St James Bay Thumb Plane kit
Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)
>I recently won an auction on the 'Bay for a St James Bay Thumb Plane kit. This is based on the Norris A13.
The Norris looks like this:
The St James Bay kit came like this. The previous owner had employed a machinist to clean up the cast brass body and sweat on the steel sole. Some work still needs to be done here. The remainder of the kit is in original form. Nice Hock iron:
Now my concern lies with constructing the adjustable mouth and the Norris-type adjuster. The current SJB model no longer has the adjustable mouth (no picture available), and I do not have construction plans for the kit. I have tried to contact SJB but they are always slow to respond. I will keep trying. I can work these things out but, rather than doing it the hard (perhaps wrong) way, I am hoping that others here have been down this path and can offer their insights (or, in addition, a plan).
For general interest, here are a few similar A13 type planes constructed by others.
The Holtey A13:
Brian Buckner's version:
Darryl Hutchinson:
Our own Phil (Philly) Edwards:
Note that the above all are fixed-mouth models. The version I have is a low angle adjustable mouth version.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Re: St James Bay Thumb Plane kit
#2Re: St James Bay Thumb Plane kit
Barryvabeach
>Dereck, I can't be of much help in that both of my SJBTC planes are fixed mouths, but Stephen Thomas has a series of three articles in The Home Shop Machinist (July, Sept, and Nov of 1999) in which he describes how he made an adjustable mouth smoother from a SJBTC kit ( the kit wasn't adjustable). He made a slot in the moveable plate to hold the head of a T nut, then it looks like a hex bolt comes down through the bun. It looks like you loosen the bolt, then manually adjust the moveable section from below, then tighten the bolt from above locking the moveable section in place. He noted that he had to silver solder a plate on the top of the casting to allow enough room to mill out the bottom for the plate and slot. If you have any specific questions, let me know, or call Bob, he apparently answers questions if you can get a hold of him. SJBTC also sells reprints of those issues.
Re: St James Bay Thumb Plane kit
#3Derek, you're a BAD man posting those pics
Ian (in Sydney, Australia)
>
Re: St James Bay Thumb Plane kit
#4St. James doesn't provide plans
Patrick Gibbons, Houston, TX
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Re: St James Bay Thumb Plane kit
#5I have come up with this so far ...
Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)
>I have emailed St James Bay twice. No answer as yet...
Construction of the Norris adjuster is relatively straight forward. Thanks to a blown up picture of Brian Buckner's construction, the details are evident, thus:
The adjustable mouth is not so easy. I will likely use a variation of the LV/LN/Stanley construction (see their block planes). I did look at the design from Stephen Thomas' "Loopy", but this is more complex than I like and unnecessarily so for a simple block plane.
This is from the pictures of the Loopy in the Archives:
I would be most greatful if anyone would post alternatives here.
Regards from Perth
Derek