Amana Plug Planer

[Cheese]

While paging through the latest Amana catalog, I stumbled upon their Plug Planer. If you use wooden plugs to hide fasteners this is a new method to use to pare them to the correct height.
https://www.toolstoday.com/g-64-carbide-tipped-countersinks-plug-cutters-disguising-wood-screws
https://www.toolstoday.com/v-11621-plp-100.html

I'm just curious if anyone has used this before and how well does it perform?

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[ear3]

The most delicate part of plugging for me has always been the quality of the countersink/bore and trying to minimize or eliminate the tear-out or fraying around the edges of the hole so there are no gaps around the plug.  I'd be interested to hear anyone's experiences comparing this countersink to something like the festool or Snappy ones.

That plug planer seems a bit expensive for what you can otherwise do with a chisel or small block plane, but maybe it's worth it if you are plugging a surface that has already been sanded and/or finished, where you don't want to risk any errant gouges from a chisel or burnishing from the plane sole.

In the demo linked to the guy is only drilling a countersink -- he doesn't mention going any further with a counterbore, which I assume he would have had to do for those plugs?

While paging through the latest Amana catalog, I stumbled upon their Plug Planer. If you use wooden plugs to hide fasteners this is a new method to use to pare them to the correct height.
https://www.toolstoday.com/g-64-carbide-tipped-countersinks-plug-cutters-disguising-wood-screws
https://www.toolstoday.com/v-11621-plp-100.html

I'm just curious if anyone has used this before and how well does it perform?

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[Rob Z]

Cheese, I have a set of two Japanese handsaws that work well for something like this.  One is "set left" and the other is "set right". Have you seen or used saws such as these? They are really handy when you need them.

 

[Cheese]

Cheese, I have a set of two Japanese handsaws that work well for something like this.  One is "set left" and the other is "set right". Have you seen or used saws such as these? They are really handy when you need them.

Hi Rob, I’ve plugged a bunch of boards but I always used a chisel plane or a paring chisel. Things worked well until I started to pare Brazilian cherry. The stuff is so dense that if you try to short cut the process and “help” the job along, you will chip the cherry plug and that becomes a bigger issue.

 

[tomp]

Like the Fuller (and other) combination drill/countersink/counterbores, the Amana drills would also bore the hole to be plugged. I'm assuming that they're saying that there is no chipping around the top edge of the counterbore, and this is what justifies the high price.

 

[Rob Z]

Good afternoon Cheese

I just looked closely at this tool and it looks pretty slick. It reminds me of the somewhat similar tool sold by FastCap, used to recess slightly for a flush fit of FastCap round screw covers.  I have one of these FC tools, although I haven't used it in years.  The one thing I recall was that it was a bit finicky to get it set so it drilled out just enough material for a flush fit. Once it was set howver it worked well.

Maybe the same will be true for this Amana tool?  A bit of set up time required, but afterwards it probably does a fine job.

You mention a chisel plane.  How does that compare with (what I own) a Lie Nielsen low angle block plane? The LN iron is set at  12 degrees. Does the chisel plane work even better than a LA block plane for paring away plugs?  (Except hard material, such as the Brazilian cherry you mentioned. )

 

[Cheese]

Good afternoon Cheese

I just looked closely at this tool and it looks pretty slick. It reminds me of the somewhat similar tool sold by FastCap, used to recess slightly for a flush fit of FastCap round screw covers.  I have one of these FC tools, although I haven't used it in years.  The one thing I recall was that it was a bit finicky to get it set so it drilled out just enough material for a flush fit. Once it was set howver it worked well.

Maybe the same will be true for this Amana tool?  A bit of set up time required, but afterwards it probably does a fine job.

You mention a chisel plane.  How does that compare with (what I own) a Lie Nielsen low angle block plane? The LN iron is set at  12 degrees. Does the chisel plane work even better than a LA block plane for paring away plugs?  (Except hard material, such as the Brazilian cherry you mentioned. )

Hi Rob,
I think this tool was designed with the wooden boat building people in mind. Laying down deck planking and then attaching it with hundreds upon hundreds of screws. Using a Japanese saw or paring chisel for that many plugs would become very tedious work.

So, the Amana countersink I just purchased would allow the pilot hole, the countersink for the screw and the counterbore for the plug to all be made in a single pass. While this plug planer would trim the plug to height. It seems like a handy piece of kit for that application.

I've used the LN chisel plane to pare Brazilian cherry plugs with mixed results. The issue with either the chisel or the chisel plane, is that you have limited access to the plug. Ideally you'd like to pare the plug from a 360º direction. In this instance, I had limited room from the plug to the riser and from the plug to the wall string. I tried using a veneer saw I have but that still has a small amount of set to the teeth so that didn't work.

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In this instance the chisel plane worked a lot better because I had 360º access to the plugs before I installed the railing.

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[HarveyWildes]

Cheese, I have a set of two Japanese handsaws that work well for something like this.  One is "set left" and the other is "set right". Have you seen or used saws such as these? They are really handy when you need them.

Hi Rob, I’ve plugged a bunch of boards but I always used a chisel plane or a paring chisel. Things worked well until I started to pare Brazilian cherry. The stuff is so dense that if you try to short cut the process and “help” the job along, you will chip the cherry plug and that becomes a bigger issue.

In addition, Brazilian Cherry is a high silica wood that will dull hand tools pretty quickly.  That's not so bad when doing small shop one-off kinds of things, but it's a pain for high volume work.  When I'm working those kinds of woods, I try to do as much as I can with machines and carbide blades.

What is the maximum diameter plug that the Amana bit can handle?