What wood for infill

Re: What wood for infill

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Sure welding would work. People have also made infills by cutting a mouth in channel iron and machining it smooth and flat too. Use whatever you are comfortable with and can accomplish with your skill set. JR

Re: What wood for infill

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>I would use the densest wood you have...even if it had to be laminated.JR

Re: What wood for infill

joel

>THe historical correct wood for a 51 would be Rosewood or English Walnut.

For the record. the 51 did not have wood under the iron. if your casting is designed for wood under the iron it isn't a 51 but rather a parrell version of the A17 which had rosewood infill.

Craftsman filled planes from England were most commonly mahogany filled.

Occasioanly you see ebony infill from custom factory models.

Cocobolo of course is a variety of Rosewood so that should do nicely and if you bookmatch the glue ups the seams won't be very prominent.

Any stable wood you like should be fine.

Postwar Norris smoothers are welded. It works great. Ray Iles current Norris Infill copy is also welded. However when you get to the larger and longer planes welding causes warping problems. Norris used steel channel for their longer postwar planes.

Re: What wood for infill

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Cocobolo is a superb wood for an infill, being dense, reasonably stable and oily enough to be somewhat self repairing if finished with oil or wax.

My favorite, is African Blackwood, which is even denser, similar in terms of stability, and provides a bit of exclusivity. It is superior to Ebony on almost every technical attribute.

Both Cocobolo and African Blackwood are in the Dalhbergia familiy, the same as Rosewood, which is one of the traditional woods for this sort of plane but not as dense as its siblings.

Channel iron infill

Steve Kubien

>How does one cut the mouth in a channel iron infill? I am picturing using a hacksaw but that would also open up the side of the plane. The only other thing I can think of is cutting a slot with a Dremel and a disc and using a no-frame hacksaw to finish. Files to clean up of course.

Curious.

Steve Kubien

Ajax, Ontario

Ernie, where are you?

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Mr. Miller made a plane from channel stock. Perhaps he'll come clean and tell us how he did it.

My guess is a slot cutter with the base in a jig or drilled out and filed.

Re: Ernie, where are you?

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native in FL. Exile :~(

>Scott,

I think it best not to address Ernie as Mr. Swell his head, and afterall WE do have to live with him afterwards. ;~)

Todd O.

Oh man, your right Todd...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Should have called him "Rupert"...;-)

Re: What wood for infill

ray k

>Thanks everyone for the input. I think I'm going to have a hard time sleeping tonight as tomorrow I'm going to my machine shop class. I can't wait to get started! I think I'm going to go with laminated cocobolo.

And thanks for letting me know about welding as being an option. I think I'll see how the bronze casting goes and then if this process isn't so bad, I think I'll try my hand at welding a frame together.

Feel free..

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>.. to take some pix of the process, and post them!

Re: What wood for infill

John K in Hastings, MN

>For a domestic, I'd consider a couple really nice woods- mesquite (tight rings, dense, very stable) and burl cherry or maple.

Exotic, there are a number of Australian hardwoods that would work well- check out some of the stuff that is used by HNT Gordon, for instance.

John

Re: What wood for infill *LINK*

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Terry Gordon gets his ironwood from a US lumber yard.

Pam

PS Note that Judith, the lumber lady, died a few months ago, I'm not sure what's going on with her business.


The Lumber Lady

Re: What wood for infill

ray k

>It's always exciting to see what other species I could use. I was in my shop today and was taking measurements and realized that I had some 1/4" ebony that I could laminate in between resawn cocobolo. I'm only about 1/8-1/4" too thin for a good handle blank, so why not use up that 1/4" ebony! I'm thinking I want to have a strip of ebony run through the middle of the cocobolo for both the handle and the front knob. It probably won't look too authentic, but heck I figure why not try something unique looking on my first foray into plane making.

I managed to mill a little bit the sides and all of the sole of my bronze casting. Wow, milling really does make that dull casting look shiny and beautiful. The bridgeports at school are pretty old and the machining still leaves some overlapping marks. I'm thinking that shouldn't be too bad as I'll be lapping the soles on some sandpaper later when I'm tuning things up. Oh boy, this is going to be great! Still keeping my fingers crossed with the drilling and setting the lever cap dowel and opening up the throat.

And I'll put up pix when the project is done.