Sorry, cross-posting
New miniature infill at http://www.macpherson.co.nz/shop_made_planes.htm
Thanks to Lie-Nielsen (irons), Philip Marcou (bronze lever cap and screw), and Classic Planes (adjuster)!
Malcolm
Edited 3/13/2006 7:11 am ET by Malcolm
Discussion Forum
Edited 3/13/2006 7:11 am ET by Malcolm
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Replies
Malcolm, looks like fine workshop jewellery to me-by that I mean stuff that works well in addition to looking seductive-has to be the winning combination. Shelf candy it is not, by any means. Great crow food. Crows are very clever discerning birds .
Thanks
I'm thinking, as I start to lay out the panel plane, about shape and style. There's no point, it seems to me, in just making a traditional shape. Nothing wrong with the Spiers/Mathieson/Kingshott shape, but I know I can do that!
Been looking at the Anderson page - acanthus leaves and scroll-like decoration - and that's given me a few ideas.
Also really taken by the post-modern sleekness of the Swiss-made disposables (Rali, I think).
And I've been looking at American hot rod mags, and 32 T-buckets and the chopped-down shapes that people create out of 30s and 40s bodies. Is there a plane shape in there somewhere?
I've also wondered about chamfering-in the front, angling-in from about the mouth like a Western boot! Cuban heels.
Anyone got any other ideas? Images?
Malcolm
http://www.macpherson.co.nz
Edited 2/26/2006 5:20 am ET by Malcolm
Holy smoke, Malcolm, are you taking leave of your senses? Anyway, as they say, thems are just thoughts and words, so we wait and see!
Is Anderson the one who has antler like things sticking out from the front?Perhaps I am missing it but I just did not get it when I saw those images. How about a Texas Long Horn front handle? (;)Philip Marcou
If you want to see a Herd of Planes, try this link:
http://www.hocktools.com./planemaking%202006%20cd/click%20here.htm
"Herd of planes" link didn't work - couldn't find it at the site either!
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
Tried again, did find it at Ron Hock's site (in the links page). Anyone interested in modern plane-making has gotta see this series of photos. Legendary!
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
Great looking planes, Malcolm. Nice chunk of cocobolo for the top "Spiersy" smoother (at least it looks like cocobolo from here) I like the small Scotch smoother and the chariot as well (does that one have a lignum wedge?)Like the palm plane too.The Anderson planes are wonderful and wouldn't be that much harder to do than what you've done already. They're a bit more "fiddlely" and take a little more time, thats all.I love the Rali planes. I'm not a fan of using them, but I love the fact that they've done what they've done, and that the planes are so different looking. I know a lot of traditionalists hate them, but I'm not one of them.Metod: The uneveness of the dovetails is due to the position of the mouth. The dovetails have to be positioned around a mouth that is cut into the sole but still be able to lock the plates together tightly. Not all dovetailed planes need to done in this way though.C.R. Miller Planes
Pin and tail spacing when dovetailing infills depends a bit on how the plane is constructed. I've made a couple where the sole is split (mainly to get a very fine mouth easily) and so there has to be a wide(ish) piece of the side to cover the seperation in the sole.
The 01 size smoother has very narrow fingers of brass (too narrow it turned out) and most of the dovetailing is underneath, holding the sole on against the thrust of gthe lever cap (although I dealt to that as well - it's a weakness of split-sole designs - by inserting a couple of big chunks of brass either side of the bottom of the tote-block, at the mouth end - attached to the sides, they take the weight, rather than the sole). The spacing is purely decorative, once the functional needs are taken care of.
The next project - a big panel plane - will have small, conventionally-shaped dovetails, evenly distributed from front to back. The side view will be mostly steel, in other words.
Malcolm
Malcolm: Looks like we were both posting at the same time. You must be faster at typing than me though. :-)Plus I just "read" what you'd written on the page and the answers to my questions were there. When I first posted I just looked at the photos without reading the text. My bad.C.R. Miller Planes
Edited 2/26/2006 8:53 pm ET by C.R. Miller
Malcom
My buddy and I are building our second Shepards. We are interested in the technique for the screws instead of rivets.
Did you use brass wood screws? Brass machine screws and tap the wood? Metal tubes inserted in the wood?
Personally, I would think threaded tubes would be the way to go.
Perhaps the question should be: how would you do it again?
Thanks - great work, by the way ...
Intersting questions!
Some observations:(1) I don't think it greatly matters as far as strength and structural integrity are concerned. A well joined plane, with nice tight dovetails, is a pretty rigid unit.(2) To screw or peen is as much an appearance as an engineering decision(3) However, the best technical solution is probably to use sleeves (tubes) because it means that changes in the moisture content of the infill material will not affect the body of the plane (unless, I guess, moisture content goes way up and the infill expands sufficiently to move the sides apart. Over a number of years that might loosen-up the joints)(4) Given that, machine screws tapped through the sides and into metal sleeves would be the Rolls Royce way to go. Necessary? Probably not!(5) It would be intersting to find someone who has restored/owned a few of the old Scottish screwed planes, and ask whether there is any evidence of infill movement affecting the joins.I used woodscrews, driven into tight clearance holes in the cocobolo, and countersunck so that the heads ended slightly proud of the sides, then sanded flush. Done well, you should not be able to see a join between the screw and the metal. I used chromed brass screws, nicely made with cut not pressed slots - from a lot I bought many years ago from an old building com pany in the UK.
Next time? I will probably just screw as last time, but will think about sleeving!
Malcolm http://www.macpherson.co.nz
Thanks for the response.
Yes, we had discussed the shrinkage issue. I suspect that coccobolo probably doesn't move that much, but you never know. Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if the strength of a screw in that damned wood isn't stronger than brass anyway.
Now, wood movement might be an issue - but it could be the same issue with rivets because they go through and through, limiting the ability of the brass to expand with the wood.
Our major concern was leaving dents in the brass while we pound away on the rivets. Suffice it to say, one false move and the brass looks pretty ugly.
I liked your approach (proud & sanded down). Makes sense and looks beautiful!
Edited 2/28/2006 3:48 pm ET by Piccioni
Another observation: When I glued-in the tote and the front bun of the Shpeherd, I drenched the inner surfaces of the sides and sole with epoxy, and clamped up with sufficient pressure to squeeze tiny fingers of glue out of a couple of not quite completely tight dovetails. What this means is that, barring exceptional forces, the glued-up unit is pretty damn solid!
The screws, which went in after all that had dried solid, were a belt and braces solution.
With the little 01 size infill smoother, I haven't yet screwed the sides on. 6mm stainless dovetailed to 5mm brass, with the 3 pieces hammered together so hard the metal flowed around the joins, is a very tight unit. The wood adds a bit, but there's no structural need to either pin/peen or screw!
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
> Our major concern was leaving dents in the brass <
That's partly what motivated me! However, if you want to rivet/peen, making a little protector of thin sheet metal solves that problem. Find some steel, or maybe some brass shim stock. Cut a hole slightly larger then the pin, drop it over the pin and fix in place with some glue-stick glue or double-sided tape. Any misses will ding the protector, not the brass underneath.
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
If you guys have any difficulty getting good screws, let me know and I'll airmail you a handfull - I have a lifetime supply!
Email from my web page
Malcolm
Malcom
Thanks for the offer, but we are still ruminating on the subject. Interested to see you used epoxy - the guys at Shepherd use Gorilla Glue.
I'm going up to their shop tomorrow ...
>Interested to see you used epoxy - the guys at Shepherd use Gorilla Glue<
No idea what gorilla glue is - not available here - but have also seen people suggest polyurethane (wetting the surfaces first) because of its gap-filling feature.
I just like the idea of a good solid 'weld', which in my experience is best achieved with a slow-setting epoxy.
Wish I could go up to the Shepherd shop! It would take me about 48 hours of non-stop (air) travel!
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
Sorry - I always think of yanks when I post.
Gorilla Glue is a brand of liquid polyurethane glue. Its particularly good at gluing oily woods together, and like any poly prefers you dampen the surfaces.
I don't think the gap filling is why you want to use it. Our wood was almost press fit in.
Anyhow any poly glue is amazing. I use construction glue (thick caramel like polyurethane glue) a fair bit. I once glued a 2x4 onto concrete with that stuff, and the concrete broke when I removed the wood. Plus, its like C $5 per 2 liter tube!
OK
The polyurethane glue I use is the same as your gorilla glue, in that case. I usually don't like it, preferring PVA, but the desert acacia I used for the tote and front bun of my No 1 smoother had to be broken apart and re-glued, and I used both polyurethane and epoxy. Both seem to have worked OK in that case - there were a few gaps to fill!
Another subject - back to infill techniques. If you look closely at my No 1, you'll se that the grain of the front bun runs across the plane carcase, not parallel to the sides. This means that in and around the region of the mouth, there won't be any shrinkage issues.
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
>I don't think the gap filling is why you want to use it<
Agreed. What I wanted was a solid composite of steel, brass and wood, with no likelihood of movement. Did I get what I wanted? Tap the glued-up unit, and it rings like a bell!
Malcolm
http://www.macpherson.co.nz
Edited 3/3/2006 7:33 pm ET by Malcolm
Sunday 6pm in New Zealand.
This weekend I made a start on my 12 inch panel plane, using a piece of 80mm by 5mm guage plate (beautifully flat, true, and damned expensive), and two bits of rumpity recycled 5mm brass sheet.
This time I started with the sole, and instead of pasting-on a paper pattern, I marked the dovetails directly onto the steel and cut them first, then marked from them onto one side, marked up the side, ganged the 2 sides together and cut close to the line with my standard bandsaw. Clamped a piece of wood either side, and used my router to mill the 'lands' between the pins. Worked OK, now midafternoon Saturday.
I'm using a layout with 5 12mm brass pins set wide apart, so the hardest part of the joinery is getting a clean tight join between the brass and the steel, especially since this match shows along the sides. If you look at dovetailed planes, even Norris' and other old makers, if there's a fault, it'll be here!
Cleaned up the inside angles of the brass sides, bit of tinkering with fit and finish, and at end of play Saturday was ready to bang the sides onto the sole.
Sunday 11am. Made a nice square-section buck, and cut up some scrap 1 by 1 square steel tube to act as clamps to bolt the sides and sole to the buck. Thought about how I was going to cut the mouth (to be done before joining-up). Took a chance and freehanded the slot with a 1mm cutoff disk in my wee Matabo angle grinder, opened-up by pressing the disk against the sides of the mouth, then worked the 45 degree inside ramp with a stiffer (2.5mm) grinding disk. Finished by hand, done by 1pm.
2pm. Clamped up the carcase, bolted to the buck, and tapped the joints into place, started peening (OK, I'll use the commom spelling) about 2.30, had the hammer work done in about an hour, and after 30 mins on my new sander had a near-perfect set of compound dovetails. Finished at 5.30pm.
Where did I go wrong? One of the joints showing on the sole didn't have quite enough metal to fill a corner, and there's a tiny gap! I'd say about 1.5 by 0.2 mm. How do I fix that, guys?
Otherwise I'm tickled pink! Best set of dovetails I've done so far (the 5th, and the 3rd I've done all myself). If I were working just in my shop, I'd say that I could get this far in a day's work.
Next, shaping the sides and beginning the woodwork (the rosewood picked up in Australia in Januray). Another 2 weekends mimimum.
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
That gap? Next time don't go completely flush until you have checked that there are no voids!If there are any , that is the timr to pein them in.
For that gap you have now, just shape a sliver of brass and hammer it in-might have to enlarge the gap a bit. Make sure you clamp when you bash it in.
Am I teaching Granny to suck eggs?
When the thing looks like hell as in the picture, the job is done!
Pictures #16 and #21 show the cross pin rivet-when it is well done the periphery raises up as you can see by the "new" brass .Philip Marcou
Yeah - problem was I didn't allow enough, so I didn't actually have the brass to peen in. One or two swipes too many with the file, and the gap was too big to fill! Bugger! Tried tapping in a sliver of metal, but they just bend over. I'll need to make the gap bigger.
I'm about to attack my lump of bronze (12 inches of 3 by 3.5 inches solid bar - weighs something like 24kg. The courier driver only got half way to the door!) to cut off a lever cap- blank!
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
Philip - interesting that we have adopted different approaches to the layout of pins and tails. Looking at the bottom of mine, and I can't see much brass (I have 5 narrow pins cut in the brass sides, evenly distributed and all the same size, so the sole view is mostly steel, as is the side view).
I don't think it's a strength issue, BTW. With 15 degree angles, compounded, in 5mm metal, these are pretty strong joints. I was after the look of a traditional hand-cut drawer - fine pins, wide spread.
Haven't resolved the front end yet. I fancy using a 2 inch brass ball-shaped door handle on a short stalk, with the front cut quite low and angled down, infilled flush.
I'm going to make a closed rear tote in the style of an Estwing hammer handle, laminated disks of rosewood with a 6mm stainless rod up the middle.
May get some more done during the week, otherwise it'll be next weekend.
Damned day job!
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
Sounds like that is going to be a Very Different Plane-which is good-you just go over the top, and then I'll clean it up and go into production before you get any patenting ideas (;)(;).
Meantime I post a picture that shows milling a slot in the now sacred sole for an insert to make the mouth adjustable- but of maybe more interest you can see the base I made for the digital caliper-makes the depth reading much more reliable and a lot cheaper than buying yet another measuring device. The piece of bronze was an offcut from a plane cap.Philip Marcou
Gotta say Philip, I am envious of your tooling!
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
It's horses for courses- not heavy enough for the job , believe me, but will get me by for the time being. Should you come across a surface grinder ex empire vintage, I amm on the sniff for one.....Philip Marcou
Ha
I'm as likely to come across a surface grinder as I go about my daily business as I am to catch bird flu! Vanishingly small probability.
I am thinking about investing in a dovetail jig, however! I'm impressed by the quality of the job I can do with a hand-held router when working (well, trimming) brass. Jigs next! Then a steel-cutting blade in a recycled table saw!
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
Malcolm wrote: "It would be intersting to find someone who has restored/owned a few of the old Scottish screwed planes, and ask whether there is any evidence of infill movement affecting the joins."Yes, most definitely there is in some of them. Nowhere near enough to make the joints fail but you do see a little shifting in both dovetails and rivets from time to time...just enough to see where they are in most cases. Of course if you're doing a major restore - and by this I mean stripping out the infill and replacing it - then it's a good thing because you know exactly where you have to knock the pins through. Sometimes these things are so well hidden (even after 150 years) that it can be a guessing game.As for screws, these were wood screws just screwed into the infill. A different profile from todays mass-produced screws but not that different. If you ever need new "zinc plated" screws to look old just throw them in a fire to burn the zinc off. Either that or buy un-plated screws.I've never bothered with sleeves myself and I can't recall ever seeing them on plane that I've disassembled. I don't think any of the old makers were particularly worried about it. After all they probably weren't thinking of end users six generations down the track.About the hammer dents, well practice practice practice helps here. The more planes you make, the less "wayward dents" you get. You learn to stop hitting and start tapping in a very short time (hopefully during your first plane) and the sound goes from the "clang......clang......clang" of your typical blacksmith to the "tap, tap, tap, tap, tap" of your typical....erm, machine gun I guess? By peining with small controlled taps it's not so bad if you get a bit wayward as you can file or sand the smaller indentations out fairly easily.If you're running short of shim stock (as per Malcolm's idea) you can use an empty soda can for shim material.
Malcolm, talking of screw slots, peening and wood movement on infills;-
I have the means to cut almost any screw slot- the picture shows slot cutting the handle nuts. A range of circular saw blades allows one to cut slim to wide.
Here are some pics on peening the cross bar, made of 9mm 01, after drilling a tapered hole. Mis-hits are caused by 1) using the whole arm instead of a wrist action with the hammer 2)trying to hit too hard instead of tapping 3) holding the hammer with too tight a grip 4) the hammer surface being greasy /unclean.I have included a picture of the punch I use for peening the dovetails.One can use this alone for peening-if dent paranoia gets the upper hand.
I don't think much of this movement thing on wood infills. Firstly one uses a suitable and stable timber which has reached equilibrium moisture content with the prevailing atmosphere.Secondly it is a relatively small bit of timber, thirdly one usually seals the timber one way or another, by a sealer and limiting the exposure of end grain via the plane construction, and lastly there is the question of HYSTERESIS, which is not relevant in New Zealand since the climate is changing every other day (;).
And I just threw in a picture of my two dovetail templates for interest sake. I am considering documenting all the little tools , aids and machine mods I have made to date just so I can churn out a plane or two.Philip Marcou
The only problem I see is that the plane is in your shop not mine :)
Troy
Malcolm,
Congratulations: Very handsome plane!!!
I took a real gander at that #1 infill. I must say that I really like the whole idea of a #1 sized infill, and I really like the the way your #1 turned out, too; very, very nice.
Between you and Philip, the two of you are going to put NZ on the map as a plane-making centre, in competition with Maine, parts of OZ, and east-central Canada!!
Looking forward to seeing your panel plane.
Again, very nice job on your latest! As Philip might say, "Real Crow bait!!"
James
Edited 3/1/2006 12:59 am ET by pzgren
Edited 3/1/2006 1:04 am ET by pzgren
Hey, thanks!
< Looking forward to seeing your panel plane. >
Me too!
I think I've decided there's no point in just making another infill panel plane. Nothing wrong with the traditional styles, of course, but I've never set out to make repro woodwork, so why should tools be different!?
I want to make a plane that is functional. For me, function does always come first. But hand tools are a unique set of human artifacts, aren't they? We like to use and own them because they're deeply satisfying objects that do an essential job.
A picture on a wall may mean a lot of things to the viewer - who has done art history, here - but it can never provide the visceral, lasting, sensual joy of using a 'right for purpose' tool that has natural authority, that does the job, and that sits on the bench saying "I'm the man!".
Watch this space!
Jeez - talk about setting high expectations!
But then ... I'm a politician.
Malcolm
http://www.macpherson.co.nz
I should add that if you're using brass screws and sanding them flush to look like pins you might want to try it on some scrap material first - especially if you want them to be "hidden". Not all brasses are created equal and some are lighter or darker in color than others
Malcolm,
<<For me, function does always come first. But hand tools are a unique set of human artifacts, aren't they? We like to use and own them because they're deeply satisfying objects that do an essential job.
A picture on a wall may mean a lot of things to the viewer - who has done art history, here - but it can never provide the visceral, lasting, sensual joy of using a 'right for purpose' tool that has natural authority, that does the job, and that sits on the bench saying "I'm the man!". >>
I couldn't agree more...those are just a few of the motivating factors in doing woodwork, particularly with hand tools. It's just a very satisfying feeling to have used a good tool to do what it was designed to do and get the result you were looking for. Almost -- but not quite -- as good as sex!!! :-)
<<Jeez - talk about setting high expectations! But then ... I'm a politician.>>
High expectations are good...they motivate us to do our best. And we won't hold the fact that you're a politician against you...it's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.... :-)
You still do nice wood work and build very nice planes!!
Cheers!
James
Edited 3/1/2006 11:32 am ET by pzgren
Edited 3/1/2006 11:34 am ET by pzgren
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