Lignum for boxing?

Re: Lignum for boxing?

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Lignum is(or was) used in shipyards for bearings on propeller shafts. Naturally oily and dense, and hard . IMHO it would be very servicable for any wooden plane sole in any configuration. It should wear well and should glide like butter.JR (wish I had some)

Re: Lignum for boxing?

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>Woodcraft or someone used to sell lignum mallets and advise in the catalog copy that you should keep the mallet in a plastic bag to keep it from checking - don't know if this is an issue in thin and small sections like boxing.

Re: Lignum for boxing?

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>I don't have an informed comment on the suitability (or otherwise for that matter) Lignum Vitae but from what I've read it should be okay. Glueing it may not be as easy as other species due to the natural oils.

As I understand it, the name "boxing" is derived from the wood that was predominately used for this job; English Box (Buxus Sempervirens). It also makes good chisel handles.

Re: Lignum for boxing?

paul womack

>At the risk of blindly following tradition, I'd be slightly worried by the old guys universally (AFAIK) using box. They may (although we can never be sure) have had a functional reason for doing so.

BugBear (who knows the old guys were sometimes wrong, and sometimes had no reason other than tradition)

Re: Lignum for boxing?

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>Perhaps, but what leads you to that conclusion?

Wonderful - But Won't Take Glue

Bob Smalser, Seabeck, WA

>Lotsa shipwright's planes made from it as it was available in the yards.

But you'll have to do it the old fashioned way, putting Krenov's split-bodied ideas aside, because it likely won't glue reliably for that application.

Isn't being harvested any more as far as I know so understand that any recently-cut wood may be poached.

Re: Lignum for boxing?

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>Ken -

Don't know about the UK but in the U.S. lignum was sometimes used for boxing. Whelan mentions it in his book 'The Wooden Plane'. IIRC planes made in Philadelphia sometimes have lignum boxing.

In all the examples I can recall, the grain direction for boxwood boxing is approximately parallel to the bed i.e. 45 degrees to the sole. It's been a while since I've examined a plane with lignum boxing and don't recall if the grain is oriented the same for lignum. I speculate that the angle is needed for boxwood to protect against splitting. There is no concern with lignum splitting so I think it would be ok to run the grain parallel to the sole.

Ed

Re: Lignum for boxing?

Todd Hughes

>Ed is right some original planes did use Lignum for the boxing. I don't see many maybe 5%? I think it might be an reginal thing as I have had a few Baltimore planes with LV boxing. If I remember right all seemed to be in pretty good condition.I think the reason you don't see it more often isn't because it didn't work well but because boxwood was more tradtional and I would imagine easier to work. As to it not being easy to glue in...well I don't know if I ever saw a molding plane whose boxing was glued in originaly , some where some ham handed later owner may have epoxied loose boxing back in but don't think they were original made like that.

A hint...I have used sections of bad condition box wood folding rules to make boxing for planes and it worked very well...something to think about ...Todd

Re: Lignum for boxing?

Dan Donaldson

>Don't really have a clue, but wonder if they used boxwood because that is what they had. I don't imagine that lv would have been as available in those days. Just a surmise that may have no merit ;-)

Re: Lignum for boxing?

steve knight

>the problem with LV is making sure it is dry. it takes a long time to fully dry. thin pieces will dry pretty quickly but it is best to let it sit awhile after you cut it.

then you can't really glue it with anything we can find. I did find hot melt poly worked great but unless you have one of the guns thats out. it would be the most durable wood there is though.

Gluing Lignum Vitae

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>A couple of well-informed posters, Bob and Steve, have mentioned difficulties gluing lignum vitae. About 5 years ago I used yellow glue to attach a lignum sole to a maple plane. Surfaces were freshly machined and planed/scraped. The sole hasn't delaminated. Second photo will show a closeup of the plane toe.

Did I just get lucky? Or can I expect the sole will delam eventually?

Ed

Toe 

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>

Re: Gluing Lignum Vitae

steve knight

>it won't just pop off if the wood is dry. but a good wack could pop it off.

I used the glue it up and break it apart method do judge the streanth of the glue joint. yellow glue failed on all oily woods I tested. padouk cocobolo ipe LV and vera. gorilla glue failed somewhat on vera and totaly on lignum vitae. though when I had a holt melt glue gun the wood broke. but I could not make very big joints with it.

now you know why the european planes have such elaborate joints between the sole and the plane.

Re: Lignum for boxing?

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>It was available. It was used as clock bearings by John Harrison (no relation that I know of) the clock maker that collected the Longitude prize (the exact name escapes me at the moment). This was in the reign of George III.

Re: Lignum for boxing?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I'm not at all sure this should be called boxing if something besides boxwood is used.

ECE uses LV for many of their plane soles, but they incorporate wide box [sic] joints at the attachment point. Seems to work fine, haven't heard any complaints.

Pam

Re: Lignum for boxing? *LINK*

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Now why didn't that photo link work? I gave it a url. Here is a link.

Pam


Primus Reform smoother

Joint details

Jack Guzman from Maine

>I have an ECE scrub and I wondered about that joint.It looks like the sole and body are matching grids.Anyone have a picture of the separate pieces unjoined for detail? That would be a hard joint to get right using hand tools.---Jack

Re: Gluing Lignum Vitae

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>Give it a good whack, eh? May take more courage than I can muster at the moment. But you're right, the joint has a large area and is relatively unstressed except for seasonal movement so it may hold but that doesn't mean a stressed joint would hold.

Ed

Re: Lignum for boxing? *LINK*

Andreas Winkler

>Hello Ken,

lignum vitae can be used as a "boxing". I know that this wood was used in order to protect edges of fillisters and dovetail planes. I am sure that it was also used to protect edges from moulding planes. The link shows a page from an old German tool catalog. At the "Falzhobel Nr. 30" there is "Pockholzkante" mentioned which means lignum vitae edge. Unfortunately the edge is not visible, but I have seen planes with such an edge (not boxwood but lignum vitae).

I have never worked with that wood, but heard also that glueing is very difficult.

Greetings, Andreas


Lignum vitae "boxing"

The reason for no picture.

Dan Donaldson

>I looked at the picture link in the other post and the problem was that you used the page (*.htm) link. For picture posts, you have to link directly to the picture so the link has to end in a picture format (*.jpg, *.gif, etc.)

I glue Lignum Vitae all the time...

Dave Anderson Chester, NH

>I use Lignum vitae for one of the heads on my plane adjusting hammers. It glues quite nicely with epoxy and naturally as a hammer, it is whacked and shocked all the time with no ill results.

Re: I glue Lignum Vitae all the time...

steve knight

>But you use a mortise and tenon. So you have a physical joint. Plus your materials are closer to moving about the same amount then two different woods are.

Re: Joint details

Kurt Loup, Baton Rouge

>A friend of mine made a plane that way. He used sliding dovetails. If I remember correctly, the joint is cut at an angle. It only appears to be a grid because the joint runs out of the ends.

Kurt

Re: Joint details

Andreas Winkler

>No handtools are used to make these joint. I think that job is done on a special moulding machine. Don�t have a picture of seperate parts. But I have seen an Ulmia plane without a sole. Ulmia uses a similar technique to increase the glueing-area. And to keep body and soul, sorry, sole together. The joint is done diagonal to the body. And both parts are put together diagonal, a bit like a Japanese shiho-ari joint.

So, in the assembled condition, the joint looks a bit like an "impossibility". Obviously, it is not, but our eyes can be deceived easily.

Hope it is understandable, what I wanted to say.

Greetings from Germany, Andreas