Plow planes
Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI
>I have #46 user plow plane, haven't really got the ambition to use it yet because of the terrible shape of the irons. Perhaps I will work with it this weekend. I am working on a pile of simple picture frames and one not so simple and they will all need rabbets. I was just looking at the new LV plow plane and have to say that it's a nice start to a set of good plow planes. I'm sure that the skewed version will be on the way at some point. The thing that really bugs we about all the plow planes I have ever seen and or used is that there is basically no mouth on the plane. There is a skate in front of the iron and that is it. It seems to me that it would definitely take some engineering but would be well worth it to make an adjustable shoe, matched to the width of the iron, to prevent tearout in less than perfect wood when you plow through a grain reversal. The shoe could be .005 or so less in width than the iron so it would not bind in the groove. Even if the iron was skewed the shoe could still be matched to the skew. I suppose a good option to prevent tearout when plowing a groove is to have a good knife edged morticing gauge and just scribe good deep marks at both edges of the groove before you plow it. The difficulty for me in taking hand tools past the armchair stage is that power tools work so well and so easily. I have about 20 frames to make and I can mill rabbets in those frames in less than half an hour on the $^%&*#%#. The other problem I guess is not really knowing how or being very efficient or having a good sharp tool.
I did finally get my scrub plane iron sharpened that I sent out to Link last year. A user #40-1/2 scrub plane with the equivalent of a Hock iron in it is a sweet and very efficient tool. All of the air dried walnut for the frames will be surfaced by hand. The zzzzzip sound the scrub plane makes sounds even better than Willie Nelson.
