on riveted planes

[neil schlosser]

I have plenty of mild steel laying around, and I'm wanting to make some planes with it. I'm thinking that I'm going to rivet everything together, and I've been looking around for how to do it. I'm planning on doing a shoulder plane first, so the riveting will probably be pretty straightforward due to how narrow the tool is.

The question I have is on wider planes, such as a smoother. When these are made, do the rivets run all the way through the sole? Or is there a simpler way to do this? I just don't have a way to drill a hole that deep without a wandering bit.

The only idea I had was to drill and tap the holes in the sole, install flat head machine screws with locktite when the sides get attached, and then file everything off so it's flat and smooth.

Other ideas? I have access to a good wood shop, and a so-so metal shop. However, there is an old vertical mill that works okay (ways are worn pretty bad), but without a lot of tooling - so no deep hole drills.

[Jim Koepke]

The only riveted bottoms I am aware of are the Hotley planes. I think he raises a rivet from the base on a machine and then they are peened and cleaned when the side is laid on.

Others use dovetails to hold the base to the sides.

There are a few different posts discussing this on SMC. Here is one from plane maker Ron Brese:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...embly-tutorial

Also found these plans for a dovetailed base:

http://www.xmission.com/~jry/ww/tool...-dwg-gifs.html

jtk

[David Weaver]

They do not go through the width of the base, they are specially made threaded bolts with a chamfer (at least in holtey's case) that are inserted and either glued or threadlocked (holtey says threadlocked in his case), cut off and maybe peined - they look flush and not peined on holtey's planes, peining would distort them and he puts a brass ring around the bolts on some of them, which doesn't look like anything close to it has been hammered.

Do you have something thick enough for the sole?

I've never done them like that, but I've done three dovetail sided planes, and I don't think the dovetails are as bad as they're made out to be. They are somewhat labor intensive, but so is setting up and drilling a million little holes for a single plane. If you have a mill and some knowhow, you can mill most of the dovetail waste away by hand.

That said, if you're more comfortable just drilling and tapping holes, then whatever gets the results you want is good.

[David Weaver]

Here is a picture elaborating, karl just put this blog post up sometime today or the last few days:

http://www.holteyplanes.com/blog/wp-...anel-plane.jpg

The entire blog is excellent with very very good quality pictures.

http://www.holteyplanes.com/blog/

[Roger Davis IN]

David:

Note that on Karl's home page he talks about the threaded fasteners on the 982 and that they are fitted with "half a degree of appropriate discrepancy" to provide "a little deformation for the perfect bed." That says to me that they are not peened, as you conclude. Note also that the fasteners are 40 degrees included, nowhere near the 82 degree of a flat-head screw, and will wedge outward on their countersinks much more strongly than a standard screw.

[Jeff Wittrock]

Neil,

I made a small infill just using mild steel rod to make rivets and peened them in place.
I posted a few pictures in this thread, though I admit the pictures don't show much.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ill&highlight=

I think using threaded fasteners as described by others is probably a better way to go, but at the time I didn't even have a tap and die set, so using the peened rivets was a way to get strarted. In order to help them flare in the bottom of the holes in the sole, I hollowed the ends of the mild steel pins. The idea was that they would spread out in the bottom of the holes where the rivets were thinner before the top really mushroomed.

I am also planning a shoulder plane, and in that case, I will probably just drill completely through and peen from both sides as you already mentioned. When I made the plane linked above, I came to the same conclusion that you did in that I didn't think I had a prayer of making a hole all the way through the sole. On this plane the rivets go into the sole a little over a 1/2" from each side.

-Jeff

[Jim Koepke]

Here is a picture elaborating, karl just put this blog post up sometime today or the last few days:

David,

Thanks for posting the information and the links. I have not looked at his site in a year or two. (It is too hard to get the drool out of my keyboard.)

My impression from the last time his site was visited must have been clouded by time and lust.

jtk

[David Weaver]

Thanks for pointing that out, roger. I couldn't remember what the details of them were (and didn't look) but I know they are not stock.

I think Karl may have said somewhere on his site that basically all he outsources is the heat treating of the irons. I don't know anything about machining, but all of those details makes me want to stick with dovetails where you basically need a baseline, a hacksaw, a file and a large ball pein hammer that will help erase your mistakes!

[neil schlosser]

Neil,

I made a small infill just using mild steel rod to make rivets and peened them in place.
I posted a few pictures in this thread, though I admit the pictures don't show much.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ill&highlight=
f

Good pics, Jeff. That's kind of what I had in mind for when I make a smoother. Main difference is that I was planning to make mine a little boxier, but same idea. I like the way that you made a full height bed for the blade. I hadn't thought of that. I was planning to use some 1/4 or 3/8 stock for the sole, and just add an extra piece that was a little thicker to reinforce the mouth. After running through the process in my head, I think I have decided that I will go with threaded rivets. My current idea is to clamp everything very well, run bolts in deep enough that the unthreaded portion of the shank contacts the countersink on the sides of the plane, cut it off and peen it.

Now I just need to get the time to start making the things that I want to make. I still have a few things for the house to get knocked out first, then hopefully there will be some time for me. Although, I do need a shoulder plane to get the bottom drawers of the wife's dresser to work right, so I might have to take a break from that stuff

Also, I found this video earlier today

http://www.khalafoud.com/media/bresesbphi.wmv

It's from Brese Planes. Shows them working on a mitre plane. Interesting to see, and a little more inspirational for me, as they don't show much for fancy tooling, most of the work shown is done by hand, although it does show some mill work.

[Roger Davis IN]

I asked a couple of questions of Ron Brese by e-mail last February, and he referred me to his manufacturer's forum over at the talkFestool forum. The link is:

http://www.talkfestool.com/vb/brese-plane/

The "Small Smoother Progression" series of posts lays out his process very neatly.

RD