Interesting Shooting Plane; a Question About Tempering

[Mark Wyatt]

Attached are pictures of an interesting shooting plane I aquired recently. It is all iron including the tote, and about the size of a Stanley #5.

I'm grinding down an old file to use as the cutting iron. The plane seems to be designed for this. I'm being careful not to overheat the steel in the file as I work on it - generally taking my time and working a little bit in-between other tasks.

When the iron is ready I will build a shoorting board, taking advantage of the runners on the plane sole.

Q: When I finish the iron, will I need to temper it? Thanks for your help.

[John Tallyn]

Can't help you as far as tempering goes, but let me be the 1st to say, Nice Score! That looks like a great shooting plane.

[Charles McKinley]

You will probably need to harden it before you temper it. I'm guessing that the center of the file is still soft.

[george wilson]

If the file is still fully hardened,you might want to draw it to a blue color. This would normally be too high a temper to draw a blade to(making it too soft),but files have so much carbon,they are still too brittle at normal straw color temperings.

[Johnny Kleso]

For grinding use two angles for removing a lot of stock..
I would say god dark straw or brown but I think blue is too much but George sounds like he knows more than me as I never used a file for a plane blade..

Still I would double temper it starting at 350º of 15 mins till I get straw and then try 375º-400º and start checking at 10 mins ever 3 mns for dark straw if it still fractures easy try blue at a few degrees high..

[Joshua Clark]

I've seen a couple of those planes before. I believe they were intended to be used as chute boards for lead type in the printing industry. I always thought they would work for wood, if you built the proper shooting board and had the correct blade.

I hope it works out for you!

Josh

[george wilson]

Yes,if your file is a GOOD,OLD file like a Nicholson,Heller,Simmons,or other good American made file,it has about 1.25% carbon in it. It will be very brittle,like a straight razor. Even a blue color isn't too high a tempering color for it. If you have little chunks break out of the cutting edge,you will see. DON'T grind too thin a cutting edge on the file blade in any event. I wouldn't go any thinner than your picture shows.

These days,if it's an imported Asian file,it could just be case hardened,and when you grind the teeth off,there will only be soft metal beneath.

BTW: On good,old files,you need to not only grind the teeth off,you must grind BELOW the tooth gullet area a bit. This is because the old cyanide hardening reaches well into the surface of the file,and your cutting edge will wear as a wavy edge as you dull the blade. The areas with deeper cyanide will wear more slowly.

[Mark Wyatt]

Thank you all for your responses. I'll take your advice for this old file and do my best to make a good hardened tempered iron out of it.

[Mark Wyatt]

Josh,

Thanks for the info. I'll do some research on that idea for it's usage and see what I find. I wonder if there is a matching board out there somewhere?