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Thread: Things I would like Lee Valley (or someone) to make.

  1. #106
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Williamsburg,Va.
    Posts
    12,402
    I hate those old hand crank grinders. When I was a kid on light houses,all I ever had to use was those old things. It is not real easy to hold a tool for grinding with 1 hand and turn the crank with the other. What is the point? Nostalgia? We still have electric power.

    I use hand tools plenty,but this is different.

  2. #107
    Quote Originally Posted by David Laaneorg View Post
    Ok, I've got one thing I'd love to see made again. How about a good hand crank grinder. <snip> Any thoughts? Would this only work for me, or would anyone else be interested in this?
    Given the number of emailed enquiries I get about my hand-cranked grinder set up, I doubt you'd be alone. But whether there's enough interest to make it a viable product, dunno. Might be too many people who feel about them like George does.

    Perhaps they're more common on the secondhand market in North America than they are over here in Merrie Olde Englande, but every time I use a hand drill and the twist bit grabs again, I wish someone (Hi, Rob! *waves*) was making fluted drill bits.

    Cheers, Alf

  3. #108
    Quote Originally Posted by Alice Frampton View Post

    (snip)
    I wish someone (Hi, Rob! *waves*) was making fluted drill bits.

    Cheers, Alf
    Hi Alf (waving back...)

    Shoot me a photo of the ones you like.. ok?

    Cheers -

    Rob
    (studiously ingnoring the suggestion to make anvils...... )

  4. #109
    I'm with george on the grinder - unless there's a 100 pound flywheel attached to the crank grinder, I don't want anything to do with it. I quite like the cheap grinder that I have. I would love ...LOVE to find a baldor grinder for a reasonable price, but I can't justify it because I have no trouble grinding hard on a $45 home depot grinder. One white wheel, one gray wheel - I think the $15 on the white wheel may have been a waste of money, I haven't burnt anything with the gray wheel in three or four years, and it gets used plenty.

    Plus, the cost to cast a hand grinder and make gears for it, and it would have to run 6" stones unlike a lot of the old ones.... just not worth the price.

    I saw a booth at my favorite flea market, which rarely has tools that I'm interested in, where the guy had a bunch of planes, hatches, axes, etc, and he had 5 hand crank grinders, all functional, for $20 each. The wheels were worn down significantly on them, but he said they worked, and the ones I fiddled with were fine.

  5. #110
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Northern California
    Posts
    332
    I need two hands to hold whatever I'm grinding.

    Regarding hand tools, I cannot think of anything more impractical.

    Catchyalater,
    Marv


    "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better."

    ~Maya Angelou~

  6. #111
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    extreme southeast Nebraska
    Posts
    3,113
    LOL, any kind of tailed hand tool in an Amish woodshop. ( couldn't resist the temptation)
    Jr.
    Hand tools are very modern- they are all cordless
    NORMAL is just a setting on the washing machine.
    Be who you are and say what you feel... because those that matter... don't mind...and those that mind...don't matter!
    By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand

  7. #112
    Harry, if you're ever in central Pennsylvania, I can make your wish come true. Show you an amish-owned lawn and garden store, too, one where the owner isn't *supposed* to be able to use what he's selling....which is all fine and good....until it snows, then all of the sudden the driveway is magically open when you get there and the owner just gives you a blank stare when you ask him how it got open. If you ask long enough how it was opened, he says "a snowblower...duh!!!"

  8. #113
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    extreme southeast Nebraska
    Posts
    3,113
    LOL, David, gas powered snowblower no doubt, anyway both of mine are.

    I used to have lots of Amish Craftsman friends David. I helped them get certain non tailed apprentices for both their woodshops and smith shops, They are nice people. Just that the Old, Old, Old, harness maker (now passed on) would never warm up to me, to proud I think, most of the rest treated me as one of their own.

    And I would never wear my demo clothing when anywhere near them, as people are always asking me when I am in costume if I am Amish or one of the several offshoot clans.

    My original post was in response to Marv's post.
    Jr.
    Hand tools are very modern- they are all cordless
    NORMAL is just a setting on the washing machine.
    Be who you are and say what you feel... because those that matter... don't mind...and those that mind...don't matter!
    By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand

  9. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by harry strasil View Post
    My original post was in response to Marv's post.
    Aye, missed that.

    The amish folks I've known are all across the spectrum, too, but they have all been good folks. Some warm up to we english folks a little better than others, and most I know bend the rules a little.

    The guy who owns the lawn equipment shop deals old world - if you buy something from him on payments, it's the same price as the machine is cash, and the deal is on a handshake - no paperwork. You leave the shop with the equipment and promise to come back at whatever schedule you agree to and make a payment.

    The guy who might have tailed tools in his shop from time to time (never stationary) flies RC planes on the weekend and bums a buddy's inlaws to watch TV in the evening - he's not married, always says "not against the rules, I don't own the TV"

  10. #115

    Affordable Moulding Planes

    I wish someone would make a more affordable set of cabinet maker (steeper pitch) hollow and round molding planes in the English/American style. Clark and Williams have beautiful planes, but I can't justify spending that kind of money as a hobbiest. Perhaps Rob Lee could talk Mujingfang into making some 9" planes like their Asian hollows and rounds. Another option might be to make castings of some nice old molding planes and make new ones in plastic or resin. Or maybe machined out on a CNC machine. I know some people will want to burn me at the stake for this one, but I think a molding plane that wears tough and doesn't vary in size with humidity would be a good thing. Other common molding planes like beads or ovolos would be nice too.

  11. #116
    You can get quartersawn cherry from hearne for about 12 or something a board foot, some floats that you could sell once you're done (from LN or whever you want to get them, or make them) and not lose much money, and some 1/8th inch O1 steel from mcmaster carr and make a set of hollows and rounds pretty easily.

    It takes me about 5 hours or a little more to make a pair, and that includes doing everything by hand except for one shot on a resaw bandsaw to get a blank close to width, and a whiz of a wedge jig across a TS to get a wedge.

    The only expensive part to buy would be an iron blank if you wanted to go that way, but I've been able to get enough taper on the iron by making a wooden jig in the shape of a moulding plane iron shank and iron (i.e., recessed 1/16th of an inch) and then tacking the iron in with a couple of dots of CA glue. Run it on the belt sander to taper the shank and top half of the iron just a tiny bit, and then pop the iron out of the jig with an old chisel and all of the sudden there's enough taper on it to make it come out of the plane pretty easily.

    Oh, and the C&W video on how to make the planes. First pair I made perform better than any vintage pairs that I have, the ones after that perform the same, but the aesthetics get better as you go, especially around the wedge mortise. Sell that video when you're done, too.
    Last edited by David Weaver; 10-25-2010 at 11:16 AM.

  12. #117

    Thanks

    Thanks, David. I'll take a look at the C&W video. If it takes you 5 hours a pair, I can count on at least 10 hours a pair for me. It's something I'd like to do, but with a only few hours a week in my shop, it'll be a while, which is why I was looking at buying them.

  13. #118
    I think you could do it in 5 or more or less, trust me, especially if your visual standards aren't as tight. Cherry is easy to work, plenty soft, and the bottoms of the planes are more durable than I'd expected, they burnish to some extent, and most of us will never use them enough to worry about wearing them out.

    You could make a pair when you need them, to sort of stretch it out (QS wood certainly stores well enough you don't have to worry about when you use it).

    I'm not as tight visually as C&W are with the chamfers and transitions, for two reasons:
    1) I don't think I can work as tidy as they do, at least not without a lot of practice
    2) They're my planes for me, nobody else is going to use them. If they take a few dents and dings, it won't matter, anyway. The key parts to get right - the iron, the sole, the wedge fit and the bedding of the iron are, I think, easier to do to taste than are the visuals. They take longer, but they're easier to get something very precise acceptable.

    They're certainly a lot quicker to build than an infill plane.

    I'm surprised no hotshots have made a pair out of cocobolo or ebony and shown them off on here.

  14. #119
    Somewhat back on topic, I wholeheartedly second or third the request the LV bring back the Tucker Vice. I would buy one in a heartbeat.

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