Honey, I made a woodie!

Viewed from the front

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>The grain doesn't match between the sides and the body. The reason for this is that I had originally cut the sides 3/16" or so thick, and when I showed the plane parts to Ted Brown at Rosewood Studio last week, he told me that they should be at least 5/16" thick. I milled new sides (3/8"), but the grain doesn't match, of course...

DC

The heresy

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>When I "designed" (such a big word) the plane, I thought it would be cool to have an adjustable mouth. I was just too much in a hurry and screwed the mouthpiece for now. Someday, if need warrants, I'll elongate the holes to make it adjustable...

One thing I'll do as soon as I drive to a source is to replace the steel screws with brass ones.

DC

View from the mouth

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>This is a pretty tight place, since both sides are bedded at 64 degrees or so. Excuse the dust, I ran the plane for a while...

Clearing the chips is not as hard as I expected.

The litmus test

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>Since I intended that plane to be used with difficult woods (therefore the bed angle), I figured that I should give the blade a chance by sharpening the blade as obtuse as possible. Therefore the blade is sharpened at 55 degrees (with my brand new Norton 8000 stone, one of the many purchases from the Rosewood store last week), which still leaves enough clearance underneath. At that angle the blade won't shave hairs from your arm even if it's sharp. I gave it a tiny camber (with that bed angle you need almost none, as opposed to my Veritas BU planes, which need a lot relatively).

I tried the plane on a piece of beech that was lying around. I went with the grain, and the surface was perfect. I mean, ab-so-lu-te-ly perfect. No tearout, no plane tracks, nothing. Well, that wasn't too much of a test, beech is fairly easy to plane, so I turned the board around and went against the grain. There was NO difference, the board came out as perfect as is was with the grain. No roughness, as sometimes happens when going against the grain, nothing.

I should have tested my LV LA jack and my hot-rodded Record smoother on the same board just to see the difference, but I think that if I am to see one I'll have to use a more gnarly wood, something more difficult than bird's eye maple. I'll check tomorrow what I have in my wood pile...

One difference that I can feel right away is that the woodie is MUCH lighter than my metal planes. This has advantages and drawbacks. The ergonomics of the woodie are nothing to write home about as it stands, I'm open to suggestions as to how to make it more ergonomic...

I'm really glad I built this plane. Since I'm pretty well covered as far as smoothers go, I think the next woodie I'll tackle is a wooden version of the LN scraper plane (really sweet, but darn expensive)...

Thanks for watching, and reading.

DC

I don't care what they say...

Scott Burr windy and raining in Ben Lomond,CA

>I think you did a real good job on your first attempt. I would really like to see some shaving out of it...

Thanks for sharing the good, bad and ulgy... so to speak.

A fine job IMHO!

OK, just for you...

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>Hard to get a good picture, but from experience the shavings go from about 1 thou to less than that...

DC

Re: Honey, I made a woodie!

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>Denis

What a terrific job you have done. That is a nice looking plane and, importantly, it takes fine shavings. Well done indeed!

Not that you need to, but if you want to shape it after a Krenov plane, it is perfect for that.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: ergonomics and weight

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>The beauty of the wooden plane is it's light weight. In my opinion, a nice sharp blade will pull the plane down onto the wood, and whether a heavier plane works better than a lighter one I think is a subject for a serious debate. The biggest difference in performance of a plane is how sharp the iron is, not how heavy the plane. My only suggestion for "improving" the ergonomics would be perhaps round over the back and front more with a rasp, maybe a 3/4" or 1" radius, but I would use the plane some and think about it before even doing this. And the lignum vitae wedge will probably drive you crazy; an oak or cherry wedge works pretty good. Makes me want to build some more planes.

Re: Nice work Denis !!

Norman (Metcalfe, Ont.)

>

Sweet shavings...

Scott Burr windy and raining in Ben Lomond,CA

>Looks like you have a winner!

Re: Honey, I made a woodie!

Frank D. in Montreal

>Looks great Denis, congrats! You beat me to it, I'll have to get working on mine soon.

Very nice job. Thanks for sharing.

Vic Parisian

>

Re: The litmus test

Steve Kubien

>Hi Denis,

I too really like the light weight of wood planes. It's not like a #3, #4, or 4.5 smoother weighs a ton but I still find woodies more relxaing. There are times when I like the added mass of an iron plane such as shooting or working really coarse wood but those are the exceptions for me.

As for the 'improving' the shape to make is more comfortable... I really like the coffin shape of the Knight and C&W planes. There is a very natural feel to this shape. Steve Knight also rounds all of the edges of his planes (except the sole, 'natch) to about 3/4" radius. This makes it effortless to work for long periods of time with no discomfort, IME.

I would take the idea (already spoken here) about using something softer and with a little more 'give' for the wedge. I used dogwood for the wedge in my scrub and it is just too tough. I have to really hammer it to get it to sit tight.

Nice work overall. Love the shavings!

Steve Kubien

Ajax, Ontario

Nice work!

Jonathan Kaplan (OR)

>Looks like it works a lot better than the first woodie I made! I agree w/ Moses re: ergonomics -- play with it for a while, and see how it feels, and eventually, perhaps, round the ends to make it more comfortable to push on, etc. You'll figure out where it needs rounding as you use it...

Keep up the good work!

jk