Sihistin - Tools

An infill molding plane

Pekka Huhta — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:00:00 +0000

I got an idea for a infill molding plane a couple of years ago. I think that it’s a quite new concept; at least I haven’t seen anything like it before. The idea was to have a separate frame where you could install different infills. When needing a new profile, you would only have to build a short length of infill and a cutter.

The concept is built on many old ideas. It’s easy to grind a new cutter for a #55, but adjustment is sheer hell and you don’t have a mouth for the plane at all. Firstly I was thinking of building separate wooden soles for a #45 or a #55, but attaching the soles to the skates was a bit difficult and I thought that the original planes would restrict the concept too much.

The plane certainly has the looks of old infill planes, but actually I think that it borrows much more from Krenov: you have two “cheeks” as on a Krenov plane and the rest of the parts built in between, only difference is that the infills are removable.

Finally, there's a lot of an old patternmaker's plane with separate soles and irons, but the idea is much simpler and has a much older feel.

So, there’s a lot of borrowed ideas on the plane, but I think it’s quite unique anyway.

I got a good excuse for building the plane when I needed new skirting boards for my small hallway. I had found a small length of an original skirting board from my house, which I wanted to replicate. I could have planed the profile with several planes as I have done earlier (see my blog (Story 1, Story 2)

Usually I take pictures from everything I build, but I got a bit too excited with the frame, so there aren’t any pictures about the process. All in all, it was very straightforward dovetailing job, much easier than any “proper” infill plane. The pin for the cap iron was made from a 10 mm brass rod which was inserted inside a shorter 12 mm brass tube. The ends of the tube acted as a shoulder to keep the sides of the frame on the proper distance from each other. This was done just because I don’t have a metalworking lathe so that I could have just turned a pin with the shoulders built in.

For the infills I got an offcut of an oak plank a bit over 4” thick and two feet wide. Although there were checks and splits on the wood, there was plenty of good oak for the infills. I learned that the blank for the infills should be at least a few inches longer on both ends than the finished infills, since the ends of the sole profile are a bit different than the majority of the profile in the middle.

Profiling the sole is dead easy. You just have to take a length of sawblade, cut a kerf in a short length of the original profile, mark the sawblade, rough out the waste with a grinder and finally file the scraper ready with a few needle files. Almost as fast as explaining it.

Roughing out the sole is quick. Only thing to be considered is that you should re-sharpen the scraper before final passes on the sole. When roughing out, you tilt the scraper to remove material fast. When finishing the profile you have to keep the scraper perpendicular to the sole in order to get the profile right. And you have to have a sharp scraper in order to get it cutting when it’s perpendicular to the sole.

A set of hollows and rounds and a narrow shoulder plane are of great help when finishing the profile. I’m not sure wether you could do it with a scraper only, probably you would have to finish the profile with sandpaper wrapped over dowels or something. Scraping will not necessarily produce a straight profile, it may be curved or kinked depending on your scraping technique.

As you note, there is only the depth stop on the profile. I could have included an integral fence as well, but I wanted a continuous fence screwed on the infills, since that would aid keeping the infills aligned.

Then there was some metalwork to be done. The cap iron was cut from a piece of 8 mm brass bar and then filed to shape and polished. The adjuster screw was the only pre-fabricated part of the plane, it was some sort of an adjuster screw with imperial threads. I re-drilled and tapped it for M6 thread and riveted a brass screw to it.

I got a bit carried away with the iron, so there’s no pictures of the marking out. I just sawed the infill to the correct bed angle and drew the profile to the iron using the backside of the mouth as a template. Then I just sawed the excess off with a jewellers saw, filed the bevel and finally tempered the iron on my charcoal furnace.

At this stage I had fitted the infills, so they had to be finished. I soaked the infills for half a day in raw linseed oil and pine turpentine. Next I added a few coats of dark shellack, used fine rottenstone powder to fill the grain, sanded the surface with wet&dry and lamp oil and after adding a few more coats of shellack, polished and waxed the plane with home brewn “tool wax” containing boiled linseed oil, beeswax, pine turpentine and tar.

Finally there was the time for fine tuning and planing the moldings. Originally the escapement for shavings was very narrow, so the shavings got stuck. After enlarging it, modifying the fence and shaping the cap iron a bit the shavings exited nicely.

Next problem was that the plane refused to cut the complete molding, it just stopped cutting after a while. This was due to the fact that the infills were very very slightly misaligned. I had to shave a few passes from the profile with a shoulder plane, but after that the plane worked perfectly.

The plane is a tad shorter than molding planes usually are. That added to the separate fence makes the plane look quite tall, I’m not sure if I’m completely satisfied with the proportions. But all in all, it’s a pretty little plane and I proofed to myself that my idea really works.

Pekka

A Krenov plane with an adjustable mouth

Pekka Huhta — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:06:30 +0000

I promised to our local woodworking forum to build a plane and write a story, as there are not any good plane-building instructions on the net in Finnish. So this was intended to be just a quickie, a demo for our forum.

The basic idea is just a Krenov plane with an added adjustable mouth piece. A fixed mouth would have even simpler to build, but I wanted the plane to be as versatile as possble. The plane iron was an old 45 mm wide E.A. Berg.

On the scrap pile I had an 50 mm oak plank with a bad crack. On the other hand rest of the plank was very good and straight grained.

For the plane you need just a length of 50 mm plank twice as long as the plane. Other half is for the center parts (bed and front piece) and the other is split into three: two cheeks and a thicker middle section for the movable toe piece and wedge. I don't have a table saw, so I just cut two grooves in the oak piece with a handheld cirqular saw, finished off with a hand saw and hand plaed the parts to right thickness.

Next were the parts for the adjustable toe piece. I made a threaded hole in a 6 mm brass piece and chiselled out an opening for it on the toe piece. The edges of the brass piece were tapered so that the top was narrower than the bottom, as the brass is only glued to the toe piece with epoxy.

I drilled two holes to the fron piece and opened them with a chisel for the 6 mm threaded rod for the toe piece. The knob was just a brass drawer knob, I only had to drill and tap it for M6 threads.

I sawed the bed to 48 degrees, freehanded it straight on my shooting board and chiselled out the groove for the chipbreaker screw.

All was glued together with West Systems epoxy. The temporary toe piece that I'm hoding with my index finger is there just for measuring out the needed space for the actual toe piece.

I roughly pland out the top and bottom after glue-up. I also adjusted the toe piece and cut it to the right length. There is also a small allowance to tighten up the mouh afterwards if I have to flatten the sole sometime.

I also made the wedge from the same offcut I used for the toe piece with 8 degree taper. The crosspin is 10 mm brass.

I have always liked coffin smoothers as I have started my woodworking with one. I also have somewhat disliked the usual blocky looks of home-made Krenov planes, so I wanted my plane to look like a classic.

I had planed the sole quite straight already after planing, but I still flattened it ove a glass plate with sandpaper.

Finaly came the finishing. soaked the plane for a while in linseed oil and pine turpentine and after that put a dark shellac on top as on the old planes. And the last touch is some homebrewn beeswax - boiled linseed oil - pine tar mixture I use on most of my wooden tools.

The mouth can be opened about 5 mm, plenty for even a roughing plane. It can also be fully closed. The best surface and thinnest shavings I got with a very small mouth opening, maybe 0,1-0,2 mm.

The plane was intended to be just a demo for the local foum, but it ended up being a better smoother than my Spiers that I have considered unbeatable. And as a bonus, it is more versaile than the Spiers, as the mouth can be adjusted.

Pekka

Replacing a horn on a smoothing plane

Pekka Huhta — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:00:00 +0000

The horn on a "continental style" or german handplane is often missing. Main reason is the force used to plane, but reading from the cracks on several planes, they also suffer from the same "dropping syndrome" as the totes on Stanleys.

Replacing the horn can be as easy as this:

Or it may require a bit more effort, as the horn styles and forms vary quite a bit. I have even seen a horn made from a real cowhorn, which seemed quite impractical. But ah, so fancy.

The horns really vary quite much, especially in hand-made older wooden planes. The newer factory-made planes tend to be "semi-ergonomically" formed, at least to the right-handers. This is somewhat annoying, as it's pretty difficult to use them left-handed. Although I am right-handed I use my planes a great deal on the left side as well, so I try to make all of my tools ambidextrous.

It all started by sawing the blank from any suitable piece of scrapwood, oak this time. If you use just a piece of firewood (like I do for many tasks), plane one side of it straight so you have some sort of a reference surface. Also note that the blank should be a bit bigger so that you have something to grip when forming the wood.

The basic form is easiest to carve with an axe, it takes just minutes. I have a small "workshop axe" for this kind of work. It is light enough to be used just on top of the workbench with just a suitable piece of plywood gripped to the vise for protection. If you like you can go pretty far with the axe so there is very little rasping to do.

The axe isn't that old, from the '40's or so. If you like to try one, the Swedish Hultafors axes are pretty decent.

All it takes to finish the form is a bit of rasping and finishing the surface with a scraper.

Then it's time for the tenon for fixing the horn to the plane. On these modern planes you usually have to modify the mortice on the plane itself as well. The joint has usually been designed keeping in mind that the parts are just machined, so copying that joint to hand tools may be a bit frustrating and quite useless. Easier to modify the frame as well.

And remember, epoxy is cheating!

The finished one on the left, as you guessed.

...and the tools used.

Quick repair: new sole for a reeding plane

Pekka Huhta — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:31:04 +0000

Just as a quick note: one method for replacing the insert piece on a wooden plane. (What should the "insert" be called? If they are "boxed" planes, is the insert piece a box then?)

Half of the insert was gone, but I managed to plane a short length of the appropriate profile with the plane anyway.

I made a slot to the molding for a scraper. Scraper blank came from an old cast steel saw blade.

The whole idea on this is that the profile is super fast to file down using the molding as a guide. And you practically can't ruin the scraper profile in accident, the wood protects it very well. Only thing you might have to do is touch up some of the deepest grooves after removing the scraper from the piece of molding.

Just an ordinary scratch stock and a piece of beech. I did not have any "proper" wood for the insert, but beech seems to hold up fine.

I used hide glue (hot glue) to glue the insert together. Just that the insert could be removed later for any future replacement.

On the last pic some reeds on a piece of molding I made for my bathroom.

Making the bathroom moldings is a story worth of another thread, I'll write it down one day.

Pekka

A self-made wooden lathe

Pekka Huhta — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:00:00 +0000

I had a problem: I needed a lathe for a couple of chisel handles but had no intention of buying one. My workshop is about 2,3 x 2,4 m big and already pretty full and I did not want to waste money for something that could be easily built anyway.

I have used my hand drill for all sorts of small turning tasks, modifying screw heads, polishing anything that could be gripped in the chuck and rotated etc. So the thought of using a hand drill as the motor for the drill was quite obvious.

Unfortunately I did not take photos during the building stage, but here is the finished lathe:

It’s made of an old, badly tarnished table top (which turned out to be masur birch after I planed it down a bit) and workshop scraps. The headstock, tailstock and toolrest base birch, and the rails (?) are ash. Tool rest itself was carved of a scrap of Iroko which had enough sapwood to prevent me from using it on my boat projects.

The first thing was to assemble the rails, headstock and end blocks on the other end together. The headstock bearing was a brass bushing with a flange in it. I have no idea what it has originally been for; it was just a discovery from my “box of surprises”. It had 10 mm hole through it. The spindle is just a knot bore re-ground so that it doesn’t drill into the workpiece.

Tailstock bearing was drilled by inserting a 10 mm drill bit through the headstock. This way I got them aligned properly. I did the same thing “backwards” when I aligned the center of the drill holder on the left end.

After drilling the hole for tailstock bearing I inserted a brass pipe over there, drilled and tapped a piece of 10 mm steel plate for the tailstock screw and added a locking screw. Here is the catch: there is a ball bearing (just one 10 mm ball) between the tailstock screw and (wassat sharp part that goes to the end of the workpiece). This way it rotates very lightly and the tailstock screw doesn’t unscrew easily.

After assembly I took everything apart again for finishing. First I used a quite thin mixture of turpentine, linseed oil and a tad of tar. Using pine tar for everything is a bad habit of mine, coming from fooling too much around in wooden boats. The final coatings were just shellac.

All the other parts were just leftovers from my endless boxes, jugs and tin cans full of screws. Total cost of building was zero, although it took about a week or two to make in the evenings.

Here are the first leather capped chisel handles turned with the new lathe.

I hope you enjoyed the story, at least I had fun building that thing

Pekka

Making an axe handle

Pekka Huhta — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:00:00 +0000

I had two axes in need of a handle and a small birch trunk to begin with. At least over here the rule goes: back of the handle towards the bark. Never towards the center, and never getting the center on the finished handle. You also should always find some sort of natural croock in the wood. As you can see my trunk had a shallow s-curve in it, suitable for two handles.

As a small note, the trunk shown is almost below the minimum size, you should start with 25+ cm trunk, but these were small workshop axes not intended for heavy hitting.

The trunk was already chopped flat with an axe, the rest of it came with bow saws. Ohyes, they look crude, but one of these days I'll do something about it. Talk about "user tools", these are users if anything.

By the way, never take the blank from the end of the trunk as there are always cracks over there. Much more than in a plank, as a trunk is dried with the bark on and the ends crack much further.

Of course you could make the handle from a plank as well, but it's just not the right way.

Fitting the end is just the same as on a hammer. I smeared some soot to the "eye" of the axe to be able to see the high spots on the handle.

As you saw, fitting of the handle was done with only preliminary form of the handle showing. Getting the axe head on just right is delicate business and if you get it a bit wrong you can still adjust the angle or twist a wee bit if the handle isn't completely finished at this stage.

Unlike almost all Finnish axes, this one was fitted with two hooks keeping the head on place. They were fitted just as fitting the axe head, with colour. Only that I used red felt-tip pen to colour the hooks, soot would have dirtied the whole handle.

Wedging is just the same as on a hammer head, here was just the addition of rivetting the hooks on.

On the first picture there is the old handle and un-finished new one. As you notice, I am a bit shy on making the final cuts on the blank, so there is at least 3-5 mm extra on every side. On the second, finished picture you can see the handle finished and tarred.

An axe is practically the second most important tool on Finnish woodworking tradition, straight after the puukko (knife). A good axe is kept just as sharp as a knife. On the countryside a man would have built his own house from logs till the 1930's with just an axe and a saw. Even the delicate joints on corners were mainly done with just an axe. No framing chisels, no slicks, no nothing. We are pretty primitive people anyway.

To return to the issue of "which side up" or what grain direction to use, there are some rules on using the wood that are almost genetic around here. The skis are always done with the bottom of the ski towards the bark and you ski with top end of the tree back. When putting a plank to the facade of a house it's always "inside out and topside down", heartwood out and top down. Making an axe handle with the back of the handle from the center of the tree would really feel like walking with your shoes on wrong feet. I can not thell why it's that way but I just can't twist my mind enough to do it the wrong way.

This is just my intuitive guess why: Sapwood is more elastic than heartwood. Back side of the handle is pressure side and the more elastic sapwood will compress a bit more when hitting than heartwood would if it was on the backside. This gives a bit of flex to the handle to prevent it "kicking back" when you use the axe for splitting or other heavy hitting. Factory handles do this a lot as the grain orientation is whatever the machine produced.

Also, if you put the sapwood on the tension side (front of the handle) and the rigid heartwood on back youl have too much tension on the sapwood. As wood stands pressure very well but doen't like tension, you'll have a handle that might be prone to splitting on the front side if you do it backwards.

So getting the grain dierction right you'll get both a handle that's "nice to your hands" and not too prone of splitting.

Pekka