My Infill build. Thanks for the inspiration

[wayne Jepson]

I dont post often but read the forum every day. I have seen many threads on infil building so heres my attempt. Its not aesthetically perfect and i made many mistakes along the way but it works like no other plane I own. The casting was a rough casting from St. James Bay Tool along with rough casted lever cap and finished cap screw. It took six months of an hour or two here and there. I can plane wood i could not touch with any other plane i own including my BU smoother wit 35 degree blade. The infill has a 3/16 Lee-Valley blade BD wit no chipbreaker at 60 degrees. Just wanted to share my pics of my new toy and say thanks for the inspiration.

[Tom Henderson2]

Wayne-

That is gorgeous. Why not share some of the details of your experience?

-TH

[David Gendron]

That is a good looking tool! Good for you on a plane you made and the best plane you have!

[Jim Koepke]

Even with all the "mistakes" it looks a heck of a lot better than the planes I haven't made.

jim

[Barry Vabeach]

Wayne, it looks great. How long is it? Also, did SJBT set it up for 60 degrees or was that your decision after you got the casting?

[James Taglienti]

that is a very nice piece. don't shred yourself about any mistakes. if you want a dead perfect plane go buy a ... .. o wait there hasn't been one made to date.
beautiful!!

[Phillip Pattee]

Nice job on the overstuff. I like the lines too. Beautiful tool.

[george wilson]

That is a very nice plane for a first try,or even a few other tries. If I may make a few suggestions: 1. if there is a sharp bend in the plane body,as there is aft of the center on yours,make it nice and sharp,90 degrees straight up the body. You still have metal to do that.

What you must be willing to do is cut back into a surface,the wood too,and refine it if necessary. That is one thing that makes any craftsman better.

2. file down the pivot of the chip breaker flush with the body. Not proud of the body,or below the surface,but exactly flush,with the screw head polished like a mirror while it is in situ. That way the edges will be crisp and sharp. Crispness and sharpness are what it's all about. Thin screw slots were often used on fine work in the 19th.C.,and look elegant. You'll have to grind a screwdriver to fit it.

3. just above the pivot screw on the body's top edge,there should be a smooth curve,not steps. This is partially style,and partially to make it easier on your fingers when digging chips out of the throat. You can be creative here,but look at pictures of old planes. Learn how to draw smooth,sinuous curves,and proceed. Looking at old planes and other old tools will help you to get the flavor of the 19th.C. plane you are making. I don't often copy (unless I am paid to),which was the case for many years. When the piece is for me,or the customer is willing,I design the piece from scratch.

3. file up and polish all of the iron. Keep the corners crisp,but break them just enough that they don't cut the web of the hand in long use.

The wood sculpture looks good,and looks well fitted. The front curve of the plane is nice: exactly 1/2 of an ellipse,and you got it right.

4. You do not have to polish the plane,and the older my joints get,the less inclined I am to do it. But,make all scratch lines exactly parallel to the bottom of the plane body,and make sure to eliminate all rougher scratches from previous rough sanding. A 600 grit finish looks nice.

I know you did a lot of hard work. Those castings leave meat to remove. Good luck on your future planes.

[Harlan Barnhart]

Thanks for the pictures Wayne. Very nice. How did you work the rough casting? Did you use milling machines or by hand? I have been looking at those but I not sure I want to undertake that much "millwork" with a handful of files.

[wayne Jepson]

Thanks everyone. When I set out to build the plane i did not want to build something to do what I could already do with my LN & LV planes. I was also a little frustrated with some acasia walnut flooring i had left over from my floor in my living room. I wanted to use it for small projects but I could not plane it with any of the planes I had. This is why I settled on a bed angle of 60 degrees and now I can plane the acasia easily with no tearout. I can use this plane on domestic species without regard for grain direction, I have used it on some quarter sawn cherry that I had problems planing and obtained a surface as smooth as glass.

I used a belt/disk combination sander to surface the outside of the casting.To mill the inside bottom of the casting and the ramp for the blade I started off by using a cheap XY positioning drill vice on my drill press. A end mill was mounter in the chuck and it did an OK job except the chuck would vibrate loose out of the drill press quill and damage the casting. This was very frustrating, if anyone can keep the chuck from falling out of the quill then this method would work OK for this project. The project came to a stand still at this point for a while then I found a bench top milling machine on the local classified site and I was back in business.

I took a machining class in High school 25 years ago so I was able to fumble my way through the remaining machining of the casting including opening up the mouth, the ramp and surfacing the bottom. I was not too difficult to do but i did make some mistakes here when the chuck of the mill hit the sides of the casting hence the steps as part of the design on the side walls.

Next I hand lapped the bottom on a granite surface plate and sandpaper i usually use for scary sharpening. A couple hrs later the bottom was incredibly flat. I was a little surprised how flat i was able to get it.

From previous posts I never understood why they said the fitting of the infills took so long. Now i am a believer. It took a long time and I took the advice i read on another thread an made practice infills of a softer material first. I sades the interior walls of the casting with a sanding drum in a foredom flex shaft unit. I also used paper to make patterns to transfer the shape of the casting to the infill material.

I dont know what the infil material is?? I think its cocobolo but im not sure. I got the piece from a lady who sold me my belt/disk sander from a classified ad. She did not know what it was either. They took a lot a long time to get a good fit. They were clamped in place and the cross pin holes were drilled. They were peined in place and I also epoxied the infills. Sawdust was added to the epoxy which really makes the infills look like they fit perfectly.

The lever cap was also rough cast but again was easy to shape on the disk/belt sander. I drilled the holes for the cap screw and pivot screws and tapped them. The lever cap was polished on a felt wheel using green honing compound.

I scrounged around at work for weeks looking for cap screws that I could use for pivot pins, but i could not find what I wanted. For a year i had been looking for a small metal lathe in the classifieds and at this point in my project I found one. Its a very small unimat lathe but it was exactly what i wanted to make small tool parts. I could now make the pins. I first made them in brass but they got damaged by the screwdriver too easily so i made the others from steel. i am still not happy with these so i think i will redo them.

Hope i have answered some questions into my build and hope it inspires others to try. I was very rewarding and not too difficult at all. I did buy some tools along the way but i'm sure it could be done with the tools most people on this forum already own.

Thanks George for your suggestions, all of which i will do. I have seen your work and its incredible. Your posts and others got me fired up to do this project. I cant wait to do another. Maybe a miter plane or thumb plane....

[george wilson]

Your infill is cocobolo.As for drill press chucks,my old 1963 Craftsman has the type of Jacobs chuck that fits the short #33 taper arbor,but also has a steel ring that is trapped on the chuck,and threads onto a threaded portion of the rotating spindle. It cannot ever come off. That type chuck is still made. A few years ago I bought a variable speed Delta drill press for my shop at work. It had an Asian copy chuck,which as usual,didn't quite run true,and would not get a good enough grip on drill shanks,and kept scarring them all up when they'd get loose. I had to buy a new Jacobs for it.

Of course,your drill press has to have the threaded spindle to fit this chuck. I won't ever try to rout without that type chuck. You could try some 660(?) Loctite on it. They even glue double barrel shotgun barrels together with the stuff,and it really holds!! Amazing!