Like the ocean under the moon

[Dr.Al]

This is a project I've wanted to have a go at for a while. I think there's a fairly high chance it'll end up going through several iterations as I discover all the design problems but I think the journey will be interesting nevertheless.

I'm going to make myself a bench plane. I don't really need any more planes, especially not bench planes, but I like making tools and I find it really satisfying to be able to use tools I've made on other projects. The plan is for it to be somewhere in between a #4 and #4½ in size (probably the length of a #4½ but a width closer to that of a #4). Part of the reason for choosing that width is simply the material I've got at the moment but regardless I'm aiming for a relatively small plane.

I had a rummage around and these looked like the best bits of material I had:

That big bit of beech to the right is really badly cracked, ruling it out sadly. I had thought (after only looking on one side) that there would be enough to take a slice out of it and use that, but on closer inspection I realised that it wasn't going to be much use for anything other than firewood. The darker wood at the back was something I picked up in an antique shop, sold as a mahogany lintel. That's a definite option and I'll almost certainly use it for the plane's handle, but the initial plan is to use the other piece of beech for the body (with a brass base giving it extra strength). This gives an idea of the sizes of the main bits of material:

I'm aiming for a 70 mm body width, which means there isn't much excess material on the sides of that lump of rough-sawn beech. The brass plate is about 3 mm thick and 75 mm wide. I probably would have gone for a 75 mm body width by preference but I don't have any appropriate wood that is thick enough. The steel bar (gauge plate, also known as O1 tool steel) is 50 mm wide and 5 mm thick. I'm going to use that for the blade and also for a cap iron.

The first job (after spending quite a bit of time playing around with a CAD model, which I haven't completely finished yet) was to bandsaw the big lump of beech up:

The base surface got planed flat with my wooden jack:

I've no idea why I did that in the vice rather than using planing stops, but it worked fine. I then very carefully planed down the sides so that they were square with the top, but taking as little off as possible to maximise the final width. I could then mark the shape of the body onto the side with a pencil:

It's quite slim at front and back (25 mm plus the 3 mm brass thickness). Hopefully that will be enough for a strong enough body; I'm working on the assumption that the brass will help a lot with stiffness. Worst case I'll be thinking about a version 2 with steel sides but I'd rather err on the side of keeping the weight down for now.

 

[Dr.Al]

I had left the top surface of the plane body with a rough sawn finish but when I went back to it I decided it would be easier to plane it flat and parallel with the base and at about the right thickness for the widest part.

With the height reduced and the top surface smooth I could mark out the big mortice on the top:

I'd wondered about cutting the profile into the top before starting the mortice, which would reduce the amount of material to remove and also reduce the risk of break-out when sawing the narrow side walls, but I decided that it was best to leave it solid for now and deal with the shaping later.

To cut the hole I used a 10 mm mortice chisel. After the first few whacks it looked like this:

I went this far along before changing direction:

After coming back the other way the bottom surface was looking rough but it was getting quite deep (deeper than I realised in fact):

Rather than carrying on deepening it with vertical chops, I switched to working down the angled faces. After the first go it looked like this:

Unfortunately, I'd made two errors of judgement. The first was that I'd gone deeper than I'd realised. The second was that the front surface (the one the blade doesn't sit on) was steeper than I'd intended. As a result:

That's not where it should be! Thankfully, I'd marked out that gap on the very conservative side (in practice it'll need to open out more or the blade will hit the front edge) and also at this point it's not too big a deal to move the hole slightly further forward:

That probably looks like a big hole for anyone used to wooden planes, but remember there's an additional 3 mm of brass thickness to go on the bottom and that'll close it up quite a lot.

There's a reasonably high chance that the error will mean that that the front section of the plane base (ahead of the blade) will be a bit shorter than I'd intended, but I don't think it's a disaster as the difference will only be a couple of millimetres.

With the bottom hole cleaned up, I could turn it back over and do a bit more cleaning up of the mortice. I pared the sides to something close to final dimension (they're now a fairly snug fit around the steel bar that'll become the blade but I'll probably open them up slightly more to give a bit of blade adjustment room). I've done a bit more paring down the long faces (with a 30 mm chisel, which I don't use much), but there's quite a bit further to go, especially on the surface that the blade will run on:

 

[DanZac]

Nice project @Dr.Al and lovely WIP write up as usual.
Like eating veg you've grown yourself tastes so much better, so using things you've made yourself makes a job so much more pleasurable.

 

[Bouledogue]

Following. Quality work. Very much looking forward to the next installment.