Making a dovetail plane, Part I

[Ken Werner]

Derek Cohen has written a very nice piece on making a dovetail plane. I decided to try my hand at this project, and thought I'd post my progress. Derek's article can be found here:
http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMad...l%20Plane.html

Anyway, here goes:

I began with an old skewed rabbet plane I bought for the purpose from my co-dependent planeaholic pal John Keeton. I know it is heresy to so treat a nice old tool. That is a given. Hopefully the end result will justify my actions. You can see that the plane has been re-soled before. This turned out to be a good thing.


I planed the body smooth. Yes, this removed the lovely patina, but left me with flat sides, which are better than the waves it came with.


Using my dovetail marker, I made lines to plane to, to set the 9 degree angle. I planed to my marks.


You can see the results of the Underhill rite of human sacrifice, when planing the sides of the plane, my pinky got caught between the working metal plane body and the very sharp edge of the hole in the middle of the wood plane. Thought I got pinched until blood started showing up on the work.


I made a sidepiece, which is necessary for the fillister, which comes along later. It is screwed to the body.



I had a piece of 3/16 x 3/16 tool steel. This I ground to a 30 degree bevel, with a rounded tip. It will be fitted into a dado along the side of the plane's body, and will be useful for cross grain cuts.



More in the next day or so.

[Zahid Naqvi]

Great thread Ken, I want to make one too.

[John Keeton]

.....from my co-dependent planeaholic pal John Keeton.

Nothing like having your addiction "outed" to the entire cyberworld." I thought I had been very discreet and no one knew??

You sure jump in on this and made some progress, Ken - anxious to see the end result, and the trial run!

[Doug Shepard]

...
I began with an old skewed rabbet plane I bought for the purpose from my co-dependent planeaholic pal John Keeton....

Was that WTB John Keeton or the other John Keeton?

Cant wait to see the end result.

[Ken Werner]

Doug, is there more than one John Keeton here? In my case, it is the plane FS John Keeton. See post above yours Doug.

And to Mr. Keeton: oops. Didn't realize I was the only one [excluding you] aware of your, shall we say, attraction, to planes.

Ken

[Pam Niedermayer]

Don't you have to constantly adjust the fence on the bottom as you're planing to get the proper shaped cut?

Pam

[Ken Werner]

No Pam, hopefully it will become clearer as the build progresses. The fillister sets the depth of the male part of the sliding DT.

Ken

[Eric Hartunian]

I was just thinking of doing this with an old rabbet plane last night! Looking forward to seeing this progress. Thanks for the pics.
Eric

[Ken Werner]

Next in line is cutting the dado for the knicker, alas, I used the table saw, but finished the fitting with chisels and side rabbet planes.





Also shown is the stud placed to hold the brass nut to hold the knicker. I aimed for a flush fit, with the option of shimming it out with paper if needed.


The iron came skewed to match the original sole. Holding it in place, first I marked out the new edge, then ground to it.



Meanwhile, I made the fillister. It is 1/2" thick, and matches the 9 degree angle. I would've liked to face it with rosewood, but my pieces came up short. Hard maple should do nicely though.



It will have some slots cut in it shortly - either with a router table or perhaps neander with 2 holes and a scroll saw.

It will be held in place with these:





More later.

[John Keeton]

Was that WTB John Keeton or the other John Keeton?

Doug, I have a split personality One day it is WTB, next day WTS - terrible illness! But, I am getting help from all my friends here at SMC

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Ken

Great job! Looking forward to the rest.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Keller NC]

"I know it is heresy to so treat a nice old tool. That is a given. Hopefully the end result will justify my actions."

I don't think I'd sweat this - rabbet planes from the 19th century are common as dirt, and the vast majority of them are sufficiently twisted that they're unusable. Personally, I'd rather give it a new life as a useful tool than see it end up as decoration on the wall of a Cracker Barrel.

[Ken Werner]

Next, I made the depth gauge, and then drilled a hole to receive the threaded insert to hold it. Figuring out the depth gauge made me realize why most knickers are held in place with a flat device. Derek used a screw in a slot in his knicker. So I had to accomodate that brass nut. You can see the results below. I also decided to put in a small wooden stud to help keep the depth gauge bottom parallel to the plane's sole.







Next, an image of the fillister, the groove is cut to make room for the plane iron.



And the first trial run:




I could not have been happier with the results.
More to come later.

[Dominic Greco]

Personally, I'd rather give it a new life as a useful tool than see it end up as decoration on the wall of a Cracker Barrel.

LOL!

Too true!

[David Keller NC]

Ken - I've a question - why'd you attach the large shelf on the right side of the plane (and that the fillister fence is screwed into)? I assume one obvious answer would be to increase the width of the dovetail that the plane could cut, but given the slope angle, I'd think that you'd have to have a 3" thick piece to use all of the adjustment.