plane building cross pins question

[Ron Petley]

From looking at some tutorials of building a infill plane cross pins are used. Some hollow rods are inserted through the wood parts and then solid rods are put in the hollow rods and the screws go into the solid rods. This is so if the wood shrinks the wood will not pull in the sides of the plane as it shrinks, or this is my understanding. Even though it is not as long it is about as wide as a bigger plane, so I guess the potential for shrinking is the same.
My question is, if you were building a small block plane would you still use the hollow pins and the solid ones inside them or is domething else used on a smaller plane. Cheers Ron.

[george wilson]

I cannot quite tell what you are talking about Ron. I always made any cross pins in planes out of solid metal. You can gently countersink the outsides of the cross pin holes,make the crosspin a little too long,and peen the ends of the crosspin to fill out the countersinks.Then,file the ends of the cross pins flush,and polish.If the crosspin is wood,saw a slit in each end of the pin,and put in a neat wedge tightly.Saw flush,and sand smooth.

[Ron Petley]

George:
Well I am glad I am not the only one confused:)
What you are telling me sounds just fine and something I think I can do with a minimal of problems.
where I got this is from this tutorial, which was very helpfull, except this pin part was/is confusing me. It is closer to the bottom tham the top, where he id drilling and puting in these hollow rods. Thanks for your help.
http://www.xmission.com/~jry/ww/tools/jy-panel/jy-panel.html

Cheers Ron.

[george wilson]

Oh,I see what you are talking about now.How about no pins at all? Just glue the infills in. IIRC,David Keller said the original Norris planes were just glued in with hide glue. At least,you would have no trouble with pins eventually showing from wood movement. Use epoxy,and glue them in.I did not glue mine in,but here are plenty of old Norris's floating about,one of which I own,still intact.

[Ron Petley]

Until I read this tutorial over I did not see any reference to this sort of thing, I just asumed the screws went inot the wood.
Anyways thanks for the help both of your solutions are much easier to do. This being my first try simple is what I am looking for and I can complicate things when I get a better grasp of building these things.
Thanks for your help. Ron.