1. I have a new(to me) flea market wooden plane and would like to add some depth adjustment hardware to it to regular the blade..the whole wedge system just isn't doing it for me. Does anyone know of a source for ordering this type of thing?
2. Cylindrical door locks..I have to install a few and would like to use a brace or eggbeater for them instead of my regular cordless drill. Will either of these tools spin a hole saw at the requisite speed to bore this kind of hole?
Re: Depth Adj. Hardware & Cylindrical Locks w/ bra
Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod
>Ray -
I'm not aware of any kit to convert a wedge-type plane. E.C.Emmerich Primus Planes have iron adjustment mechanisms, as do Ulmia 'reform' and 'precision' planes. You might be able to get some ideas from examining their approach to the problem. If you describe your plane and the difficulty you are having perhaps we can help you learn to adjust it. Is it a bench plane? molding? length? width? ...
For drilling lockset holes I'd recommend a brace and auger bits with tapered shanks. For the big hole use an adjustable bit. You won't be able to generate enough power with an eggbeater. I have no experience trying this with a hole saw. It might work if you can find one with a tapered shank. With a round shank I expect the chuck will not hold the bit securely and it will slip.
Re: Depth Adj. Hardware & Cylindrical Locks w/ bra
Bill Houghton, finally Spring!! in Sebastopol, CA
>Some hole saws have hex shanks, which should chuck up fine in the conventional two-jaw brace chuck. It's likely to be slow, but hole saws work better when operated moderately slowly anyway. You should probably have a large-throw brace, say a 12" (6" from the centerline of the chuck to centerline of the crank handle), as hole saws require high torque.
Re: Depth Adj. Hardware & Cylindrical Locks w/ bra
Barryvabeach
>Ray, I am not a big fan of the tap to adjust method of setting baldes either. There is no "kit " per se to adapt a wooden blade to mechanical adjustment. Dislaimer -though it can be done it would be overkill an quite expensive . You can order a Ray Isles adjuster from joel at toolsforworkingwood for $70 - before you order it confirm they will sell a screw to fit the adjuster to the chip breaker, then you may need to buy a chip breaker if the screw doesn't fit it. Installed that inthe bplane bed should be that hard - it is the same process used in an infill and it took me a few hours to convert and infill to adjustable. then you need something to hold the blade firmly to the bed - the old wedge may not work. I would think that it will take a few hours to come up with a design to hold down the blade and probably buying more stuff( I would try to use something like an infill uses ). When you ar all done it might be $100 to $200 or more in mods. You would probably be much better off to buy a comparable LV or LN if you want to start with something new or an old stanley and try fixing it up. Good Luck. Barry
>I thought I was the only one with a penchant for dreaming up byzantine ways to do things the hardest and iffiest way possible.
Bill's already given you excellent advice on the plane. I'd only add:
A depth adjuster isn't going to help you set the blade if you have a proper tapered blade in that woody. Adjust down and you lose clamping. Adjust up and you risk blowing out your plane's cheeks, if anything moves much at all. A simple wedge can be an incredibly powerful mechanism.
If you have a parallel blade without a chip breaker, you have the wrong blade. It may wander in use even when wedged tightly.
If you have a parallel blade with a chip breaker, God only knows what's going on.
So, if you have a nice tapered blade, you simply need to read up on how to become proficient at setting and adjusting it. If you are capable of installing "adjuster hardware", you're more than capable of mastering a woody with a tapered blade.
But, if you don't have a tapered blade, that plane needs to go to a shelf in the den and you need to keep checking planes at the flee market.
On the hole drilling, if I had a couple hours to kill, I could find some way to keep a hole saw mandrel from spinning in a brace and grind through a door. My biggest problem would be wobbling the drilling axis, binding the saw as it went deeper, losing strenth in my arms, needing more torque, finding a big enough pipe wrench, getting more off axis, more binding, noticing substernal chest pain, finding nitro, so on and so forth. In the end, though, I'd have some chance of being proud of myself...in a masochistic sort of way.
>It takes patience and practice to learn a new skill. In the early days I avoided wedges also. One day I had some time to kill and started tapping. It's not too hard to learn. This is what I do: loosen the wedge and tap the iron down, try a cut, tap the iron to go down, tap the heel to raise, keep tapping until you are happy and then tap the wedge home. Woodworkers used wedged planes for hundreds of years. They do not have backlash like metal ones. Keep working at it and you will pick up a new skill. Good luck.
>Taping is far and away my favorite method. It has significant advantages over other methods like the fact that thee is zero backlash, depth control is very easy to control because each whack of the hammer can only advance the blade so far, blades are much faster to change, and there never seems to be any tendance for the blade to skew off angle.
I could give a long description but two points will probably get you on track: 1) get a good hammer. I don't mean some expensive brass hammer that is someone's idea of the perfect hammer, my favorite hammer over the year is hard plastic. The keys are weight and feel. If it's too heavy or has poor feel you can't use it successfully.
2) Basically adjust down. Adjusting up has two problems, it tends to be less predictable because you are not taping the blade itself, and it tends to loosen the wedge. Set the blade short, find some way of getting it near but above setting, work it down. If I overshoot I am generally more inclided to get it far enough up rahter than to work it back and forth.
Blade taper is of no importance and by no means do all the significant plane cultures use tapered blades.
>The trick that I found most helpful came from Terry Gordon. He ships small blocks of hardwood with each plane. You put the plane on the hardwood (which is most likely on your bench) and tap the blade with a good strong tap, which sets it up for planing. Sometimes the cut will be a bit light when set this way, so just tap it down a tiny bit more, taking a shaving after every tap until you get it exactly the way you want.
>If you hammer home the wedge you won't have any more luck setting a wedged plane than if you crank a Stanley lever cap screw to 200 ft pounds. If the wedge fits the plane, it should only take a light tap to seat the wedge and iron.
>This is a case of *less is more*. On a new plane I make sure that there is minimal side friction on the wedge. Then I tap slightly to seat the blade. If it moves, more tapping is needed. Each plane is slightly different. If you tap hard enough to damage the tip of the wedge, then there is a problem. Another point is to loosen the wedge slightly after use. Swelling wood around a tight wedge is a recipe for problems.
>A depth adjuster isn't going to help you set the blade if you have a proper tapered blade in that woody. Adjust down and you lose clamping. Adjust up and you risk blowing out your plane's cheeks, if anything moves much at all. A simple wedge can be an incredibly powerful mechanism
Good point... though this got me to thinking how the Ohio & some Keen Kutter planes do this since their bailey style benchtops and transitionals also use a laminated wedge blade. They ofcourse have a lever cap which makes things a little different. Now I'm curious to pay more attention to this next time I use one.