Beech Jointer Build

[Matthew N. Masail]

Kees, did they make 5 GOOD planes in a day?.. where is that info coming from ?


David, they look really great. I've been making totes lately and the top on that one does seem a bit fat. the jointer looks real good though. I found this:
http://www.oocities.org/plybench/handle.html haven't tried it yet except for the profiling which I think I like. I re-did the tote on my jack, thanks for the advice, it's much better now.


I wanted to suggest, that you might like adding a thin diluted coat or two of shellac after the oil dries. I did that to a plane that had a tung oil finish and it completely stopped the plane from getting awfully dirty, yet it keeps the oiled look.

[Kees Heiden]

I did some digging around to find out more about that in this thread: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...e-19th-century

I don't know of course if these 5 planes were always bench planes. The moulding and rabetting planes were considered to be easier and quicker to make. They were a lot ceaper too.

[David Weaver]

Great work David. I love to read these threads. Your last post about how you chisel the mortise is a bit cryptic, but I think I got it now.

It would be interesting to see how you get along with a tight mouth like that in a wooden double iron plane. So don't widen it too soon!

You are rather quick now, making these planes, for an amateur! Could you envision making 5 planes in a working day? That was the kind of reckless speed they made back in the days when this was still a 7 to 6, 6 days a week, job.

Thanks, Kees. That bit about mortising would probably make more sense in a video, but it is not too important, just a random passing thought about speed.

5 would be unattainable for me without some mechanization. If I machine prepped the blank and batches the rough parts (handle stock, and wedge stock) , I could see maybe 3, but it would be taxing. It would be impossible to source wood and irons, though. These planes deserve a good handsome vintage set, and not unsightly modern irons in my opinion.

There is definitely more speed on the table, the wood would allow me to work faster without getting nasty. Here's my accounting of speed, that I can recall from this one. Some of the steps are easy to spot for areas of improvement:
* milling the blank - 1 hour from rough. That includes jointing one edge and then squaring the side, cutting the blank to width and height (with a hand saw), hand planing the cut to finish dimension and then hand sawing the ends off of the blank (which I tried to mark and do as neatly as possible to minimize cleanup work).
* layout - 15 minutes (this could easily be done in a minute or two with a decent pattern, marking the mouth, the wear, the tops of the mortise and the angles on the side of the plane, and then a center line top and bottom, as well as the lateral lines for the mortise in the top and at the mouth).
* Opening the first mortise and drilling the mouth and opening it - 1 hour (to be ready to cut the abutments.
* cutting the abutments and then cleaning up everything down around the mouth to be able to get the iron through and bedding the iron - another hour (this would be a lot faster for an experienced maker)
* opening up the cheeks, putting in the eyes and cleaning up everything (1 hour)
* making the wedge and fitting it to the iron and cap iron - 1 hour. This would also be faster if I did a better job of making a spacer to cut the abutments. For some reason, I threw the first one away, and wasted time looking for it before making another one.
* making the handle - 2 hours (I could easily see this being halved with good stock to start at a pre-determined thickness, and a pattern. The old handles look to me like they were done by hand, but I'm not sure.)
* sinking the mortise and fitting the handle - 45 minutes (this would be faster if I weren't doing it by hand, but I'm doing it by hand
* marking and planing bevels onto the plane, paring them on the front and back and putting the curve on the back of the plane, lapping the bottom of the plane - half hour

While I was doing the mortising on the handle, I tried using a 4 pound hammer. I only got about halfway through the mortise before I had to go back to a regular mallet. Hisao swings a 6 pound hammer in that video making a dai, and I think he was in his 60s or 70s there.

Everything where we have to work to a line or create a clean plane over a long span (the bed, the cheeks, the front of the escapement), I can imagine you could get very fast doing that and leave a lot less to clean up than I would leave. Same with sawing the abutments and removing the waste. In half a dozen planes, I can do all of this twice as fast as I could before, and neater, I could imagine a pro could do it four times as fast as I do.

I guess it really doesn't matter because it's all hypothetical, but it's interesting to think about it, and the faster you can build these, the satisfying it is.

[David Weaver]

Kees, did they make 5 GOOD planes in a day?.. where is that info coming from ?


David, they look really great. I've been making totes lately and the top on that one does seem a bit fat. the jointer looks real good though. I found this:
http://www.oocities.org/plybench/handle.html haven't tried it yet except for the profiling which I think I like. I re-did the tote on my jack, thanks for the advice, it's much better now.


I wanted to suggest, that you might like adding a thin diluted coat or two of shellac after the oil dries. I did that to a plane that had a tung oil finish and it completely stopped the plane from getting awfully dirty, yet it keeps the oiled look.

As far as the fat-topped handle, I guess it's just the pattern. I've got about a dozen old bench planes, and all but a few of the crappiest have nice tasteful handles. I took a picture of the JT brown handle so I could scale it and print it to be the size I wanted. Maybe the angle of the photo caused some distortion, or there's a bit of a shadow at the back of the handle making it look bigger than it is? The jointer is the same pattern as the try plane, but I let in the top of that one a little at the back and I'll have to do it again with this one to make it the same. I've seen the handle you linked before, but it leaves my eye looking for something - a little more heft I guess, and some lines on the sides. It does indicate I was closer on the tenon for the first handle (3/4ths of an inch) than this plane, where the handle tenon is nearly an inch. Belt and suspenders, I guess.

George's patterns look nicer, but I have doubts about my ability to keep them unbroken.

I've shellacked planes before (under wax, though), and may ultimately go that route. 4 coats of BLO stopped this plane from getting dirty, but it's kind of a pain to put on 4 coats of BLO. I wonder what was on the planes originally over the stain? Does anyone know? (I know george doesn't like the mold feeding BLO, but it's OK if it's topped with a coat of toxic briwax).

[george wilson]

I like the linseed oil just fine,David. The only reason we went to tung oil was for tools stored in unheated out buildings. I prefer the looks and smell of linseed. I'm sure your planes will be fine with linseed oil. If I made more planes for myself,I'd use linseed oil.

You think your old planes were stained? I doubt it. They are just aged by sunlight. The English seem to have slathered everything with tallow,which turned brown and crusty over many years. I have seen all kinds of wooden equipment they made that has a thick,sometimes rather smooth surface on it. Must be tallow. In one of the museums in London I went to,there is a large wooden butter churning machine that is covered with this glossy looking tallow coating. It has a 10 foot dia. gear wheel overhead. A horse walks in circles to rotate a keg that was full of cream. The keg,and most of the lower down wooden parts have this coating. So did an 18th. C. wooden lathe Williamsburg borrowed from them. The tailstock was missing,so I was asked to make a new one. The whole lathe had this hard,somewhat glossy goop all over it. I made the tailstock,stained it dark brown,and buffed it till it was quite similar looking to the original lathe. I did sign and date it on the tenon that went between the ways of the lathe.

This tallow treatment seems to have been an English thing. I haven't seen it on American tools,or else I have forgotten. Anyway,your old planes were darkened by sunlight,and were likely oiled too. The oil probably helped them darken.

Your new plane looks great.

[David Weaver]

Thanks George. I know your eyes see the same things mine do, though. There's at least one other irk looking at the pictures of the plane (though in person, the plane looks a little better than the pictures would let on). That irk is that the fingers of the wedge were cut too far up into the taper that you can see. I got quick and just cut those fingers fast and wasn't thinking that I cut them too long and too far up, but I wanted to finish the plane yesterday.

That results in too steep of a taper from the iron to the top of the wedge between the fingers, and too much of the metal on the cap iron being visible. It doesn't look authentic and it was a mistake made by not thinking (really, it would be better for me to have a set pattern of sorts for wedges if I'm going to make 4 or 5 of these planes). If that taper was 1/4 or 3/8" further down into the plane, it would make a world of aesthetic difference.

The fat-topped handle, will, of course, be fixed. I'm obsessing over it, but my eyes see it very clearly.

The pictures aren't good enough to ask for any more suggestions on looks, and it'll look better once it has oil and all of the bevels and facets can reflect light better. Flash pictures in the dark and bare wood don't go together that well. The camera doesn't know what to look for or focus on. But I am open, by all means, to criticism.

I just don't want my planes to look like they were made by an amateur, or turned out in quantity on modern tools - etc. I think a compliment that they could get is after I kick the bucket, if they come up for sale and an auction lists them as "craftsman made, but well made" would be just fine (but I'd always like them to look a little better and am open to suggestions).

I've got some ideas for the eyes on the next one. My eyes go right out to the outside of the plane right away from the back to the front, and I do have a vintage plane that's made like that, but I like the looks of the planes that get there a little more gradually a bit better. If it doesn't work out, I can cut them deeper and they will be like these.

[David Weaver]

I like the linseed oil just fine,David. The only reason we went to tung oil was for tools stored in unheated out buildings. I prefer the looks and smell of linseed. I'm sure your planes will be fine with linseed oil. If I made more planes for myself,I'd use linseed oil.

You think your old planes were stained? I doubt it. They are just aged by sunlight. The English seem to have slathered everything with tallow,which turned brown and crusty over many years. I have seen all kinds of wooden equipment they made that has a thick,sometimes rather smooth surface on it. Must be tallow. In one of the museums in London I went to,there is a large wooden butter churning machine that is covered with this glossy looking tallow coating. It has a 10 foot dia. gear wheel overhead. A horse walks in circles to rotate a keg that was full of cream. The keg,and most of the lower down wooden parts have this coating. So did an 18th. C. wooden lathe Williamsburg borrowed from them. The tailstock was missing,so I was asked to make a new one. The whole lathe had this hard,somewhat glossy goop all over it. I made the tailstock,stained it dark brown,and buffed it till it was quite similar looking to the original lathe. I did sign and date it on the tenon that went between the ways of the lathe.

This tallow treatment seems to have been an English thing. I haven't seen it on American tools,or else I have forgotten. Anyway,your old planes were darkened by sunlight,and were likely oiled too. The oil probably helped them darken.

Your new plane looks great.

I think you're right about the coloring. Most of my older planes do have some goop on them, long dried hard. I like the way the brown looks, but I don't know what caused it, and I can't imagine in my mind that someone would've sat around staining planes in those days. But I just don't know about it, and i'm not as motivated to read historical texts as a lot of folks are. I'd rather find something and copy/make it than reading - I'm too intellectually lazy for much else (I could never be a tool collector, though that doesn't bother me in the least, either).

[george wilson]

Do be careful: That dried goop is VERY water soluble. I once hung a colonial style louvered outer door that had hand made strap hinges and pintles. I drilled the holes in the rain for the pintles with a wooden hand brace. Got pretty wet. But,the goop washed off the old brace,leaving pretty clean beech wood showing beneath it. I was surprised it was so easily dissolved. That was quite a long time ago,but a learning experience!

I'm pretty sure the old English used the tallow as a protective treatment for their tools at the time. It must have taken many years to dry and harden,and turn dark. I can't be sure WHY they thought it protected the wood. Moisture? Anti worm? Don't know. But,we have to remember that they likely had no heat,or little of it in most of their shops,especially in small shops on a farm,etc.. Tallow would definitely protect from moisture,and it was the most common lard they had. During the 2nd. World War,the Americans got very tired of eating mutton all the time when stationed in England.

I got very tired of it,too. We lived on a light house that was near an abandoned sheep farm. There were horribly filthy,shaggy wooled sheep running around. They hadn't been shorn in years. My step father,always being frugal,would shoot one in the head with a .22 short(They were very easy to kill). Then,he'd string them up in the basement and gut them. The stench was horrible!! Then,we ate mutton all the time. I will not touch the stuff now. Even lamb chops are horribly greasy,sitting in disgusting yellow grease.

[David Weaver]

I've never gotten water on those planes (but I did get a whole bunch of dykem on some of them). I'm not surprised that the stuff is water soluble, especially if it was mostly some kind of free rendered fat that was floating around surplus.

I know mutton tallow got a big boost lately because of blog posts or a magazine article or something, but that kind of rah rah "gotta have it all of the sudden" stuff isn't for me. I certainly don't want to put it on my planes, nor do I want to wait for an accumulation of it to dry.

Someone posted a picture of one of your planes that was being used heavily in the hay cabinet shop and it was pretty dark, but without looking like it was coated with lard several times. That look would be just fine.

(most of my planes that are bought are going to be exiting the building soon, anyway, either in boxes or in pieces - depending on whether they're worth the trouble and cost that it would be to ship them).

[Kees Heiden]

Old English oak furniture is often very dark too.

17th_century_carved_oak_bible__as203a166b.jpg

But this link http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/200...-go-to-church/ shows some church stuff that is much more bleeched. One big difference between houses and churches is the smoke. Smoke makes things dark in a hurry too. Combine that with wax or tallow and you get a very dark patina.

[David Weaver]

Kees - I noticed your comment about the tight mouth and forgot to respond. No worries, I'm not doing any more work on the plane to open things up if I don't have to, I'm too lazy. If I suggested that I'd do it before trying it out, that's probably only because I figured just looking at it that things might be a bit too tight for a chip to escape in a deep and heavy cut at this point. Use will tell.

final weight of the plane at this point is 7 pounds and 1 ounce. I was wrong about needing to oil it, and as it sits, it feels heavy enough, so use will probably be sooner than later.

The griffiths plane that spurred all of this talk has a very tight mouth and works fine. The wear is about 78 degrees or something on it, too. It must just be perfect to operate like that. The work inside the mortise and on the cheeks is still neater than I'm capable of doing - it is just unbelievably crisp and clean, far beyond anything I've seen in any other plane. Better even than the mathiesens.

The large lamb jointer that I sold in the classifieds last week was also made with a very tight mouth, but it looks like a user of the plane in the past had enough of it and opened the mouth. It is a nice working plane with the double iron set properly, though. I would've cursed that open mouth 5 years ago, but I get it now.

[David Weaver]

IMG_20141014_063844_436.jpg

A little better. Maybe a bit of touch up to do. Took some extra work last night to get it working right, but it's good to go now and soaking some raw linseed oil.

George, my trick for the mouth of the plane was to put a shop paper towel across the bottom of the mouth and hold it in place with a bessey k body clamp. Not much dribbled out overnight, maybe a teaspoon full, but a very large amount was absorbed by the plane.

My handle is a bit rough on the details part - I finished it with files, and you can see that I had to shim the front of the mortise - I mismeasured, but those are the kind of things where it's good you're making a plane for yourself and don't have to remake the entire handle. You can see I broke out a little bit of wood for some reason, too (can't remember why) For anyone making handles out there, I always carefully sanded those lines around the edge of the handle so that the facet would be crisp, but I think I like two fine metal files better. I just don't like to sand and thus didn't sand anytyhing on this handle, which is why it looks a little unrefined.

It's still a heavy profile at the top after adjusting it, but that's just the pattern. It doesn't look as bad as it did before pushing the top in a little bit, and it feels better in use with a little bit more down attitude.

I don't really need the brass screw, but I did it on the other plane and I figured I might as well at least put it in this plane and clock it.

[george wilson]

David,why are you just copying the old handle,and not also rounding the top of the handle as I did on my large jointer? That might make your handle look less top heavy(You think it looks top heavy,I didn't notice that in your 2nd plane.) Anyway,it would lower the perceived lines of the handle,and make it 1/8" lower in appearance.

No one said you have to slavishly follow all the details of the original handle,since you aren't working in a museum like I was. I think rounding the top of the handle would make it look nicer,too. Not that it isn't already nice. Go look at my handle and consider rounding.

P.S.:I just studied your handle. The area of greatest mass is at the top. Rounding the top over would also help remove some of that perceived extra mass of wood.

[David Weaver]

In this case, I chose to keep it for heft. Same as on the jointer. I don't have a lot of faith in being able to thin it and keep it unbroken (it's likely that there will be kids using it in a few years - which is part of the reason that I left heft on the horn, too)

I do agree that your thinned handle had better aesthetics, though I do also think this one looks fine (and is very strong) once the top back of the handle is tucked in a little bit like this.

[george wilson]

I like your handle just fine,but if you were to round the top,it would still have plenty enough wood at the front of the top of the handle to not risk cracking. Mine was much thinner due to the extra "loop" I added.