molding plan question/recommendations?

[Mike Allen1010]

I'm interested in getting started using molding planes. I'm having a hard time finding a good source. I checked with old street tools and Matt Bickford and the cost is high and the waiting time is long.

I've also explored going be vintage plane Route, but I'm reluctant to buy them without being able to see them in person first. I live in Southern California which is kind of a desert for hand tools, and there aren't a lot of swap meets/flea markets I'm aware of that I could visit to check out some planes in person.

A couple that I've purchased on the massive Internet site are unusable. I've also checked with "the best things" and understand they have a reputation for selling only quality vintage planes, but a working set of hollow and rounds are out of my budget.

I saw that the Japan Woodworker has sets of hollows and rounds made by Mujingfang in Hong Kong out of what they say is rosewood. They have pairs in sizes from 5/16" through 1 1/4", that are 6 1/4" long, with what they describe as "high carbon steel" blades. The prices are comparatively very reasonable ranging from about $30-$60 per pair. I tried to paste the link to their catalog below but not sure if it's going to work:

http://www.japanwoodworker.com/produ...&dept_id=13602

I'm wondering if anyone has any knowledge/experience with these planes and what the knowledgeable folks here think about them as functional users? I think these planes are a lot shorter than the typical length of Western-style molding planes, do you think that will make much difference in their Functionality?

Any and all advice and suggestions are much appreciated!

All the best, Mike

[David Weaver]

I wouldn't get them. I would build my own if I were in your shoes. It takes me about, i don't know, 6 hours maybe to make a pair with hand tools, maybe a little more (I don't have a TS, which makes making the wedge and cutting the waste off the grip take a little longer).

I would gradually make them.

The muji planes are small, they can't reference right against a batten or sticking (which you might want to do), and they're intended for - presumably - cutting coves and such things out in the open.

Hardest thing about making your own is finding good wood and telling yourself when you're buying floats, you'll be able to sell them at the end.

Of course, you can always look around and try to find a good half set that's actually in current use - if you get lucky these days, you might find one for $400 or $500.

It's not a small commitment to make your own, but you'll end up with tools you made, and that's priceless. Chances are, you'll also end up with very good tools that you understand extremely well, too.

After the initial outlay (for floats and for larry's video - two things you can always resell when you're done), it costs me about $10-$15 to build one, I think, depending on how large it is.

[Jack Curtis]

If you decide to make a couple or four, Todd Herrli's video is also very good for beginners since he takes a Krenov/Fink approach and includes planes for floats, which aren't really needed, as in you can build planes without floats if you have good, small chisels.

[Mike Allen1010]

After the initial outlay (for floats and for larry's video - two things you can always resell when you're done), it costs me about $10-$15 to build one, I think, depending on how large it is.

David,

Thanks for for the advice and information about your building experience. Can you tell me the title, author and maybe a source for "Larry's video" you describe above? I know Lie Nielsen sells the blank irons, is that what you would recommend?

Thanks a lot, Mike

[David Weaver]

I cut irons out of 1/8" thick O1. Lie Nielsen's irons are a good option for turnkey, but I'm too cheap to buy them.

The only thing that you have to do with irons that you cut if you make your own is put a tiny bit of taper on them. Anything an inch and under can be pretty easily hardened with some vegetable oil in a paint can and a single mapp torch.

Here's larry's video:
http://www.craftsmanstudio.com/html_p/AV22-D.htm

(no affiliation to C-studio or Larry)

Quite simply, it is the best video that I have ever seen on any subject in woodworking. It's not cheap, but it's 3 hours long, and it leaves you with absolutely no questions (even covers hardening the iron, which will extrapolate to any O1 iron you ever want to harden). I'm sure you could get a very large % of your money back out of it by selling it on the S&S if you saw all you needed to see from it.

Larry shows you how to build moulding planes that have the highest quality attributes of any that have existed as far as I can tell. And I can see the shortcomings he points out on a lot of my newer mass-produced moulders from the mid to late 1800s. The skills are a nice skill builder to have, and better to learn on a plane than on a piece of furniture.

If you go this route, I can point you to a beech supplier, but he will be retiring soon (I think). The hardest part for me was finding someone who sold beech.

[Tony Shea]

The video David speaks of by Larry Williams (from Old Street Tools) is called "Making Traditional Side Escapement Planes" and can be purchased through Lie Nielsen as well as all the tools to make them. This is truely one of the best instructional DVD's on woodworking that I have ever watched and is $ well spent. It is a pricey DVD but after you watch it you'll have no regrets about spending the $. Even if you don't plan on making the planes it is still a good watch. In fact, I believe that;s where Matt Bickford got his start from watching this instructional DVD.

And yes, the irons blanks that Lie Nielsen sells is a great option when starting to make these planes. They have the taper already ground for you and all you need to do is grind your shape and harden the steel, both are fairly straight forward tasks. I believe David makes his own irons, this is how he is able to keep his costs per plane down. I am currently not set up for the task of grinding the taper in flat steel therefore purchase my blanks from LN.

[Tony Shea]

Sorry bout that, David beat me to the post.

[Mike Allen1010]

Thanks David and Tony for the really helpful information. I think I will dive into this -- get the video and at least try one molding plane.

I enjoy building tools, especially those I don't currently have or wouldn't otherwise spend the money to buy. However, I think building a whole set of hollows and rounds might be a little too much toolmaking for my taste, as much as I would like to have the finished planes.

I was hoping you could help me with a couple "getting started" questions:

1) I know zero about metalworking, and frankly what little I've done has been tedious for me-- how critical/difficult is the "hardening" the LN blade blanks? For example is the end result is pretty much binary -- you follow the instructions and there's a high probability you have a workable end result, or is it a continuum of skill that requires time and practice to really get to a usable plan iron with a good edge?

2) As a beginner, what sizes of hollows and rounds would you recommend I need to get started with typical early American moldings? I know having a wider assortment of sizes would give me more flexibility -- I guess I'm just looking for the shortest path to being able to actually put the planes to work producing some moldings I can incorporate into furniture projects. If it helps provide a recommendation, most of my woodworking is furniture, case goods size and smaller.

3) In terms of functionality (as compared to being consistent with traditional methods for the sake of history, appearance etc.), how difficult is it to find commercially available the "right" wood needed for the plane bodies? In other words, I'm guessing it's critical that you have dry, straight grain, quarter sawn stock (I understand beech is traditional and cherry is occasionally used) - can I get what I need from a local hardwood lumber yard, or perhaps by mail order? I live in Southern California and options are really limited for any atypically sawn or dried hardwoods.

Thanks a lot. I hope I'm not imposing too much. I've gone through the process of learning to build backsaws with little/no instruction and learned the hard way that studying the posts or asking people like you and George Wilson etc. would've saved me lots of time and wasted effort and greatly accelerated my learning curve.

I really appreciate your help!

All the best, Mike

[David Weaver]

1) hardening the blade is trivially easy if you know what to look for when you're heating it. The video has a good visual of the process, so you'll see exactly what you're supposed to see when you harden an iron. Making the irons from precision ground stock is something anyone with a bench or stand belt sander can do (which is what you use to put a little taper on it). Other than that, if you have a hacksaw, a scribe, a vise and a file, you can easily make them without any fancy tools.

It is a good skill builder, you'll be less dependent on buying expensive stuff (like $50 marking knives, etc) when you don't need to if you can do some basic things (though you don't even need to be able to harden metal to make a decent marking knife). I'd say hardening an iron acceptably is probably easier than almost anything you'll do woodworking. Marking and cutting out the iron, and then filing to the marking line is just sweat equity, it's not a difficult thing to do.

2) it depends on what you want to make. I've made more planes than mouldings so far, so I can't really suggest much as a general guideline, but i haven't used large moulding planes for anything, do maybe 8 or 10s and a set of 4s to go along with those. Bickford has a suggestion, i think, for a first pair of planes. he'll probably know about what gets used the most for furniture as well as anyone outside of Larry Williams and Don McConnell.

3) Decent stock is important. I haven't made a plane out of bum stock, so I can't tell you how long it takes for a plane made of improper stock to go bad, or the odds that it will. I have some old late era moulding planes that were made from wood that wasn't carefully selected, and they are not close to straight and flat on the sides (which is why I never bothered to build one out of bum stock).

I can give you the number of a guy who sells QS beech, I don't know if he's retired yet. I know when he does, there will be people getting lots of beech somewhere else. He's relatively local to me, but he ships (he has shipped to me before when I didn't want to drive, and he sells on ebay). I don't know of anyone else who sells it reasonably. I'd imagine his prices are as cheap as you're going to find, even with shipping included.

Quartersawn cherry is also a good option, but a lot of what lumber places list as quartersawn is closer to rift, it's not the kind of grain lines parallel to the sole that you're thinking. An example of that would be the QS cherry at hearne. I went through the entire rack of QS cherry to find a board that was somewhere in the ballpark of 75 degrees (with 90 being dead QS). I would imagine most people who buy wood are looking for what the face of the board looks like, and not the ends, so whether it's 75 degrees or 90, it will still have straight grain lines running the side.

Cherry will not be as durable as beech, but it'll be a little easier to work and it'll be easily durable enough that you'll never wear it out as a hobbyist, and maybe easier to find. I have used hard maple, too, but not to make a moulding plane. I got some QS hard maple to make moulding planes, and decided against it unless I couldn't find something better (which I eventually did).

Keep your eye out on ebay, there may be a big 8/4 board of quartersawn pear wood or something from time to time. I yanked a 5 foot long by 11 inches wide board of 8/4 dead QS euro pear off of ebay a couple of years ago for $130 shipped. That's not cheap, but a board like that makes a lot of planes. Fruitwoods are really nice (I think beech and cherry qualify, but so does apple, pear, etc...), they have a nice feel to them, with the air dried apples and pears being nicer feeling yet than cherry.

[Tony Shea]

I absolutely love working air dried pear, is probably my favorite wood to work with hand tools. And apple is next on the list. I personally have never been able to get myself big enough quartersawn material for use in hand planes but have used pear in lots of furniture and apple in all my hammer/mallet handles. The apple is some that I had to cut down years ago but most was reaction wood. The small amount that was usuable was just a dream to work and was some of the prettiest wood Ive ever worked. The colors were just endless.

[David Weaver]

Unfortunately, most of the stuff I've been able to get is KD. The exception being two big pieces that I used to make saw handles. They were air dried, and they have a really waxy feel to the wood. It feels like you could do anything with it when you're working it, and it'll just take detail and never split out on you.

I have some apple KD blanks for planes, but they're 1/2 sap and heart, each. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, because the person who sold them to me never told me they were 1/2 sap. I just assumed they'd be all heart or all sap. I learned a lesson on that. They'll still make nice planes, but probably not be nearly as nice to work as air dried material.

[Joshua Clark]

If you are interested in learning about using and making wooden planes I'll echo the advice to get Larry Williams' and Don McConnell's DVDs. You won't find better sources of information without going to one of their classes.

The Mujingfang planes aren't equivalent to hollow and round molding planes- they can't cut the same arcs that a molding plane can.

If you think you might be interested in making molding planes I'd suggest starting with the vintage planes, learning to sharpen and use them which are skills you will need when you make your own. Start with something simple like rabbet, side beads and simple ovolos - all of which are readily available, useful planes and easy to tune and use. Hollows and rounds are nice, and that's where most folks want to start, but I find them the least used of all my planes. Once you get the hang of using these planes and understand the important parts, making planes will be a lot easier.

Hope this helps,

Josh

[Jim Matthews]

I attended a class run by Matt Bickford. His planes work, right out of the box.
You will need to keep them sharp, and avoid dropping the smaller planes.

He has a treatise on moulding planes that should hit the Lost Art press, soon.

Start with two matched pairs of 6 and 8s, with a honest to goodness rabbet plane.
(A shoulder plane will NOT do what a rabbet plane does, allowing a clean side wall.)

Having taken the course, I'm not convinced of the utility - usage is VERY finicky without a depth stop.

That said, I think Matt's planes are worth the money - getting an old plane to work is a crap shoot.