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Thread: Beech Jointer Build

  1. #61
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    Do the initial shaping on the handle (especially at the bottom) then trace the mortise lines around it.


    P1040138.jpg
    A gouge works well to work safely to the lines. Anything else runs the risk of having a fiber lift and bungle the surface.

    P1040139.jpg

    Mortise looks something like this after cleaning the bottom out with a chisel and checking it with a square to make sure the depth is good
    P1040140.jpg

    Unfortunately, what I didn't expect is that the handle could really crush its own fibers under a tight fit. And it did. It also started a hairline crack where these fibers broke, so next time I make a plane, i'll leave the mortise a bit more loose.

    P1040146.jpg

    And the handle sunk in the plane - the damage behind the handle is there, but it's not too severe.
    P1040147.jpg

    This handle needs some aesthetic help yet, it's looking a little slab sided. I think even though it's fitted I can get away with fairing the curve without making it look too bad. It's also a bit too fat at the top, and from the feel I'd like the handle to have a little more downward angle, so I can push the part where the web of your hand fits inward a little bit and clean up those curves.

    After that, it'll just be cutting the bevels on the front and back and then rounding over the rear end a little bit, and them some kind of quickie finish.

    I'll fit the other iron and another wedge after I've used it a little bit.

  2. #62
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    This picture illustrates the handle's problems a little better. From a visual perspective, it's slab sided and dominating looking for the plane, and I drew a red x where I'll bring the curves around a little further on the side and a red x at the top where it needs to have some material removed. That'll make the flats a little smaller and it won't look so slab sided. P1040149.jpg

    I found some #12x2" brass flat head slotted screws online. I'll need them, too, because I had to put a screw in the front of the handle when I fit the too-tight handle. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten it out.

    (I fixed the hairline crack - which was too strong to be pulled apart to glue - by inserting two 2" wood screws into the bottom of the handle. Very amateurish, but nobody will ever see them except the TSA.
    Last edited by David Weaver; 09-24-2014 at 10:59 PM.

  3. #63
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    I think the handle looks pretty darn good actually. Maybe just a bit light in tone next to the beech. Your trimming and curve modifications should fix it up nicely. I wonder if the handle wood would darken a bit to match the beech with just a quick wipe of BLO? I assume you are not planning to add any finish to the plane body itself, right?

  4. #64
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    Thanks for the compliment, pat. I haven't decided how to finish it - I do know that if I leave it totally unfinished, it will soon carry sharpening swarf smudges all over it, so it will have to have something. I just don't know if I will stain it or not, or maybe use a tinted wax.

    If I take good pictures, you'll be able to tell why the handle looks better after some modification. It's just one of those things that as you go along and you get a keener sense of proportions, a little more sticks out at you each time. The improvements are not critical (the handle is comfortable), more along the lines of when you see before and after, it'll just be kind of a "yeah, that looks better", and it's what I'm going for - to try to get it to fit the eye and be a little bit more trim looking where it needs to be.

  5. #65
    Dave, I think the plane is coming along very nicely. Just a couple comments on the handle.
    - i agree that a little more angle downward would be nice. A related point is that if you continue the line of the bed angle upward, that line should clear the forward-most part of the handle, for ease of hammer adjustment. I'm not sure if yours does but it looks close.
    - On a lot of 19th c. planes, The back end of the handle mortise is full round and the front end is square. One doesn't have to do that of course, but the back of the handle, at the bottom, should be a full 1/2" radius or pretty close to it. I use a radius gauge to check my handles (homemade--just bore a 1" hole in a thin piece of scrap and cut it into pieces).

  6. #66
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    Steve, I agree with both of those:
    * the handle is clear of the bed angle by enough to be able to strike any replacement iron that would go on it, and without hitting the handle. It looks close on the picture (I suppose it is somewhat, but not dangerously)
    * The front of this handle is square. I pretty much ripped off the handle design of the JT brown plane, which has this tongue sticking out in the front like this one does. I looked at the rest of my planes last night and literally only one has anything of any size in the front, and the other 10 or so have nothing. When I refair the curve on the back, it will be approximately a half circle - it will have to be to be visually interesting. It might create a tiny gap around the back of the plane handle, but it won't be much and glue will make it go away. It's a bit closer to half round already than it looks in the pictures I guess. If the line on each side is moved in 1 millimeter at the bottom and maybe 2 at the top, I'll have what I want.

    (I think the fourth picture in the series of five pictures above probably gives a more accurate look at the actual curvature on the back of the handle - it's close)

    I wonder how the old planemakers decided their radius and set it up (as in whether the back of their plane handle was faired by machinery, at least for the bulk parts) I'd assume that the back end of the mortise was probably just bored, but I don't have an accurate setup, and that's just being hand fitted for me. I fired this handle profile out all at once, and I almost always have some corrections to make when I do it all at one time and don't stand back and look at it. If I wasn't so lazy, I would've cut the profile exactly to the handle picture from the JT plane, but I just coped it out instead, it was faster than putting a fine blade in my bandsaw would've been.

    One other side thought, this was the first handle of any type where I've done some of the initial roughing with a chisel instead of a rasp. That's mostly out of prior conservatism. I can imagine that with a chisel and a nice working wood like this, if someone was making these by hand, they could get really really fast at it. I don't know how fast, but maybe making one every half hour. It took me a couple of hours to plane it from rough stock, cut it out and get to this point, and probably a little less than an hour to cut and fit the mortise. Something I'd imagine an experienced maker could do in ten minutes - maybe less.

    I still haven't used any shims or paring guides to make cuts, which makes me happy. Eyeball from straight overhead works very well in the mortises and the fit has a lot of contact.

    I would like to build more of these and get better at it! I guess that means finding a permanent source of wood. It probably costs $80 to make one of these with a good iron, more than any wooden plane I've ever bought, and it has zero chance of being better than the try plane that sparked all of this discussion months ago. That's life!!
    Last edited by David Weaver; 09-25-2014 at 2:14 PM.

  7. #67
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    The handle DO look a bit tall and large,David. It looks like the handle on my Nurse plane as far as the general design goes.

  8. #68
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    I think when its attitude is changed forward, it hopefully won't look so tall. I believe it's about an eighth higher than the JT Brown handle, which is by no means small given the era of the plane (1820-1840). It is only your guidance on design that allowed me to spot that it looks funny, let alone how to fix it. I could tell instantly last night when i installed it in a plane. 4 years ago, I'd have had no clue (let's be honest, 4 years ago I would've rounded off every edge on it and made it boring and amateurish looking).

    I'll have to measure it. I believe it to be about 4 1/8" off the top of the plane at the top of the horn.

  9. #69
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    I would have though the best way to orient the grain on the handle was like on a saw with the line of the grain running straight fromt eh back of the horn through the "eyebrow" above the opening and out the front - i.e., moving the more or less parallel to the sole grain line up about 25 degrees at the rear. I've never build a plane, but just curious.
    ~ Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

  10. #70
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    Somehow a post I just put up vanished. Probably I forgot to hit save.

    What I was saying was about the decadence in design in general. My Nurse plane is one of my favorites,and it has that same design in its handle. I like it,but,I know that the front curve is CRAMPED,just like table legs became cramped,and even the cocks of flintlock guns became cramped. Instead of having the nice,flowing curves of earlier cocks,they pushed up the curve in the body of the cock,making it tightly round over just under the lower jaw that held the flint. This cramping seemed to be universally adopted to any number of things you can see from that period.

    Table legs that once had a gradual,flowing S curve became straighter,with a sharper,cramped curve up at the top.

    Never the less,I like my Nurse plane. It is somehow evocative of the Industrial Revolution. It is hard to figure out in my own head WHY the Industrial Revolution SHOULD be thought of as evocative in a PLEASANT sort of way,though. In reality it meant working very long hours,trying to keep up with the relentless power of the steam engine. Taking home,exhausted each night,just enough money to buy food to survive another day.

    But,I wasn't there to endure that,and have more pleasant feelings towards that period. Perhaps it was that we were starting to get somewhere, the standard of living would gradually go up though it was hard on the workers. And upon the air. Who knows how the brain works. All you have to do is read Dickens to have somer idea how it was(and read about HIS own early life,too) But,there it is,I like my Nurse handle,cramped though it is.
    Last edited by george wilson; 09-25-2014 at 4:21 PM.

  11. #71
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    It should look like this after I mangle it a little bit more. I drew inaccurate black lines to suggest where the curves meet the flats, but they're not quite exactly as they will be on the plane. change.jpg

  12. #72
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    I'm very late getting in on this thread, actually I have not been around this forum for a while now. It has been so long that you've built a coco smoother that I had to go back and read about with great interest. But I have to say this has been a great thread David as well as your smoother thread. Very helpful for those of us that have not attempted a traditional mortised bench plane. I've done a few H&R in the traditional side escapement style but have not tried this type of plane. I have been wanting a traditional jack plane for some time now but have not come across a good enough example in the wild to buy one. Therefore am just going to build one once I am able to find an iron/cap-iron set worthy of the project. The iron has been harder to find than I expected but am not giving up. I want the jack plane set up as a hogging/flattening plane to give me some relief from my #5 and #6 Stanley's, just think a wooden one would be more enjoyable.

    Sorry to ramble... The point of my post was to comment on what a wonderful plane you've made here and great tutorial for us to follow. There are very few tutorials on this subject, if any that I have been able to find. Oh and that stick of Beech is amazing! Not everyday you come across such a big chunk that is dry and flat enough to be usable.

  13. #73
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    Tony, thanks for the kind words.

    Do you know what size iron you're looking for? I've been getting most of my double irons from the UK, either sigee64 or something of that sort for a user name, or gandmtoolsales (who has an ebay store that has a category of double plane irons, and a good clean set with little or no use is usually about $35 to get shipped here. That seems like a lot, but they are better than most irons that you'll find in planes over here, and full with good clean cap irons, etc.

    Prashun was very generous to offer me the beech he has - *very*.

  14. #74
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    OK, I thought my jt brown handle was a little over 4, and this was maybe a strong 8th greater. Instead, this handle is 4 3/8" tall and the JT brown is just a tiny bit under 4. George was right, this handle was tall!!

    One thing that's not right about this handle is that the opening should be flush with the top of the plane. This one is not, the opening is up from the bottom a little bit. It's just the way it is, and part of the reason it's that much taller, I must've screwed something up when I took the picture and adjusted its size and then another when I located the tenon on the bottom.

    The next plane will have a slightly shorter handle that's flat on the inside of the handle at the bottom and flush with the top of the plane. It might not seem like much to adjust the working height by 3/8", but it will be something that you can notice in use.

    So, the handle looks a little better now, but it is bigger than it should be.

    Anyway, the few things I did tonight after cleaning up the handle. I got a washer that looked similar to the back of the JT brown, traced its profile on both sides of the back after cutting the bevels down the backside and terminating them with a cheap gouge cut. Then I faceted most of the back. It could be a bigger radius and larger surface, but I didn't go there. I did not mark the back and front bevels either, it's better to mark them. This one looks uneven, but when I pare off that corner you won't be able to tell. Sand off the facets and then burnish the sanded area with shavings.

    P1040150.jpg

    After the corner is pared off and sanded flush (I see little bare feet in this picture - that's, of course, not allowed in my shop and I didn't know it was going on until I saw this picture)

    P1040151.jpg

    After gluing in the handle (the multicolor look is due to water when cleaning off the glue). Liquid hide glue. Doesn't look great (the handle), but it looks good and much better than it was before. The nasty proportions of before smack of 1950s english or american made wooden tools where some fat pattern is made and then just run across a shaper cutter. Gross.

    P1040154.jpg

    See how the handle bottom isn't flush with the plane? Oh well. It doesn't seem uncomfortable at this point in test feel, but the glue is wet so no test use on the bench. If you make one, you should do the handle "righter" than I did.

    P1040157.jpg

    Next to the JT.


    P1040158.jpg

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    Steve, I agree with both of those:
    * the handle is clear of the bed angle by enough to be able to strike any replacement iron that would go on it, and without hitting the handle. It looks close on the picture (I suppose it is somewhat, but not dangerously)
    Yeah, I figured it was probably just the camera angle.


    I wonder how the old planemakers decided their radius and set it up (as in whether the back of their plane handle was faired by machinery, at least for the bulk parts) I'd assume that the back end of the mortise was probably just bored
    I wish I knew what the pre-industrial practice was. At least in this country, planemaking seems to have been pretty automated by 1830. The oldest plane I have is probably 1840s; by then I assume they were just boring the slot with a 1" end mill (or similar cutter) and shaping the handle to match, maybe on a shaper? I don't really know.


    One other side thought, this was the first handle of any type where I've done some of the initial roughing with a chisel instead of a rasp. That's mostly out of prior conservatism. I can imagine that with a chisel and a nice working wood like this, if someone was making these by hand, they could get really really fast at it.
    +1 on that. I always try to remove as much as possible with the chisel, not just for handles but for other stuff too. Aside from the fact that it's MUCH faster, I figure that rasps are wasting assets…you can only use them so long before their performance suffers.

    It probably costs $80 to make one of these with a good iron, more than any wooden plane I've ever bought, and it has zero chance of being better than the try plane that sparked all of this discussion months ago. That's life!!
    Hey, just think of all the worse ways you could blow your money. At least it's something you're passionate about.

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