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Thread: Shop made Hollows and Round Moulding Planes

  1. #1
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    Shop made Hollows and Round Moulding Planes

    I really enjoy doing most of my wood working projects with hand tools. I don't mind sweating over dimensioning rough stock with handsaw's and hand planing a "4 square" surface is frankly kinda fun for me. I have also learned to be a lot better at joinery over the years.

    One area that has remained a challenge is creating moldings with hollow and round molding planes. I was fortunate enough to acquire a number of vintage H&R molding planes from David Weaver. As David suggested, I invested a significant amount of time in fettling and particularly grinding/sharpening plane irons consistent with the shape of plane soles. From my perspective, if I could pay a professional to do this to a much higher level of execution, it would be well worth whatever the cost is. I enjoy woodworking – not metal working.

    My limited experience with hand planing moldings is mixed;

    1) The older irons don't seem to stay sharp very long. I'm sure if I knew how to use an electric router/shaper, I could easily create these profiles is significantly less time.

    2) All the printed/online information about hand planing moldings in softwoods might look great in pictures; but as a practical matter most of my projects are with domestic hardwoods. My experience has been, it's a lot harder to plane a molding in typical North American cabinet hardwoods, than it is to do the same in Pine.

    Based on the realization my current, vintage H&R planes didn't work very well, and the idea I could not reasonably afford to buy contemporary molding planes from the few makers that produce them (even if I could afford it, I'm not waiting for years). I decided to try and build my own H&R's based on an article In Popular Woodworking.

    I felt recently confident in shaping the wooden plane bodies, but was completely intimidated about the idea of trying to heat treat/Harden plan irons. Based on encouragement from many here on SMC, primarily Steve Voigt, I bought the iron blanks from Lee Nielsen and took the plunge with "heat treating/tempering", or whatever it's called.

    Frankly the results turned out better than I expected. Seems like the irons are pretty hard/hold a decent edge. Nonetheless, not really a good time for me and something I would be happy to pay for.

    Here are some pictures FWIW: I had planned on posting these via photobucket to make them easier to see- which personally is a challenge for me - but way too much much work.

    All the best, Mike


    Sorry I lost my patience trying to up load pics- I guess I'm not nearly smart enough to know how to do this.

  2. #2
    Mike,

    In Photobucket select the image you wish to upload. On the right side of the image will be an area with 4 links, left click the box (link) for "Direct", You should see it flash "copied". In SMC click the image icon and a box will come up, select URL and paste the link in the box. Under the box is a check box that says "Retrieve remote file and reference locally", uncheck and click OK.

    ken

  3. #3
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    I have not looked at photobucket of late, but for some reason it seems it usually has problems of one kind or another. Usually I get something about not being a member or needing a password.

    It is very easy to upload images to SMC.

    Here is something that is a few years old. There has been a change to the software, (isn't there always changes to the software?). Now only two pictures can be uploaded at one time. So to get upto eight images in a post one has to repeat the process.

    http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...s-of-June-2011

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  4. #4
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    Hi Mike

    I do hope that you can post pics - your work is always worth seeing.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek

  5. #5
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    Encouraged by suggestions above from my fellow Neanders and fortified with renewed confidence in my IT abilities (I learned how to download pictures to my phone!), I’m attempting to post some pictures of 3 pairs of shop made hollow and round molding planes (#4, 6, and 8). I followed the description in a recent article in Popular Woodworking. At the time it was kind of a spur of the moment project, but now that it’s done and I realize the time investment, I wish I would have made more of an effort, upfront to select better, quarter sawn wood. I just went with what I had on hand.

    The irons are from Lie Nielsen. This was my first attempt to do “heat treating/tempering” or whatever it’s called. I was reluctant to give this a try because I really don’t enjoy metalworking. I wasn’t really worried about burning the house down, but the articles I read about the specifics of how hot, how long etc. made it seem pretty easy to have a bad result. Nonetheless, encouraged by Steve Voigt, I took the plunge; a couple fire bricks, a MAP torch from the BORG, a magnet on a stick, vegetable oil and a coffee can. I read the primer by Ron Hock. I pretty much relied on when the magnet would no longer stick to indicate I was done, which took ~ 5 – 10 minutes/iron. Quenched in vegetable oil and in the oven at 400° for an hour.

    I think the irons turned out OK. They seem to hold a decent edge. For me grinding/ polishing the finished edge on the hollow irons was much easier with a Dremel tool.
    Here are some pictures of the blanks, wedges and irons pre-heat treating. I think the pitch is around 50°, but geometry is definitely not my strong suit -I screwed up the guide described in the article for sawing the bed’s.












  6. #6
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    What works best for me in shaping the sole profiles was dowels wrapped in sandpaper for the hollows and for the rounds moving the plane over sandpaper on flat surface to sneak up on the round profile. Some of the rounds didn’t turn out symmetrical. So far this hasn’t been a real problem. I’m kinda learning as long as the blade is sharp, the sole is straight and the two are aligned in profile of the cutting-edge, you can rotate the plane to tailor the shape of the Cove your cutting. I don’t always get full width shavings, but I am getting closer to creating the molding profiles I want with less, but not zero, frustration.


    Here are the finished planes after heat treating, sharpening, etc.
    The mouths aren’t especially tight, but for me getting good shaving clearance seems to be most important.





    Here are the rabbits for my first molding with the half round at the bottom already done.







    Here is using an old # 12 round to start cutting the Cove referencing off the edges of the rabbits. Remaining picture show progress to the completed molding, in Poplar.












  7. #7
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    In summary key takeaways for me are:


    1)
    Heat treating isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but I don’t have enough experience to know if the irons I did will really take/hold a good edge. Given the limited success I’ve had in trying to keep my vintage irons sharp, I thought it was worth the gamble to give these a try.

    2) Grinding/sharpening the profile of the curved irons was the hardest part.

    3) Building planes is a lot of time/effort I’d personally rather invest in furniture projects. I can’t afford to buy H&R’s from contemporary toolmakers, but if I could, I definitely would.

    4) For me shooting moldings with H&R’s is really all about getting the initial rabbits in the right place, which for me is always a challenge with rabbit planes. I don’t have a table saw anymore, but accurately cutting straight rabbits for moldings is the only reason I miss my TS.


    5)
    I’m still not out 100% sold that shooting my own moldings is something I want to do on a routine basis, especially if I need a lot of molding. Layout is the hardest part for me – I have a really hard time visualizing positive/negative space. Laying out the rabbits to create the chamfers and rabbit edges the H&R’s reference off to end up with the molding profile I’m shooting for, is still strictly a step-by-step process of following the diagrams in Matt Bickford’s book. I wouldn’t even attempt to create my own molding profile from scratch. Ultimately I could probably figure out where the rabbits need to go, but for me that would absolutely require trial and error and an take forever. Maybe it will get easier with practice – I hope!

    Thanks for looking, all the best,
    Mike

  8. #8
    I'd say you achieved success and have learned a lot. If you can do these, you can do others. One thing for grinding the irons is that you can get an abrasive thin "cutoff" disc to put in a stationary grinder or side grinder to cut out most of the metal, leaving little to grind, which may speed things up for you. I'd say you did the smart thing going with the wood you had laying around your shop rather than investing in something more expensive where you might have messed things up and wasted the more expensive wood. Thanks for sharing your experience. I would be right proud of that moulding you made.

  9. #9
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    Nicely done, however I share your feelings about making your own moulding planes. Matt Bickford sells planes one pair at a time for $425/pair. At $212.50 a plane I couldn't justify making my own.

  10. #10
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    Nice work Mike! I have a suggestion on the rabbets. Draw your intended profile, then plan your rabbets accordingly. No math needed.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  11. #11
    Hey Mike, looks good! Nice shavings! Congrats on taking the O1 plunge!

    I agree with Allen Hunt's post; it's better that you used plain ol' wood for your first try. You can use nicer stock next time.

    Regarding your question about whether you did the HT correctly: if the edge is folding over after a few passes, it's too soft. If it's chipping either on the wood or maybe even as you're sharpening, the metal is too hard. But looking at those nice shavings, I'm guessing you did OK.

    Next step is to buy Larry and Don's CD and make some fully mortised versions!
    "For me, chairs and chairmaking are a means to an end. My real goal is to spend my days in a quiet, dustless shop doing hand work on an object that is beautiful, useful and fun to make." --Peter Galbert

  12. #12
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    Looks good to me.I also like the way your bench looks with the planed top.So nice and bright.👍

  13. #13
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    Great planes!

    Brian made a very good suggestion.

    Another is to save pieces cut with your new planes so you can use them as templates on the ends of stock to draw your profiles.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  14. #14
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    Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback and advice!

    Brian and Jim ,your suggestion about templates to draw molding profiles is super helpful. Drawing them on my own is a lost cause. I do plan to spend some time at the local copy place with Matt's book,, copying molding profiles I like. I don't think the drawings in the book are too scale (my apologies if that's wrong). I'll have to expand to actual size to make templates.

    I'm hopeful laying out the rabbits will get easier with practice . Even with the molding profile drawn on the end grain, I still currently have to think a lot about the depth / width of rabbits needed. I can generally get the sequence of coves and rounds right, but the relative proportions of the overall shape are off if the rabbits aren't spot on. I'm still working on it.

    Best, Mike

  15. #15
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    One of the great things about moldings is a shape can be stretched or compressed to give a different look to the molding.

    There have been many words written about molding profiles on the Lost Arts blog:

    https://blog.lostartpress.com/2014/1...ree-downloads/

    There are a couple of free downloads at that link. There was one a year or more ago with various layouts and how to do the rabbeting before putting the hollows & rounds to work.

    I'm just about to fall asleep and do not want to do a lot of searching at the moment.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

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