My first woody smoother

[John Lubeski]

Here are some pictures of my first attempt at building a wood smoother.
The blade came from my woodworking group, who purchased some O1 stock, and other members cut, rough milled the bevel, and had heat treated and tempered. First impressions of it are good, seems to take a really nice edge.
The main body is made from some old osage orange that a friends father-in-law gave me in the form of long split logs (orginally intented to make self bows) This perticular piece had too many knots and bug holes to make a good bow, so I've been using it for other unqiue projects. Since osage is probably north americas hardest, and densest wood, and is highly resistant to moving from humidity and temperature changes, I thought it might make a good plane.
I used paduak for the sides because once I milled the osage blank from my log it wasn't quite big enough, so I though the paduak would look good with the osage.
The blade is bedded at a 50 degree angle. I used plans from a popular mechanics article for much of the plane, although I did change a few things. I also added some set screws to help in squaring the blade and keeping it centered in the mouth.
On my first test board, a lightly curled maple board, the plane worked quite nicely, producing no tear out. The only issue I'm having is the shavings aren't exiting the top very well, they seem to get bunched up? Anyway here are some pictures.












Thanks for looking,
John

[Zahid Naqvi]

Thats one good looking plane, I want to make one myself one of these days.

[Mark Stutz]

Great loooking plane. I would think the Osage Orange would be a great choice! Not sure I can help with the clearance issues, but I find on even metal bench planes that very fine shavings don't exit very well.

Mark

[John Lubeski]

Great loooking plane. I would think the Osage Orange would be a great choice! Not sure I can help with the clearance issues, but I find on even metal bench planes that very fine shavings don't exit very well.

Mark

You do make a good point, when I was playing with it and had it set to cut a thicker shaving, they did exit a lot better than the light fluffy stuff.

Thanks,
John

[Dan Racette]

I am curious about your groups purchase of steel. How did it end up for "final pricing" of that steel. would it end up being less or more than if you would have bought, say, a hock blade?

Dan

[Tyler Howell]

You got Wood! Nice one

[Steve Beadle]

That's a beautiful tool, John! I've been wanting to build one of those myself, probably using a Hock blade, since I don't have the resources for the kind of blade you customized. I like your choice of woods. Thanks for the inspiration! There's no football on TV this weekend, so maybe I'll get in some more shop time!
Steve

[John Lubeski]

I am curious about your groups purchase of steel. How did it end up for "final pricing" of that steel. would it end up being less or more than if you would have bought, say, a hock blade?

Dan

One of the guys purchased 1 1/2", and 2" O1 bar stock from I think McMaster. Another member was all set up to cut the blades to length and milled the bevel angle. Another member then sent them out to be heat treated. In the end the 1 1/2" blades cost $5.50 each, and the 2" cost $6.50 each. So yes, I would say they ended up costing way less than a hock blade!

[Zahid Naqvi]

One of the guys purchased 1 1/2", and 2" O1 bar stock from I think McMaster. Another member was all set up to cut the blades to length and milled the bevel angle. Another member then sent them out to be heat treated. In the end the 1 1/2" blades cost $5.50 each, and the 2" cost $6.50 each. So yes, I would say they ended up costing way less than a hock blade!

Now you've started a new thing, where did you guys send this out for heat treating? And how does it compare with the Hock blade in terms of performance? perhaps we need to start something like this on the creek.

[Tom Cooney]

Hi John,

The area between your front ramp and your cross bar looks kind of crampt. What angle did you cut the front ramp at? I made my first woody with two 45 degree ramps and had to go back later with a chisel and relieve the front ramp to ~65 degrees because I had the same problem.

Did you have any problems tapping the holes to receive the set screws? Do the threads hold up? If I can locate a tap and set screws I want to try this on one of my own this weekend. Looks like a great idea.

Tom

[John Lubeski]

Now you've started a new thing, where did you guys send this out for heat treating? And how does it compare with the Hock blade in terms of performance? perhaps we need to start something like this on the creek.

I really don't know who we had do the heat treating. And there is no way for me to compare these blade to hock as I don't have any hock blades! So, sorry I really can't answer either of your questions.

John

[John Lubeski]

Hi John,

The area between your front ramp and your cross bar looks kind of crampt. What angle did you cut the front ramp at? I made my first woody with two 45 degree ramps and had to go back later with a chisel and relieve the front ramp to ~65 degrees because I had the same problem.

Did you have any problems tapping the holes to receive the set screws? Do the threads hold up? If I can locate a tap and set screws I want to try this on one of my own this weekend. Looks like a great idea.

Tom

The front ramp is 45 degrees. I'll start with the chamfering the wedge before I'll attempt to chisel the front ramp more, that osage is some HARD stuff, and wouldn't be fun to chisel!

I had no problems taping the holes for the screws, time will have to tell how the threads hold up, since I just finished it up last night. I got both the set screws and the tap at a true value hardware store, and I know my local ace hardware also has them.

Thanks,
John

[Bob Oehler]

Nice Plane

The O-1 stock is an Oil Hardening tool steel and it fairly easy to heat treat your self with a Oxy Acy torch some fire bricks and a bucket of old motor oil.
The big trick is to evenly heat the stock to a medium cherry red
Quench in the oil
Brighten up an area with sand paper.
Heat slowly on a brass plante untill the steel is a straw color.
Dip in water to stop the tempering
This should bring the Rockwell hardness into the 58 to 60 Rc range.
The darker the tempering colure the softer the steel becomes.
If you get into the purple range you have temperer into the low 50's and made spring steel.

O-1 is very forgiving on the temperature range on the hardening.

The drawback to this method is that the Steel with have a scale that has to be taken off by stones or when I do it I just pop it on a small surface grinder.

If you send to a heat treat house they will heat in a atmosphere furnace and you will not get the scale and can tell the the exact rockwell hardness ie. Rc60-62

Hope this info is of some use to somebody

take care
Bob Oehler

[Bob Oehler]

Also if you mess up the great thing about steel is you can start over again
Just put it on the brass plate and slowly heat through all colure ranges and then start the process over again.

also this method will get you between 58-62 Rc on 58-60 like I typed in the 1st reply. OOPS

Take care
Bob Oehler

[Dave Burnard]

I like to quench O1 in olive oil - less toxic and smells better. If you have the old motor oil around anyway well just use it, otherwise a big bottle of bargain olive oil will work great. Smells better when you temper in the kitchen oven too.

To avoid the scale problem in the fire, coat the blade in a *very thin* slip coating made from clay and water. You should almost be able to see through it when it dries on the blade (althoug O1 is more forgiving then W1 or 1095) - but that's enough to prevent most of the oxidation/scale from occuring. That sludge in the bottom of your waterstone pond is ideal (and authentic!).

Too much clay on a water hardening steel and you'll be on the way to making a hamon or temper line as found on swords - and that's a whole 'nother slippery slope.

Have fun!