) connecting the crank to the plane - depending on the length of the crank one could get about 8-10" of movement (to and fro) of the plane. To weight the plane (more down pressure) I'd pile a couple of shot bags on top.

On this particular occasion I had an old Bailey that was way out with a big, deep dish running toe to heel. I decided to let the machine run over night - in the morning I came out to the shop to find a plane that was quite flat but with a sole so thin you could almost read through it. I dubbed this plane the "fully lighten, racing plane".

Ah, it's good to laugh at one's self - keeps one humble ... rj

Re: wow!

Todd O. Cronkhite Native of Maine

>Looks like a criminal act to me! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh the stupid things we do sometimes eh? And here I just told Jim that I thought it was kids who damaged the tools.

Todd O.