Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Plane Float Handle
Doug Reynolds in Seattle
>Thinking about making plane floats. One way to make the handle is to do it like kitchen knives where the handle is two pieces of wood fixed to the blade by two brass rivets. Anyone know of a source of these rivets?
Re: Plane Float Handle
Todd Hughes
>I have made many many knives using just plain iron nails as rivets.Also used lots of copper nails and to a lesser extent brass brazing rod as well.You can use washers under them but most times i never did and never had any problims
Saying this I sure don't know why you would want to make a float with a handle like this unless you just like to do things the hard way.Ones I have made or old ones I have seen just had a tang like a file and fit in a simple handle that way.Worked fine.Have used old socketed chisels to make the floats out of and that worked fine as well though this type is not really needed. Todd
Re: Plane Float Handle
Dan Moening, in rainy Sacramento
>Lee Valley carries some:
http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.asp?page=40386&category=3,41306,41327&ccurrency=2&SID=
As do some of the gunsmiths (look under cutlers rivets on this site):
http://www.knifeandgun.com/catalog/rivets_186702_products.htm
Dan.
Hardware store or leather store
Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA
>My local hardware store carries copper roves and brass, aluminum, and iron rivets. Iron tinner's rivets would probably be too short. You can get brass leather rivets, which are two-part, at any leather store.
I tried using some brass rod once, and it didn't work out too well. Don't believe your local hardware store when they tell you the brass rod they sell is dead soft - they may not know what they're talking about.
Bill, not just speculating on that last part
Re: Plane Float Handle
William R. Duffield on the Cohansey
>I gotta agree with Todd. Turn or shave a solid wood handle, drill a hole in it, and burn it in. I usually turn mine, but Bob Smalser had shown, with illustrations, how well a shave works if you don't have a lathe.
Brass rod can be obtained at RC hobby shops (where you would go if you wanted to build flying model airplanes, or boats or trains, etc.). If you need material for rivits, in addition to the nails and brass rod suggested by the others, I have also used stripped copper electrical wire, mild steel round bar stock, and the shanks and heads of brass FHWSs.