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Thread: My new favorite mortising chisel for planes...and the start of a panel plane

  1. #16
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    This badger beds at 20, which is what i'll try next, but I am going to modify the abutment on the right a little bit so that the abutment is closer to 90 degrees. That won't be hard to do on the wedge.

    28 degrees is pretty extreme. I really should've done what I just described to the abutment, left it around 15 degrees instead of 28.

    This was the least nice, or second least nice piece of wood out of my pile so I don't mind too much. I just wanted to try this style of panel raiser because it would look from above like a normal bench plane. If I add lean to the double iron like one would do on a badger plane and go with 20 degrees, and basically do what the donor plane had (it has held up fine, long enough to have erosion around the mouth), I can use the iron as is and do a job similar to this one and just have an extra 3/8th of width, or just literally make another badger plane and attach an adjustable fence.

    I favored this design because it allows a wedged nicker, but there would've been a lot more to favor with a double iron that would've bedded with less skew. As you're implying, not much is needed to get a decent cross grain cut.

  2. #17
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    Lesson learned...sort of, well, yeah, no more skews beyond 20 degrees.

    Since this is a plane that will never see anything but the inside of my shop, it may be salvaged with some phillips screws and glue (i glued it earlier, with CA medium glue, no less, and put some #6x 5/8 screws through it).

    IT really isn't bad to use aside from the fact that I think I made the lip on the side a bit high, which leads to a panel that's raised a little more than I want. That's easily remedied by laminating a little strip of wood back on it, what cosmetic rules are there with a plane that has four square head screws in the side?

    It does cut both ways, though (with and cross grain), just fine, and no real clogs to speak of if the wedge is set right.

    I won't take the time to make a full closed handle for it, but I will make an offset low handle (for strength, and because it's quick) and see how long it lasts before I just throw it away.

    You can see the straightened shavings from the double iron. It's not set super close, but close enough. It can really take a big bite without tearing out, even without the benefit of a handle

    It doesn't clog, but I can tell it *almost* wants to because of the skew angle. I'll bet it would clog in pine. I'll bet I won't use it in pine, though.


    P1040487.jpg

    P1040488.jpg
    Last edited by David Weaver; 11-24-2014 at 11:20 PM.

  3. #18
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    Hi David. I notice you mentioned the cap iron wasn't set super close so I am thinking its probably not serving any real benefit.

    Have you considered the possibility that the skewed blade alone is the reason your not experiencing tear-out.

    Stewie;

  4. #19
    Steam punk! You could make a statement with philips screws in the sides of all your planes... Well, at least it was a great learning experience.

    About the tapered chisel, here is one for sale at the moment at one of the Dutch tool dealers. I have a few like this too. The maker is Nooitgedagt. Like I wrote they made these well into the twentieth century. I've seen similar ones in Germany too.

    IMG_0464.JPG

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stewie Simpson View Post
    Hi David. I notice you mentioned the cap iron wasn't set super close so I am thinking its probably not serving any real benefit.

    Have you considered the possibility that the skewed blade alone is the reason your not experiencing tear-out.

    Stewie;
    Stevie, I guess my statement about closeness can be taken two ways. I suspect that my sort of close setting is probably closer than most people's close setting.

    I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it is close enough to straighten the chips, which suggests it's about right.

    My experience with single iron skews is that the skew can sometimes alleviate tear-out, but it can also be going the wrong way in less than perfect wood and create spectacular tear-out, something that can't be afforded on raised panels. A double iron doesn't experience that, which makes it markedly superior for this as it is for most things. It does complicate several things in making the plane, though.

    The shavings on the ground are approximately one hundredth thick, fwiw. The things that will limit the tearout that a wrong-way skew will have are the kinds of things I don't necessarily want to do with this plane (take the iron out and sharpen it, take a thinner shaving). I just want to smash it through the wood and create a bevel, but without any significant tearout. Hopefully the stitched up side will hold up for a little bit, but if It doesn't, I guess I'll remake i "the right way" at 20 degrees of skew.

    I noticed that many of the very old panel raisers have a single large iron, though I don't know why that is (it's not universally the case), and the badger planes I've seen have been mostly double irons (I can't recall one that isn't, though I'm sure google could find one because they would've been cheaper to make and offer as an option). The single iron john bell panel raiser that I had had tearout problems (it was single iron, and a very old plane), and was bedded common pitch like this plane. What I'm slowly getting to is that I believe the badger planes, which were probably intended for working a heavy shaving, have a double iron for a reason because it would be much easier to make this type of plane with a single iron and not be bound to using the profile on the single iron (though as steve suggested, even that could be changed with some work. I'm just a bit too lazy right now and the edge of the double iron is generally in good shape).
    Last edited by David Weaver; 11-25-2014 at 8:08 AM.

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kees Heiden View Post
    Steam punk! You could make a statement with philips screws in the sides of all your planes... Well, at least it was a great learning experience.

    About the tapered chisel, here is one for sale at the moment at one of the Dutch tool dealers. I have a few like this too. The maker is Nooitgedagt. Like I wrote they made these well into the twentieth century. I've seen similar ones in Germany too.

    IMG_0464.JPG
    that is a heavy looking chisel. Nice looking, too. Presume they made thinner cabinetmaker's versions of that? I don't think I have any dutch tools, but presume that they are similar to french tools (plain carbon steel, not too hard, deceptively useful given any preconceived notions about how tools that aren't too hard aren't useful - I make that statement because the softest iron I have is a freres iron in a continental smoother converted to a jack. I assumed that it would be too soft to be useful because it sharpens almost as if it's giving up - but then it holds up wonderfully in use. The french have a reputation for soft tempered knives, too).

    (I hope not to have to put any more screws in planes. I am by no means anything but an amateur hacker, but I still like things better right than wrong!! I pondered not showing any of this thing once the abutment cracked, but don't want to be the kind of person who only posts the stuff that works well. I really doubt anyone will ever read this and get any usefulness out of it - the idea that you can't run with 28 degrees of skew without doing some kind of modifications to make the angle at the abutments less - but I learned from it).

    This test bed (which is more or less what it is now) does give me the opportunity to try a couple of things, though, most notably the low offset handle that will require some fingers to drape over the side of the plane, but still allow me to push with the web of my hand and not have to squeeze to lift the plane. Also, I get to strike the back of this plane with a metal hammer because it doesn't really matter much if it gets dented. I secretly love how well it works to strike the back of a wooden plane with a metal hammer - the wedge and iron just pop right out. The plane just adjusts better with a metal hammer, crisper and more precise, I can see why some people chose to strike them with a metal hammer, anyway, despite the fact that it damages the plane. I intend to find out how far the damage goes if you strike it in the back of the plane in the center - I suspect that it will create a convex surface but once the wood fibers are packed relatively tight, not sustain much more damage.

    Well, all of that is if the abutments don't just strop off the screws.
    Last edited by David Weaver; 11-25-2014 at 8:23 AM.

  7. #22
    Yes of course you could get smaller ones. But this shape was preserved such a long time for the big chisels mostly. The smaller ones were more like the English chisels. A chisel like in the picture is called a "molenaarsbeitel" or millwright chisel. I have to look at home what I have exactly, but at least my mortising chisels are tapered in all directions.

  8. #23
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    Dutch is close to german sometimes! I'm assuming arsbeitel means something being worked or a worker maybe.

  9. #24
    I don't think you should use that word in Germany!
    Molenaar is millwright. beitel is chisel. Ars is not a very friendly name for your backside!

    Here is a picture of two of my chisels. 1" and 3/4" and both tapering, so at the end of their life they will be quite a bit narrower. They have bevels on the side, but rather rudimentary. All in all, perfect mortising chisels for big mortises. Which is not exactly the kind of work I do often.

    Beitels.jpg

  10. #25
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    I thought it sounded a lot like arbeit! Just with an extra letter.

    I'm no threat to go to germany and speak german. My relatives got chased out of there about 250 years ago, and to the extent they kept speaking german over here, the dialect got away from "real" german. I still do hear "wie gehts" at funerals and such, though. I just don't understand much of the rest of it after that.

  11. #26
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    Does anyone have a picture of george's short handled jack planes? I'd like to make a version of that short handle for this junker now, just with a little more of a 19th century look.

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  13. #28
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    That's the one, thanks!

  14. #29
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    Here's what I ended up with, not spending a lot of time on the handle, just scribbling a profile onto a piece of wood (as in no pattern), cutting it out and rasping it/card scraping it. No need to spend a lot of time on it when the plane it's going on literally has screws going through the abutment and sticking out inside the escapement. That screw fix is who knows how temporary.

    This handle is small, but the picture doesn't show just how small. You can get two fingers around it, one is more comfortable and the other fingers go down the side of the plane.

    I like a full sized handle better, but importantly, this one stays in the web of your thumb and you can lift the plane up without having to squeeze anything. The push pressure goes in the meat below your thumb or below your thumb web rather than into the middle of your palm (who knows if that's the way it's supposed to work?). A half inch taller and I'd like it better, I guess, but probably I'll stick with full sized handles from now on as I don't have the death grip a lot of people do with them.

    IMG_20141126_115252_230[1].jpgIMG_20141126_120531_627[1].jpgIMG_20141126_120559_313[1].jpg

    Oil once the handle glue dries, the color will be a little better.

    No waste of a good brass screw in this one, but I did have to use a square drive screw - not to hold the handle in, but because I'm in the bad habit of making the handle fit so tight that I can't get the handle back out to glue without putting a screw in the front and hammering it out.
    Last edited by David Weaver; 11-26-2014 at 1:51 PM.

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