Marking tools?

[Mike Holbrook]

Chris,
I bought one of the HNT Gordon blades. I believe there is still one there. They wanted about $90 each for them, so I left the second for now, at least until I make sure I need another. The length is perfect for the planes I made, a little under 4". Maybe you can see in the picture that 1/2 inch less was a little too short.

I have not used the HNT yet but will soon. Until I have a wedge made to fit that blade I would not be giving it a fair go.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1689105...ream/lightbox/

[Chris Griggs]

Chris,
They wanted about $90 each for them

For that price I assume that's the HSS blade, not the Carbon steel one, correct? Craftmans studio has both and the HSS is about that price but the regular tool steel one is like $50.

The planes are coming along nicely. I like your wedge for the jointer. BTW how long were the blades that came with the kits? Were they that much shorter?

[steven c newman]

007 (2).jpgWould this be a "marking guage" as well. I've had this one for a while, and it was a "hand-me-down" to boot.

[Mike Holbrook]

Chris,
Yes, according to the label for my blade it is a "HSS Blade", both the blades Highland had were the same. They had some other thinner Gordon blade too, maybe it works with his planes with the more Norse type blade holding system?

Actually I just ended up buying all Steve's left over stock IPE board with about 11 mouths, for adjustable mouths. Dozen blanks for wedges. Dozen various sized blades from about 3 to 3 1/2 inches. I only had 2-3 blades that were close to 3 1/2 inches, the rest are 3-3 1/4 inches. I know it does not sound like much but, if there is only 1/2 inch or less plane iron above the plane body it is hard to make a wedge to fit, leaving it enough shorter than the blade so that the blade can be hit without hitting the wedge. Steve may have made his planes thinner.

When I tried to place an order for a couple plane kits, Steve was getting out of making planes and just taking on custom CNC jobs, although he still had his plane web site up. I worked out one last plane deal with him by working it like a CNC custom job. I bought some 8/4 Purple Heart from Steve's local wood supplier which they delivered to him. Steve used his CNC router to rout the reliefs for the halves of four planes in the boards. He had some problems routing the totes for my planes in some Ash or Maple he had, so he ended up just making the totes from the extra purple heart. Steve offered to just send me all his remaining plane parts if I would do several planes. He was able to make halves for: 26" jointer, 15 1/2" jack, two 7 1/2" smoothers (one is higher bed angle) from the wood I sent, plus three totes. All these planes are about 1 3/4 inches thick, requiring the same blade size, except the higher angle smoother may get away with a slightly shorter blade.

I was not sure how much wood I would need to sand off the bottoms & tops of each plane to get them flat so I was not sure exactly how long the blades would need to be. I have been giving that long jointer a good long rest to see if the larger piece of wood would twist cup, bow....requiring more wood to be removed, thus reducing the required blade length. I could have just trimmed 3/8 inch or so off the height of each plane but I wanted to leave them as thick as possible increasing the number of times they can be flattened and their total life expectancy. Plus there was the issue of the thickness of the adjustable mouths and recesses for the totes...Now that I have all the bodies flat, top & bottom, I am not eager to trim wood off again & flatten again. Thus my extended dilemma regarding fitting blades & wedges. I imagine these issues are why Steve had so many plane blades of different lengths but all within 1/2 inch of the same size.

Steve,
That appears to be a wooden marking gauge but it is hard to tell from the picture. The marking gauges we were discussing above are made of metal components that slide up & down a metal instead of wooden bar. Most of the metal gauges use a round cutting wheel that works a little like a pizza slicer. It is easier to make a more compact, but still tougher gauge from metal, which is probably why a great many people have moved to the newer "wheel" gauges.

[Jerome Hanby]

I bought a pair of dovetail squares from Harbor Freight year ago, Think one was 1:8 the other 1:6. Have never opened them but seems like kind of a no brainer, even if they weren't dead on perfect, as long as you always used them to mark the dovetails, I would think they would work. I'm sure I didn't pay more than a few bucks for them... Not as convenient as one of those saddle type dovetail markers, I bet.

[John Coloccia]

The problem with cheap ones, or generally with ones that aren't dead square, is that they will throw off the straight part of the line (either across the board or down the board, depending if you cut tails or pins first). If they're out and you want that straight line too, you can use them to mark the angled part, and then come back with a square to draw the straight line. Oddly enough, I've seen pricier ones that are out of square too.

[Mike Holbrook]

I see Lee Valley is offering a digital sliding bevel. I think it is the same one I saw at Highland Woodworking the other day. I was thinking about buying one for those times when I want to set s specific angle. Then I found the angle marking tool Veritas makes specifically to work with sliding bevels. A 3 x 7" card with angles and a ruler etched in the surface. It even has the common dovetail and polygon angles marked on it. I was a little worried about how accurate the digital device might be but I imagine the Veritas bevel setting device is very accurate.. Has anyone used either one of these devices and have comments to offer?

Chris,
I like that wedge too. It works even better than I hoped. The little grooves at the top are very handy when it comes time to pull it out, or even place it. It also gives a wooden plane mallet just enough purchase to make it easy to tap it loose. I was a little worried about the edges chipping but so far no problems using the Japanese plane mallet on it. I did round the edges of the grooves on the side a little more, where I strike it with the mallet. It was my solution to having to make such a short wedge to fit the short iron. Those totes are great too, the most comfortable design I have tried. I guess Steve came up with an original shape there.

[Jim Neeley]

I have Tite-Mark and Rob Cosman's "standard" marking gauges and both are good. For marking mortises & tenons I prefer Rob's because they provide micro-adjust on the width of the mortise so, adjusting to the width of your chisel you can use it for both mortise and tenon. It's no big thing with the mortise since the chisel defines the far side but it ensures the tenon precisely matches the mortise.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.