New Life for a Centenarian Plane

Varvill  & Sons was one of the UK planemaker most active between the late 800 and early 900.

This  smoother plane was built likelihood in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. It has a metal sole and a rear handle, screwed into the back of the body. Hard to say if the metal parts are original or homemade, though some rough details lead more to the latter option. The plane conditions were quite good; this allowed the easy repair and tune up. The beech handle had a break at the top, which occurred where a knot was present. I  removed the broken part and replaced it with a new piece of same wood,  then colored like  to the old beech. The metal sole was slightly bowed in the length, probably due to the wood movement. I removed the screws and smoothed the wood with another plane. After installing the metallic sole, I corrected it on sandpaper attached to a flat surface. Another issue concerned the mouth width. Almost 2 mm, definitely too much for a smoother. I  therefore decided to reduce the opening by inserting a couple of veneer pieces on the seat.  I sharpened the blade with a 30° secondary bevel, flat edge profile, blunt on both sides.

The plane works fine but I have some general concerns regarding its hybrid structure.

The  metal sole is not as great in the smoothness as wood, but is certainly an advantage for two reasons:

1) It adds weight to the plane, useful for cutting with very little iron.

2) The sole resists to the wear and has not need of frequent maintenance.

 The  first point seems irrefutable. For the second one is necessary to say that the presence of the metal sole  prevents natural wood movements and can easily lead to cracks in the plane body, and it is not flexible enough to prevent any warping especially along its length.

If  planing the underlying wood is a solution to restore the flatness, the wooden mouth increases its amplitude and the opening for the chips will be larger. But even if this does not  happens, you have to deal with the tapered blade profile, so  that when it is sharpened it decreases its thickness still leads to a wider mouth. In a full wooden plane a larger mouth is repaired by placing a patch to restore the exact opening width. This is not easily possible with a metallic sole. The repair done with shims placed on the seat can slightly alter  a perfect wedge insertion. Even the handle has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is a comfortable grip, but at the same time it is an obstacle to beat with a mallet on the plane back when you have to remove the cutting unit. One is inclined to beat on the handle and perhaps this was the cause of its break.

Read More..

Rabbet Joint Box

While making the simple bevelled wall board for my Ships Clocks a few days ago, it occurred to me that the very same design might make a good (albeit chunky) box lid. 

My stock (scaffold board Pine - of which I have a lot of it!) wood is around 1 1/2" thick, the simple design allows me to use what I have without having to waste most of the wood making it thinner. It also saves me a lot of sweat with a hand plane!

It also occurred to me that I have never made a simple Rabbet jointed box...

I completely forgot to take any pictures during the build as things progressed pretty quickly. A rough description of the steps I took are below:
Box Carcass

• Cut four pieces (2 long , 2 short) of cheap (pre-planed) Pine to length on the bench hook.
• Shoot them to exact lengths with square ends on the shooting board.
• Mark and cut the shoulder line of each rabbet on the short sides of the two long boards (the front and back of the box) again using the bench hook - 2 rabbets per long board.
• To form the actual rabbets, I first tried using my small shoulder plane with a wooden baton clamped in place to keep me straight, but this proved to be quite slow. For the three remaining rabbets, I simple used my dovetail saw to cut down the end grain (much like sawing a tenon), finally cleaning the joint up with the shoulder plane. In retrospect, I should have (been brave) tried to remove the waste with a chisel which would probably been even faster than sawing.
• Use a plough plane to cut 1/4" grooves in the bottom of the boards for the base to fit into.
• Cut a thin plywood board to size for the box bottom.
• Glue the carcass together.
• Plane the edges and joints flush and generally tidy it up.

The Lid

• Approximately cut to length a piece of rough scaffold board.
• Assess the board for grain direction and use winding sticks to check the wind and straightness of the board. Pencil in notes on the board as to what work is likely to be required and where.
• Plane one face flat using my no#6 and mark it as a reference.
• Hand plane the adjacent long edge straight and at 90 degrees to the first face and mark it.
• Use a marking gauge to mark all around the edges of the board to get it to uniform thickness again using the no#6 to remove wood fast.
•  Use a marking gauge to mark the second long edge parallel to the first.
• Precision cut the board to the required length and ensure it is square.
• Mark bevel lines all around the board using a marking gauge. Used my no#4 plane to create the bevels, being careful to finish the short end grain sides first.
• Fit small brass hinges and apply some wax finish...

While the box does look rather like a coffin for a small dog or a cat, it was very enjoyable to make with most of the project being completed in a single day. Rabbet jointed boxes come together pretty fast! Not as nice looking or as strong as a dovetailed box, but I did learn from it and at this stage thats the most important aspect for me.

 

 

More simple projects to follow ...

Read More..

Twin rabbet planes

Ive made these two rabbets planes  by copying a larger XVII century exemplar. The main characteristic is that it has only one open side. As a blade I used a file, properly shaped and sharpened. The body is mahogany, the sole wenge. The  metal bar on the side avoids flexion body when the wedge is forced into place and adds weight to the plane. You could avoid increasing the  plane body thickness or decreasing the width of the blade, but in both cases these are uncomfortable compromises.

The hole for chips ejection can be easily achieved with a Forstner bit. The body design is very close to the original and I must say that the fingers have a perfect support.

Having only one side useful for working you have to build two  twin planes, each working in one direction. One use for wich I found convenient is to finish the rabbets. In this one, made with the circular saw, I screwed the setting of the blade and the result was a visible residual step. A simple job for one of the little twins!

Read More..

Lowes Build and Grow class

I took my 6 year old to Lowes a couple of weeks ago to buy him his own toolbox.  While we were checking out the lady behind the counter asked if we had signed him up for the Build and Grow class.  This was the first that I had heard about it so I got some information from her and looked it up when we got home.  It is a free program that they have every couple of weeks during the summer.  I signed him up on the website with no problems.  We went to the class 2 weeks later and he got a Lowes Build and Grow workshop apron, a pair of goggles, and the wood dragon kit.  They also supplied small hammers that you had to give back.  We were there for about 30 minutes and my son got to make the dragon and he received a iron-on patch and a certificate when he was done.  We brought his toolbox so he got to use his own hammer while building the kit and he thought that was great!  We have another one coming up this weekend and I am going to sign him up for any future ones I can find.  If you have any kids between the ages of 5 and 10 I highly reccomend looking into it.

Read More..