Replies

1. 
   Malcolm | Apr 26, 2006 02:31pm | #1

   ... and, are there machinable materials other than plastics? I've heard about a machinable ceramic!

   Malcolm

   http://www.macpherson.co.nz
2. 
   SteveSchoene | Apr 26, 2006 04:20pm | #2

   What is wrong with wood?  Planes for working wood should have wood handles for comfort under hand, and so the actual user can easily modify them without recourse to special machining or finishing methods. 

   As a user, and occasional buyer of hand planes I would never, ever, not once, buy a plane with a plastic handle, regardless of any supposed advantages, or how well it were made.  (I suppose that, if all the other attributes of a plastic handled plane were outstandingly superior (doubtful given centuries of refinement in plane design) I might conceivably consider it, but only if there were an easy way to make replacement handles out of wood.  But a maker who chose plastic for a handle would have to go a very long way to convince me that the rest of the plane could be worth anything if he were "not with it" enough to rule out plastic from the start.) 

   After all, users of hand planes today are, in part, making an esthetic statement when they use hand planes, not just a practical choice.  For that matter, the very best plane I have used from a practicall point of vies made almost entirely of wood except for the blade, and it performs everybit as well as the fine planes, LN, LV and in particular Norris, that I either own, or have had the opportunity to use.  (It is a C&W smoother, by the way.) 

   Did I say I don't like plastic handles? 

1. 
   Malcolm | Apr 28, 2006 01:46pm | #3

   Points well made Steve!

   I've been using rosewood and Aussie acacia, and will experiment with some NZ natives, but I like the idea of the matt-black industrial plastics.

   Today I bought a lump of Delrin (an acetal) which I've seen used as knife handles and in hi-end cuttlery to great effect. This stuff is actually more expensive than rosewood (about $5,000 per square metre retail in the thickness I bought) and looks pretty stylish to me.

   Sure, it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm going to be making some Deco-inspired tools, and plastic is exactly appropriate (as in, for example, the Millers Falls 'Buck Rogers' tools).

   Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz

1. 
   SteveSchoene | Apr 28, 2006 03:49pm | #4

   Very interesting concept.  To me, Art Deco seems a celebration of  sleek machines, streamlining, and modern factories of mass production, essentially the antithesis of hand plane usage, even though it occurred at a time (between the World Wars)  when the quality of hand planes regained peaks not seen since the very beginning of the 19th. century, when the Industrial Revolution was in full swing.  

   Hope you can post some sketches of the concept.  

2. 
   jako17 | Apr 28, 2006 04:18pm | #5

   My only experience with delrin is turning it and I found that it moved away from the cutting tool and therefor chattered .Bit off topic but I feel you are going too lose the appeal of high end tools by using plastics.But there I find that a lot of current high end smoothers have both a poorly shaped tote and very jazzy grained choice of woods none of which compare with the Matherson and Norris smoothers and shoulder planes

3. 
   AlanWS | Apr 28, 2006 07:15pm | #6

   Delrin sounds like the best choice for your use.

   I don't have experience myself, but at one point I needed some parts machined out of UHMW-PE. The machinist tried to talk me into using Delrin, because it was so much easier to machine than anything else with good mechanical properties.

   There were some other choices he put after Delrin and before the UHMW-PE I wanted, which unfortunately I needed for its chemical properties.

4. 
   KeithNewton | Apr 29, 2006 01:31am | #7

   Nylatron is a good one that comes to mind, but teflon is probably the best. Your shop could burn down, but you would still have your handles.

   I would check with these folks.
   http://www.copeplastics.com/docs/newsandevents1.htm

1. 
   John_D | Apr 29, 2006 01:59am | #8

   I left a Teflon-coated pan on a stove once, and it boiled dry.  Fifteen minutes later it was no longer coated -- but the walls were.

   Maybe that wasn't the Teflon degrading, though, but rather whatever was used to secure it to the pan.My goal is for my work to outlast me.  Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.