The Atlanta, GA area Woodcraft store has started carrying the Hock Plane Kit. They asked me to assemble a kit so they could display a finished plane. I have wanted to get my hands on one of these kits for some time so I jumped on the opportunity. As the picture shows, the kit uncludes cheek pieces already drilled to accept the cross pin, the toe piece with a 70 degree bevel to form the throat, the heel piece with a 45 degree bed already routed to accept the double iron’s screw, a piece of ½” dowel for the cross pin, a 1:8 beveled pre-cut wedge, 8 short ¼” dowels to use in aligning the cheeks during glue up, a Hock 1 ½” by 3 ½” 3/16” thick high carbon steel double iron, sharpening notes, and assembly instructions. The wood for the plane body is Jarrah, which is dense and fine grained. To my eye it looks very much like Brazilian Cherry and is of about the same weight and hardness. All of the pieces were accurately milled right out of the box with the exception of the bed being slightly out of square. I fixed this with a half dozen passes using my low angle block plane. I could have just as easily squared up the bed by sanding the surface of it on 120 grit sandpaper using either my tablesaw fence, jointer fence, or router table fence as a right angle guide. Though the instructions don’t mention it, during the dry assembly you should insert the cross pin dowel and make sure it aligns 90 degrees to the plane sides prior to drilling the ¼” dowel alignment holes on each end of the plane per the instructions. The instructions tell you to disassemble the double iron and use the 3/16” cutting iron as a spacer to set the mouth opening slot between the toe and heel piece. This worked out perfectly. It created a slightly too tight of mouth opening that was easily widen with a fine rasp once the glue dried. After glue up the plane came out of the clamps with the sides perfectly square to the sole. The instructions don’t include any diagrams for shaping the plane. I shaped the plane and the wedge to match the picture on the box. Personally, I think the simply lines of the plane look good. I especially liked the way Hock shaped the wedge of the plane on the box to give you a place to grip when pulling the wedge out. I spent 1 hour the first evening gluing up the plane and two hours the second evening shaping the plane and wedge, plus carefully opening up the mouth. The plane is a great little smoother. It was tough giving it back to Woodcraft to put on display. Attached are also pictures of the finished plane and a close up of the wedge. gdblake
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As someone who's made a
As someone who's made a couple planes of this style, it seems like an interesting concept. I was surprised to see the wedge a different material than the plane body. It looks as if the grain runout when viewed from the side is the wrong way - could just be the picture. What is the grain direction of the body? Quartersawn, rift sawn, flat sawn?
Maybe if you had dropped the plane at the Woodcraft store, they would have deemed it unfit for display...
Hi Chris:
The shape is very comfortable to use, easy to do, and to my eye looks good. It is very similiar to small toteless infill planes. The wedge is hard maple. It actually contrasts well with the plane body and pretty much matches the color of the crosspin dowel. The grain of the wedge is basically straight with the bottom side of the wedge. The plane body is rift saw with the grain runout slanting toward the heel as it should be. Jarrah is a new wood to me. It has a nice deep red color and is fairly dense. I didn't have a means to weigh it, but this little plane has some heft for being wooden. I should have added that the finished length of the plane is 10 1/2" with the mouth just forward of center. The plane works well pushed or pulled.
gdblake
hey chris,
what references did you use to make the hand planes?
eef
gd,
would you mind telling us a bit more as to how well it did as a smoother? also, if that plane were fit with a hot dog side handle/tote, how well do you think it would work as a shooting plane?
thanks,
eef
Eef:
The plane is an excellent smoother. When I dropped it off several people in the store tried it out. All were surprised by how well the plane performed. It would work fine with a shooting board. I left the cheeks 1/4" thick on the finished plane (the cheek pieces were 5/16" thick in the kit). You need to keep in mind that the iron is only 1 1/2" wide with a finished plane length of 10 1/2". There is no reason you couldn't buy a wider iron and use the same techniques to build a larger plane for use on a shooting board. In fact I am planning to do just that. My oldest son bought me an O-1 steel 2 3/8" wide wooden plane iron from Lee Valley for Christmas. This iron is the same thickness as the iron that came in the Hock kit, 3/16". However it doesn't have a chipbreaker (they really aren't needed in a wooden plane). I bought some 4/4 Brazilian Cherry which I will use to laminate a plane blank. The general construction will use the same Krenov method the Hock Plane Kit is based on. The book "Making and Mastering Wood Planes" by David Finck steps you through the process. this book is the best resource I know of regarding the Krenov method of plane making.
gdblake
thanks gd.
last week several of us knotters, including your esteemed, (by me), self, were discussing this smoother shooting plane issue and one poster sort of poo-pooed the idea of converting old stanley/bailey planes into a hock reincarnation. at first i was a little put off by such brusqueness, but, short of buying the hock conversion blade, i have not done well getting my fettled planes to perform as shooters or smoothers and the idea of taking my time and making a dedicated smoother/shooter from scratch, sounds good.
thanks for the tips.
eef
Eef:
You aren't the only
Eef:
You aren't the only person who has been frustrated trying to get a Bailey pattern plane to work well as a smoother (and on endgrain cuts). There are two big limits to the old Stanley planes. They only come with 45 degree frogs and the irons have to be thin to fit in the plane. I am convinced the thin iron issue is their biggest drawback. Thick irons just work better. Putting as thick an iron in your old Stanley's as possible helps a lot, but can only take you so far. I truly believe that the big advantage of infill planes, wooden planes, and the bevel up planes is that they are designed to accommodate thick irons. I also believe that the wooden frogs (beds) of infill planes and wooden planes absorb and dampen vibration better than metal frogs. If you don't already have it, let me suggest that you get a copy of Christopher Schwarz's book "Handplane Essentials". The book is a compilation of everything Chris has written about handplanes over the span of several years. It is a great crash course for anybody wanting to learn the ins and outs of handplanes fast.
gdblake
gd,
finck and schwarz are duly noted. i am one of those who is much helped by "the book". thank you. last year, after fettling for 4 or 5 days, a friend here on knots kindly gave me a copy of garret hack's book. a beautiful piece of work and a very pleasant read. the two works you shared probably contain more how-to info and that is what i am looking for currently. also last year roc, here on knots, told me to wet the end grain of my dovetails prior to smooth planing them. who knew?!? i had never heard nor read that, yet several folks here mentioned this little ditty. one cannot see till one sees...
thank you.
eef
I received this kit as a Christmas present. I was impressed that this is a Krenov designed plane. This is my first plane to build. The kit went together well and everything did fit. I took a while to shape it as it is very dense wood. I was pleasantly surprise that the iron was hollow ground. Consequently; it was a snap to hone it to a razor edge. I do have other wooden planes and so I am comfortable setting the irons. I tested it on some seasoned pine and I was very pleased I could get gossamer thin shavings. It works very nicely for smoothing and as I shaped it to fit my hand, it is a joy to use. This kit has inspired me to make more of my own wooden planes from plans.
My suggestion is to buy david Finck new revised book Making and Mastering wooden planes.I have tried to make several of the Hock Plane kits and was not successful in creating the plane with the precision and finesse that I achieved building David Finck's plane after attending his 2-day workshop.You can email :[email protected]
Swifty:
Your reply has me curious. When you assembled the Hock plane kits did you check the components for squareness, especially the bed prior to assembly? As I stated in my original post, I had to refine the bed prior to glue up. If I hadn't, the plane would not perform well. Also, Ron just upgraded the kit to using all Jarrah for the plane body rather than Maple. The Jarrah is quite a bit denser then Maple which I believe contributes to a better performing plane. I have heard from others that David Finck is an excellent instructor and that his two day course is very thorough. I would think that you learned several good techniques from attending his class that has resulted in you becoming a better plane maker. I would love to see some pictures of planes you have made since attending David's class.
gdblake
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