Plane making question

Ask Steve Knight

Bob Hackett

>I believe he either has or had a way to get Japanese irons without the hollow.

MB

Re: Plane making question

steve knight

>I think it will not work. a bevel up blade needs a lot of support and a japanese iron won't do it for you in this case.

now the second question is why do you want to make a bevel up wooden plane? about the lowest you can go with wood is around 30 degrees. I tried that with bevel down and it was very hard to use and never worked all that well. if you are trying for the typical 20 degrees or so then wood won't work as the bed will be too thin. I made a few bevel up low angle planes with a steel plate glued to the bed. it is a bear to adjsut such a plane.

Re: Plane making question

Frank D. in Montreal

>Thanks for the feedback Steve,

I guess I'll try a more standard design. I pretty well had on mind what you tried with the steel plate, not on the bed but on the sole behind the mouth. I get such good results with bevel-up planes on curly maple (one of the woods I use the most) I wanted to try it out a woody, and I think that Japanese blades cut extremely well (although I don't like Japanese dai personally). Back to the drawing board...

Thanks again, very kind of you,

Frank

Re: Plane making question

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>A Japanese plane is made to accommodate/spring the blade. It's custom fit so the blade is bedded everywhere, including in the hollow. This affects performance.

So, to say you want to make a bevel up plane and ignore the blade hollow is to say you don't want to make a Japanese plane. Therefore, why bother with the hollow?

What is it about bevel up smoothers (?) that you find so attractive?

Pam

Re: Plane making question

steve knight

>if you work at making a good plane even 45 degrees with that japanese iron will do curly maple fine. even against the grain. so no need for a low angle. you cna use my idea's for making a japanese plane. glue up the body but cut the slots for the blade on the plane sides before glueup.

Re: Plane making question------------0xKhTmLbOuNdA

Chad Boehlke------------0xKhTmLbOuNdArY-----------

>I use a vener plane with blade that has teeth on it. They are set at a close 90 degrees and it cuts very fine culy-Qs. Then I sand down the wood to remove the small ridges. Just another idea for hard to work grain. Chad Boehlke

------------0xKhTmLbOuNdArY

Re: Plane making question

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>Steve and Frank

I have made just one low angle, bevel up wooden plane. This info may be of interest. The plane was designed to cut champhers, constructed out of Jarrah, bed angle of 15 degrees, and the 2" wide laminated blade came out of a Mathieson woodie. Originally I ground the blade bevel at 25 degrees but more recently I have reground this to 30 degrees. This has not seemed to make much difference. In practice the plane must be set for very fine shavings otherwise it will tearout (which is why I increased the bevel angle), but set up this way it works extremely well (see cut board in the foreground).

As you pointed out, a low angle bevel up blade leads to a thin wooden soul, but I have used this plane for about two years so far and there has not been any signs of weakening or structural failure.

Below is a file picture. I hope it is clear enough.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Cool!!!!

Steve Kubien

>I'm glad to see somebody made one and had it work. I've been toying with the idea of making a low-angle woodie to use as a mitre plane. This is encouraging!

Mind you, it is so far down the list of to-do's, it may be left to great-great-great-grand-children to accomplish.

Steve Kubien

Ajax, Ontario

Re: Plane making question

Frank D. in Montreal

>Thanks Derek, that's a neat plane. Could one reason that it's held up so well until now be that it's only used for chamfers, so the sole doesn't see much contact with rough surfaces? Just wondering. Still it's good to see that my idea wasn't so stupid and that it can be done. I'll put it on a back burner.

Frank

Re: Plane making question

Frank D. in Montreal

>Hi Pam,

You're right, I don't want to make a Japanese plane, but I want to use a Japanese blade. If I'm not mistaken, the hollow is facing up on traditional Japanese planes, so this isn't a problem for them. I was thinking about making a bevel-up plane because I have gotten better results (less tearout) with equivalent included angles (cutting angles) on the maple (mostly hard maple) which I often plane. But I haven't given up on bevel-down planes, I'll just go with a higher pitch.

Thanks for the feedback,

Frank

Re: Plane making question

Ed Snow

>I think if you tried a bevel up plane using a japanese iron you would destroy it in short order. The reason this is, is because of the super brittle blade, being completly unsupported. You might even succsesfully delaminate it. The brittleness is compensated with the squishy wrought iron back and it would not work the other way round. I would stay away from a low angle plane for curly maple. If you are dead set on it try bedding the iron at 35 or 40 bevel down. Some japanese planes are made with this bedding angle but they are generally reserved for soft woods like palonia, spruces, and firs.

Re: Plane making question

Frank D. in Montreal

>Hi Ed,

That never even crossed my mind but it sure makes sense. AS I mentioned to Pam I've had excellent results with bevel-up planes on curly maple (with a bevel between 35 and 45�). Another thing I want my plane to do is plane against the grain, handy with panels and large laminated surfaces where grain direction isn't the primary consideration. I used to go at these with a scraper plane but I'd like to be able to do it with a plane to speed things up.

But I'll probably try a bevel-down plane bedded at 50 or 55� so I can still use a Japanese blade.

Frank

Re: Plane making question

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Ah, I totally screwed up, really should have gone to bed instead of posting. Please ignore what I said.

Pam

Re: Plane making question

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>"Could one reason that it's held up so well until now be that it's only used for chamfers, so the sole doesn't see much contact with rough surfaces?"

Frank, most of the woodworking I do is with our tough indigenous timbers. And they are tough! This little champher plane has had to contend with a lot. And it has done so remarkably well.

However, when I built another (and I plan to do so), it will have a higher angle bed. This one is great across grain - and it is in this area that you get the feedback about it acting like a low angle mitre plane - but it is really too low for planing camphers, where there is a greater risk of tearout since the plane has a very wide mouth (and hence I have to keep the blade projection as small as possible). I am happy to post more pics of the sole, etc but it was not my intention to highjack the thread. Let me know if you want to see more.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Plane making question

Frank D. in Montreal

>By all means Derek, please show us your stuff! I'm always willing to see how other people make planes. I'll probably go with a high-angle bevel-down plane right now, since I do want a plane with a Japanese blade, but I'm sure I'll eventually come back to my original intention and try to make a bevel-up plane out of wood with a steel plate on the sole behind the mouth. I had the intention of making the bed at 20� to 25�, kind of like Holtey's bevel-up plane that he doesn't make anymore (I think). I'll probably just buy some steel and make a blade.

Besides, there isn't much of a thread to hijack ;^) , so let's see it.

Regards from up above,

Frank

Re: Plane making question

Ed Snow

>Good luck, I hope the higher bevel works out for you. I toom my most precious japanese iron and bedded it at 47, works great. It takes some doing to make the iron bed to the body correctly but when it is done and it really works you will have more then earned it. It took me almost a full year before I was able to make a good dai for it and am glad it took so long, it makes the plane that much more special for me. I would recomend getting a baby japanese iron, 2.25" at 48 is a lot of work in hard woods, I wish I had the same quality of iron but in a 1.5" iron.

Re: Plane making question

steve knight

>I always thought will it alst a customer a long time? I would be worried about sole failure. I noticed the fine shaving issue too.

A couple more pics.

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>Here are two more pictures of the champher plane. It is a laminated construction, using 5 pieces in all. I am writing this at work so my dimensions are from memory ( would not swear to them). The plane body is about 6" long and a little under 3" wide. Probably about 1" (perhaps 1-1/2") high.

Because of the triangular mouth (created as you angle the "frog" cut into the body), the mouth is wide open and this is the reason why it is necessary to take very fine cuts. Resetting the blade to do so is easy and this process is quick. The blade is fixed by and tightened with a butterfly bolt (that is threaded into the body at the tail - it is shallow there, so be careful - I accidentally cut it too far and went through to the sole). It is not possible to consider a wedge for this design because the blade needs frequent, small adjustments for progressively deeper cuts. In practice this goes quickly and easily, and the result is a smooth and even champher.

The first picture (from the top) shows the triangular mouth, while the second picture shows the champhered sole.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Plane making question *LINK*

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>You can buy 6-3/8" wide blade stock from Aquastone from which to cut (I use the term loosely, see below, another recommendation was to use an angle grinder or a dremel) custom blades. They also have dai for good prices.

Call Kyoko to order, the web site is very slow and not updated regularly.

Pam

Dave Burnard on cutting hardened blade stock:

Those are pieces of "kiriba" (unsure of phonetic or japanese spelling) or finger/small blade stock. They are intended to be cut down to smaller plane blades for moulding or profiling blades or small smoothing blades. I've made a couple of small (1" or less) smoothing blades out of pieces of a kiriba blade stock. You do the moral equivalent of tapping out along the sides of the blade to get things shaped appropriately. Because it is already hardened you have to hacksaw thru the soft steel and then score and snap to break the hard steel in the right place - a bit scary but it works.

and

I think I used a saw file to score the blade, any other really hard file would work. A new hardware store file isn't going to be hard enough.


Aquastone blade stock

Thanks Derek!

Frank D. in Montreal

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Re: Plane making question

jason walcott

>I made this wood and brass smoother with a 25 degree bed. The blade is 1/8 with a 30 degree bevel. The plane works well.

Re: Plane making question

Charles Luck

>Pick up a back issue of Woodwork magazine issue 55. Feb. 1999. Pages 34-36 is on making wooden hand planes by a student of College of the Redwoods. He has a different take on things. His planes are for working extemely difficult wood. Its a great article. Hope this helps. You might be able to find this issue on the bay, I've seen it there before. Have a good one, Chuck.