Wacky Idea

Re: Wacky Idea

Jonathan Peck - N.Y.

>OK, I'll go first. While some like the rear tote on the Clifton, it just doesn't fit my hand. The tip of the tote is just short enough to dig into the meaty flesh between my thumb and forefinger and raise a blister. Others might think that it fits their hand perfectly. So since we all have different size hands, why not size totes like shoes? OK, too confusing since bench planes are numbered like shoe sizes, but why not small, med & large?

Regards

Jonathan - who wishes that he used his tools enough to raise a blister, and is probably never going to get around to making that tote himself :-(

Re: Wacky Idea

Rob Brophy

>That sounds like a lot of fun...but I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer designs a car!

How about a better router plane? I think Rob Lee has perfected just about all the other planes.

Or a filletster plane like the Stanley 78, but with two frog angles, one at 45degrees and another at a low angle instead of two blade positions. Of course it would have to have a double rod fence like the Record version. And a better depth stop...oh crap, I'm ranting again...sorry.

Re: Wacky Idea

David Miller from Iowa

>Good - one step further. Company x could send you an malleable clay tote, which you would grab and get a perfect imprint of your hand, then you send it back and they make the perfect tote. I saw a thing like that in an airline magazine for making shoe inserts.

Re: Wacky Idea

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>Iron planes are okay, but they are kinda heavy. That limits their useful length. My idea would be to substitute PAI, peek, UHMW or some other plastic for wood. These plastics could be injection molded and/or machined. They are all excellent wear materials and dimensionally stable. I'd like to see long planes, beautiful little smoothers, molding planes and dadoes. They could be made in a variety of colors from wood look-a-likes to pink. The cost of materials and processing would be cheaper than metals, and because there are fewer parts, they'd be even cheaper still. These plastics are all recyclable as well.

That's my wacky idea. Plastic planes. Believe it or not.

Adam

Re: Wacky Idea - plastic

Alan Bierbaum

>I can almost picture you building an 18th century piece with pink plastic planes.

Re: Wacky Idea

R.J.Whelan

>Jonathan .... I remember being threatened with tar and feathers when I revealed on Badger Pond that I built new knobs and totes for all of my planes; LN, Bedrock, Bailey, etc. I always kept the original parts but I saw no reason not to be comfortable when I was working ... rj

Re: Wacky Idea

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Here's mine.

I'd like to see a single high angle bench plane body that took interchangeable molded plastic sole plates with matching blades. A twin rod removable fence.

One could then add hollows, rounds, complex shapes, etc as were needed without having to purchase a whole new plane. A really trick thing would be to send a pattern to the manufacturer and one week later receive the desired sole and blade.

I actually proposed this several years ago, but it didn't generate sufficient interest.

Kind of already been done...

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>Patternmakers had plane sets with different soles and irons.

Re: Wacky Idea

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>IIRC I was part of the surprised audience then. Just glad we didn't see a bunch of handles and totes and stuff on the ebay:-)Must have a nice collection of spare parts now.JR

Beat me to it, Lyn

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>except I was going to propose metal soles. One of the problems with the No. 45 is it's got no real chipbreaking capability.

It would be expensive, for sure - considering what the modern multiplane retails for, such a design would be scary expensive. But the gizmocity value!

Re: Kind of already been done...

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Yes, after I put out the my idea, I came across of picture of something fairly similar. I'm not sure who the manufacturer was.

Mine is slightly different in that I encourage the idea of molded plastic soles to keep the costs down (afterall, this special contour planes usually don't see that much use) and to make it very easy to develop a multiplicity of patterns. I also want to see the addition of a fence, that I think would greatly increase the versatility of such a plane.

Re: Beat me to it, Lyn

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Yes! It is the well bedded, well secured plane blade that would largely set this plane apart for the comboplanes.

I had hoped the price would have been more reasonable if plastic was used, and by allowing folks to purchase only the patterns needed at a give time.

Re: Wacky Idea

Jerry Schueller

>Strange how a "wacky idea" can lead to something unexpected. I had two two solid brass cabinet knobs knocking about the shop, and wanted to get rid of them. So rather that just disopse of them I decided to incorporate them into the front knob of a couple of mitre planes, one 6 inches long, 20 deg bedding angle, bevel up of course, and one into a 7 inch long, 12.5 deg bedding, adjustable mouth plane.

better than tossing them I guess. the blades are

a couple of 1.5 inch chisels that had sockets mushroomed shut, bent, cracked etc i.e. shot.

Jerry Schueller

winona MN

Re: Hey Jerry!

Rob Brophy

>Those planes are beautiful! Tell us some more about them...are they dovetailed or cast? The photo is too dark for me to see. The lever caps are particularly sweet...delicate and fine but strong enough to do the job. Well done!...Rob

Re: Hey Jerry!

Jerry Schueller

>Hey rob and others interested.

They are dovetailed, the lever caps started out 1/2 inch thick, and I rounded them over in front as much as I could to make a "cirle" then extended them back about 1/4 inch thick with some concave grooves in

there for interest, and then they are just a bit thicker again again where the retaining nut is. Made the retaining nuts out of a couple of smaller brass knobs I had. I'm not sure what this pic will look like for the group, but at the top is one of the planes with a little different lighting, beneath that another shot of the plane with the adjustable mouth at 12.5 deg. and a pic of the mouth piece may say more than I can type about how that was made.

then at the bottom the same plane without any wood sticking out the back. looks pretty good that way too I thought. and a shot of the lever cap.

I actually took about 200 pics when I made these planes, and was going to write it all up for anybody interested, but then realized it would be huge. I would almost have to burn it to a cd and

send it to people, or have somebody host it for a few days so those interested could download it..

If there was any interest that is... what do you think. the writing up will take awhile, because I

want to do a " How I made my 2 mitre planes for dummies" kind of book. go into lots of detail on

how to make double dovetails and so on. Making a plane like this from scratch isn't that hard believe it or not. Well, it shouldn't be for most woodworkers with their type of brains. But I want to go into extreme detail and be available for questions when the time comes...So that is on the

back burner- haven't proposed it to the group yet, because I'm not close to ready yet.. but now might

be a good time to get a feel for it interest wise.

to get technical for a second: Whereas many plane makers split the sole on this type of plane for the mouth at a pin and then put it back together with a tongue and groove joint, you can see I split the sole, and just covered it with a larger than normal tail. A bit easier that way I think, but your tails are not all the same size, not a problem for me. You can tell it wasn't made with a machine that way.

By the way I have no fancy equipment, most people should have what they need if set up for woodworking. I would like to mention methods for

pure old tools users, and power tool users ( surely, some people have handicaps where burning a few electrons would be easier for them, but lets not get ahead of ourselsves.

Jerry Schueller

Winona MN

Re: Hey Jerry!

Dan Donaldson

>Jerry, If you are interested in making it into an article, get with me or Garrett. It could be broken down into sections so as not to overwhelm the people with slow connections. I have done that with a couple of the articles. We could make the pictures a bit smaller (file size) and it would be great. I, for one, would be interested in helping out just so that I could read it.;-) That way, it would be hosted here, so you would not have to worry about the overall size. You could do a writeup, using the most representative pictures for each operation, and a gallery of the rest for those that have fast connections and are interested.

Re: Kind of already been done...

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>I've also seen them with wooden soles.

Re: Kind of already been done...

Ernie Miller Topeka

>Steve Knight made a couple planes a few with a Garafoil sole a type of tough plastic composit that couls be easly molded into a sole that would hold up better than most plastics. What we need now is a quick way of attachint the soles.

I also think the planes would need a thinner body maybe 1" or somthing instead of the 2" that the pattern makers planes are.

Re: Hey Jerry!

L. Hanson - N. Idaho

>I would love to see an article done on how you made them - please do... Break it up into several pages if you have to - just do it!

That's some awesome work! Nicely done!

Leif

www.norsewoodsmith.com

Another one kinda... *LINK*

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Bit out of my price range though...


Multi plane

Re: Hey Jerry!

Jerry Schueller

>Hi Leif:

I think I will give it a go. Am going to start with

a no holds barred version and burn it to a cd, then edit it from there, so that people with slower connections can get a bit at a time perhaps.

Anyone wanting to make a dovetailed plane should learn how to make the double dovetails before they start the plane. just do it in scrap a few times till you get it done.

see my article on jim Yehle's site on how to do that if you want to get a jump on things.

its at:

http://www.xmission.com/~jry/ww/tools/schueller/schueller-practice-dovetails-v2.html

needs to be revised a bit perhaps, but will get you started. I'm available for help at jandlsjs@hbci.com and anybody wanting a full blown no holds barred cd, before it gets edited let me know, we'll see what can be done depending upon the interest... p.s. love your site, keep up the good work.....

Re: Hey Jerry!

L. Hanson - N. Idaho

>Jerry

Who was it that said either write about something worth doing, or do something worth writing about?

I think you've got a GREAT start there! I would suggest maybe breaking it up into a few separate pages. If you did that for the whole project, I don't think a CD would even be necessary (but still a nice option for some...).

I loved reading what you've got down so far... some good pointers in there, makes it very appealing to try (Oh, geez - that's what I need, another project!). I've read Jim Yehle's stuff before (which are also very good), and your page starts to bring it all home by hand-tooling it, which is more down my aisle. I've never done metalwork of that sort, I'm thinking it looks like it might be fun! (uh-oh... ).

I've bookmarked it, and I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing what you come up with...

Leif

www.norsewoodsmith.com

Re: Hey Jerry! *LINK*

Jerry Schueller

>Leif:

thanks for the encouragement, I've got a start on it going already,and a week of vacation coming up soon.

don't plan on sitting in front of the computer during all my vacation, but maybe can get some serious headway made.. be a bit patient, try those

practice double dovetails, I had done nothing metal

working wise other than cut a head off a bolt with a

hacksaw before making my first 2 planes. really! I find the medium fun to use, you have lots of control over it, just because its harder to work and harder to screw up. You'll need time however

30-50 hrs is probably not unheard of and more for a first one. so that first one needs to be kind of a learning project, quite a few things may not be perfect, but you'll learn what to do next time...

lets see if I can find a pic of my first two planes, then after those I made the two mitre planes I'm writing up, then I made kind of a mini

3" plane with a 1 inch wide "dead" chisel for the blade as an experiment, and even that works pretty well...I'll get to work on it...jerry


http://www.hbci.com/~jandls/myotherplanes.jpg

Cool!

L. Hanson - N. Idaho

>