In the first installment below, I converted a 30-dollar Stanley No. 4 1/2C parts plane to 50 degrees in preparation for a big job that involves hand planing dozens of birds-eye and figured maple panels. The plane worked perfectly, but was harder to push in comparison to the Stanley No. 4 I usually use. In this final installment, I’ll make new weighted handles for the plane in an attempt to better match the performance of legendary Norris and Spiers “York Pitch” smoothers…without the $300-650 expense of a Lie Nielsen Bedrock design or a Shepherd Norris copy in 50 or 48 degrees.
http://www.cianperez.com/Wood/WoodDo...DegreeFrog.htm
I chose to shim the Stanley’s frog to 50 degrees (York Pitch) with soldered steel for maximum stability. This choice gives me the options of removing the shims to bring the plane back to its stock 45-degree configuration and also to hone a 5-degree back bevel to the front side of the blade to bring its effective cutting angle to 55 degrees if I find 50 degrees insufficient.
For the new weighted handles, I laminate some hard and heavy Pacific Madrone (Arbutus sp.) stock into equal-sized blocks. Why laminate? Plane totes are notoriously fragile and this epoxied lamination will reduce the chance of breakage when it is eventually dropped on the floor. To add weight and mass, I’ll inlet these handles into their cast iron mounts in a manner similar to an infill plane using marking soot from an alcohol lamp burning mineral spirits and various inletting tools.
I mark the inletting necessary for the plane’s sides from the ends…
…and in profile. All three surfaces of each cut are marked to minimize the possibility of error. I use a pencil for photo clarity instead of my usual marking knife and cut to the inside edge of my lines. The difference in precision between pencil and knife isn’t so important here, as I will bed the inletting in dyed and thickened epoxy. Epoxy bedding isn’t traditional, but it creates a tremendously strong, stable and microscopically perfect bed far beyond what any craftsman is capable of. My intent is that this tote will outlast conventional totes.
I strike the outline with firmer chisel and a gouge that matches the radius of the cut…
…and pare to my lines.
I insure my cuts are accurate by trial fit. Index lines for the infills are marked with masking tape on the plane…the tape won’t be obscured by the soot and insures the infills go back into the exact same place for marking each time…a critical requirement of inletting.
Then I coat the cast iron bedding surfaces thoroughly with soot, and tap them in place. When the infills are removed, the mortises required for the mounting studs are clearly marked by soot…
…and cut using Forstner bits and a chisel.
Continued