Here are a few photos of a toothing plane that I recently made. I’m curious whether or not anyone else uses one of these. I’ve been reading alot about scrub planes here, but not much about tooth planes.
I’m also curioius how many folks, if any, prefer a wood plane. I made this one because it was a whole lot cheaper than buying one.
Tom
Replies
Tom
Nice work!!
Do you use the toothing to scrub or for veneers? If for scrubbing, I like the traditional scrub blade.
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Michael in San Jose
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." Bertrand Russell
Hi Michael,Thanks, I only finished it last night, and I think I'm going to modify the wedge with a "coffin top". To sort of mirror the top to the blade.Well, I guess you could call it scrubbing, but I don't think of it that way. I use it to tackle squirrely grain, like fiddle back. I tooth the surface first, then use a scraper to smooth the surface, by scaping off the teeth.With modern adheasives and vacuum bags, I'm not sure that toothing the ground for veneer is necessary any more.Tom
Hey,
I use a toothing blade in my L-N #62 to scrub, and to deal with difficult grain as you've described. The plane is beautiful! I'd like to see a better shot of the blade, particularly the teeth; did you cut the teeth yourself?
Charlie
The blade is an ECE blade. I bought it from a fellow online. Unfortunately, I don't have the plane with me today, but I'll try to remember to take another shot tonight.I've been struggling with my drafting program to make a drawing of the angles but, so far, it has defeted me. I may just draw something up on paper and scan it.Tom
Okay, Here is a quick and dirty sketch of the angles in the toothing plane. The outside shape is up to the builder, but I find that the coffin style is best for the kind of work I do with it, as I end up pushing and pulling it at all angles.It's glued up out of four pieces (five including the 3/8" pin), the sides are 1/4" thick, slabbed off of the original block. The sides are bowed slightly with the toe slightly narrower than the heel. The toe is also slightly bowed. If you put a 1/4" chamfer on the top, it disguises the glue line.The overall dimensions are 8 1/2" x 2 1/2" x 2 3/4". The throat is 5" back from the toe.Tom
tms,
I have an old toothing plane. The iron is nearly vertical in the stock. I use it very seldom, as you do, for cleaning up wild grain that my home made smoothing plane won't handle.
I prefer to use wooden planes. Have a couple old Stanleys, but I've gotten away from using them, except to scrub off dried glue.
Regards,
Ray
Hi Joinerswork,Do you still have the angle and aperture specs. for your homemade smoother? I'm always interested in how other folks make their planes. The angle on my toother is 75º, as the diagram shows. I haven't tried any other angle. You said that your's was nearly vertical, do you know what the actual angle is? I would be curious to know.What style is your smoother, does it have a tote and knob? or is it a coffin style like my toother?I started using wooden planes when I was working on wooden boats. When you're fairing a hull, a lighter, wooden plane makes quite a difference after just a short time, and a coffin style makes working at odd angles easier.Tom
Hello Tom,
I apologise for taking so long to reply to you. Messages to me don't always show up on the board, and I don't often think to check that option on the search feature.
My toothing plane is a coffin style plane. It is, I'm pretty sure, shop made. There is no maker's mark on the stock, although it is beech, and looks to be professionally done, with nice chamfers,etc. The blade is an old Buck Brothers, the only plane iron I've seen so marked. It has a tote, mounted right on the back of the stock, another feature that makes me think it's shopmade. The blade is mounted at 90* to the sole. An interesting thing about this plane, is that the taper of the wedge is such that it loosens itself over time. There is about a 1/16" + opening in the sole infront of the iron.
I like the weight advantage of a wooden plane over iron bodied ones too. I think they push easier, as well, wood-on-wood has less friction it seems to me.
Regards,
Ray
Tom,
Very nice plane. I can relate to your plane making skills.
I consider James Krenov to be my mentor and as I have traversed the rich and diverse landscape of our craft, one treasure which he has revealed through his writings is the wooden plane. Those who have not experienced the extreme gratification that is derived from making your own wooden plane(s) and then using them in your work, would not understand. In this respect, you and I, "have been there, done that".
I have provided (I couldn't resist) three photos of my planes for your (and others') perusal. One of my favorites is a smoothing plane made from 100 year old spalted apple wood. I was a close friend of the 92 year old Spanish gentleman (now passed on) who played in this very tree as a child. It goes without saying, that because of our friendship, this apple wood is very special to me as are my memories of him. I once told him that all of the fine shavings from this plane would be dedicated to him. Sadly, they are now done in his memory.
My other planes are made of rock maple and bubinga. And, as you can see, I normally use SS 1/4" rod for the cross-pin. Some of my planes do have wooden ones, but I find that the SS rod works very well although not as forgiving as their wooden counterparts.
You will also see that I always use a hard wood insert in the sole. Granted this is a lot of work, but is not a deterrent. The real reason that I do this is because it provides me with a very precise method of getting the mouth or throat as fine as I want. The wood I use is from a desert bush found in southern New Mexico. This wood is extremely dense and can be polished like a gem if you care to do so. It is also quite brittle as one would expect, but works well in my planes.
As you will see in the view of my cabinet, I have a Lie-Nielsen scrub plane with two blades one of which is toothed. I had to have this plane to flatten a coffee table top made from a 8/4 slab of walnut crotch the grain of which was very difficult. The LN planes are referred to as "heirlooms" pieces with price to match. At time of purchase, I could not justify buying an inferior product - my opinion, of course - so L-N was truly the only choice I had. Time did not allow for fabrication. The LN did in fact work quite well, but I am sure, had I had the option, the Lee Valley scrubber would have done the job just as well in addition to keeping my wallet somewhat plumper. I am not a collector of wood working tools, so whether they are of the "heirloom' genre or not is inconsequential to me.
Regards,
Phillip
Hi Phillip,Thanks for the photos. I particularly like the spalted apple plane. It's obvious that you know what fits your hand.Do you recall what bed angle you used, and what mouth opening?I'm also curious about the New Mexican hardwood bush, do you know the species name?Although I don't need another plane now, I may make another anyway, just for the fun of it. I'm sure you understand.Tom
Tom,"Do you recall what bed angle you used, ... "Ah! My very favorite subject. Ha! In truth, I adhere to the K.I.S.S. philosophy. When I mark the center portion of the plane to prepare the front and rear blocks for cutting, I simply place a 45/90 template where I want to cut the rear block using the 45 degree slope as a guide. The front ramp is cut at about 65 degrees or so. Once the marking is done, I actually reduce the rear ramp (the one that supports the iron/chip breaker assembly) angle to what I would guess is about 42 degrees. At that point, I quit worrying about it. The only other thing that I do after cutting the blocks out is to buff the front ramp to reduce friction so the shaving's will fly by. Done.There are too many other variables in this bed-angle vs cutting-ability scenario to give it a Life-and-Death, State-Of-The-Union level of importance. Everyone knows that about 45 degrees will work for the bulk of the wood that we work. For everything else there is the scrubber/scraping plane and the low-angle plane. That's MHO, of course."... and what mouth opening?"That, as I mentioned previously, is the beauty of using a sole insert. My method is to make the insert longer that I know will work. I use the piece that is left over from making your plane-iron wedge as a file to "fine tune" the opening. This piece of wood becomes a file after I adhere a piece of 320X wet-dry sandpaper with spray-on adhesive. Once I get the iron/breaker and wedge assembly to just peek out then I go on full-alert so as to not over do the opening. I have a plane with a 1/4 inch mouth which is used with a convex Hock iron to "hog out the wood" quickly. So, I cannot imagine why anyone would not want anything but a razor thin mouth on their other plane(s). I want my plane "sw-ooshs" to produce gossamer thin shavings and those are only possible with a super-tight mouth. For me that means less than 1/16 of an inch. From drawing to completed plane, the cutting and construction of these instruments presents many opportunities for "variances" to be made which can have a drastic effect on the mouth opening. This is why I make sure that the insert is longer than I will be able to use. Glue up can be just as treacherous but a few grains of sand can help immeasurably. So, once everything is glued together, I then begin the task of fitting the insert in place. Patience is the name of the game here. Once I get a good fit, I glue it in. I give it about 24 hours to dry then begin filing the mouth to spec."I'm also curious about the New Mexican hardwood bush, do you know the species name?"Why did I think that question was going to be asked? Ha! This is an odd story. This wood first came to my attention when I was working at the Chevron refinery in El Paso. I was asked what it was and had no idea. One of the guys who happened to pop-in at the moment said, "Oh, that's palo duro", which translated means "hard wood". Not too generic or anything. So, one day I took a piece of it to the Agronomy Department at New Mexico State University and the folks there said that in all probability it was Iron Wood but they needed a leaf to be (more) certain. They seemed somewhat reluctant to believe that I actually found it in the local desert, which by that time had actually gone out and done. That left me somewhat puzzled. If they didn't believe me, why waste my time. So I never went back. This bush is very unusual for several reasons, for me at least.(1). To my knowledge bushes do not have trunks. This plant follows that trait in all cases except one that I know of. When we lived there I used to run in the desert and I did in fact find one of these bushes which did have a trunk. I harvested that entire bush and to this day feel guilt for doing so. There is no law against it, but I just wanted to have that very special piece of wood. I do have photos (non-digital) which I took to photo-document the entire process. (2). This wood is nearly blood red when you first cut into it. This eventually turns into the burgundy color that you saw in the photos.(3). All that "clicking noise" that you hear as you cut is not the cicada's: it's the wood checking! This is a fact, or relatively so. I spoke with the folks who manufacture Pentacryl (wood stabilizer) about this beforehand. They said to soak the cut ends as quickly as possible and hope for the best. This stuff is about $50 a gallon so I bought two and dumped them into a large cooler. As I cut, each branch got a good dose. This may have helped somewhat, but all cut ends still exhibited checking.(4). As most plants/trees mature they "grow" branches. I'm just a wealth of new information wouldn't you say? When this bush grows, it "makes" branches by splitting itself in two, then that branch splits, and so on. The trunk does this as well, so a cross-section of a branch from this bush looks like a wedge, never cylindrical. I have photos showing just that. I did say it was a strange bush.(5). Lastly, these bushes are VERY, VERY OLD. You can count 50-75 annual rings in a 3-4 inch wedge of this wood. That part of the country gets very little rain, so growth is very slow which makes the annual rings very tight.I use this wood very sparingly because it is so unique. I have also seen carvings made of Iron Wood from Mexico and the Baja and the wood is similar. But IMHO, its close to Iron Wood, but no cigar. So, I do not know the species of this wood. Sorry.I hope I answered your questions. I'm glad Taunton doesn't charge by the word.Regards,
Phillip
Wow!Thanks for the insite. That is a unique way of making a plane that I've not heard of before. I think I'd like to try it myself. I suppose that bubinga would work for the insert. It's what I usually make wedges from as I can buy scraps by the pound.I also appreciate your respect for ancient wood. I can imagine that it's under a tremendous amount of hydrostatic stress in such a dry environment.Maybe you should write an article for Taunton on planes, then they would pay you by the word.Tom
Tom,I'm not so sure that my method of making wooden planes is unique. I do think that it is just my adaptation of what I believe the best way to get the mouth that I want. The bubinga should work just fine. In reality, any wood of comparable hardness would work. The whole point of this insert business is simply to facilitate the fine tuning of the mouth. Nothing more.Something that I was going to add in my last post was that the local's just remove a branch at a time. I have seen many mature bushes with branches cut off. For the most part these are close to the dirt roads which wind all over the desert. This may be their way of saying "this is very special wood". As I said, I still feel some guilt for taking the bush that had a trunk, but it has been put to good use. The trunk is still intact. Someday its intended purpose will make itself known to me.BTW, I have never spoken to anyone who has used this wood. Someone is, I just don't know who.It could be that not too many folks even know of this wood. I have thought that the only way a person would accidently discover this wood would be if he were looking for drift wood for their garden and came across a large branch. If they were to want that piece and went to pick it up they would notice immediately that it was very heavy in comparison to say, mesquite. There is a lot of that in that area. Who knows ...If you're serious about making another plane I will be happy to ship you enough of this wood to make an insert with. This takes a band saw because it is very brittle and could be ruined on the table saw. I have cut it on my TS, but the edges do chip somewhat even when you place a piece of sacrificial wood to prevent tear out. Anyway, think about it. If you typically run your new wooden planes across your jointer to make the sole square to the cheeks, you will not be able to do that with this wood. Again, that is because of the brittleness of this wood. I just use sandpaper on glass to do that.Take care.PhillipP.S. I have a rudimentary website which has a bracelet made of this wood. There are also a few shots of a walnut crotch coffee table which has butterfly keys make of this wood as well.Here's the link: http://homepage.mac.com/pabriles/Take a look if you have time.
Hi Phillip,Thanks for the offer of the desert bush wood for a plane insert. I appreciate it, but I think that I'll feel better for using bubinga scraps. I'm not sure that I'm up to the highest and best use of a scarce piece of wood.I often have this problem when I've seen how difficult it it s find a particular type of wood. I'm an amature bowyer, and although I live in the Pacific Northwest. the land of yew, I'm very reluctant to use it because it has been so over harvested.I've no problem with using 1000+ year old wood, as long as I have a project that I feel is truely worthy of a millenium in the making.Thanks again,
Tom
VERY nice job
Okay 6 years after the original post.... How time flies when you are working with wood :-) do you have plans for the toothingplane? I have been using one for about 10 years - ever since I saw one being used at Collonial Williamsburg. I bought a VERY used one at a yard sale and it has finally died on me. Would love to know the steps you took to make this.
If not - I will understand - and thanks for sharing!!
Mich
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