derekcohen
Member
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2008
- Messages
- 963
Two planes used in all furniture builds are a shoulder plane and a moving fillister. My go to in my workshop is a Veritas Skew Rabbet Plane and either the Small or Medium Shoulder Plane ...
The Skew Rabbet Plane (rebate plane) is the more important of the two, and used - strangely enough - for planing rebates. The shoulder plane is not generally used for planing shoulders of tenons, as many imagine, but shoulders of rebates. That is, it will fine tune and clean up any rebate which is out of square or needs adjusting.
The issue is that, together, these two planes weigh 2.5 Kg (5.5 lbs), which is far too much for the tool box. My aim is a total weight of 15 Kg, and it is already at 12 Kg. Consequently, I set out to build one plane to do the work of both, and it needed to be much, much lighter. In the end it came in at 0.5 Kg (5 times less!).
I took some inspiration, as I often do, from Terry Gordon. Think of this as a poor mans HNT Gordon plane.
This is a small plane, 160mm long and 95mm high (at the top of the wedge). Height-wise, it has to fit under the top tray of tools. The body is 20mm wide.
The body is Jarrah and the sole is brass. The mouth looks nice and tight here, as it is set up in shoulder plane mode ..
The knob on the top actually has a purpose, which is to control the opening of the toe. This enables the mouth to be opened to allow the blade to enter, as well as take thicker shavings. The two parts run on a brass tube ...
The blade is temporary, made from an old Stanley #93 shoulder plane blade, cut to fit here. I have just taken delivery of 3mm thick HSS for the final blade. The Stanley works pretty well, but I expect the HSS version to hold an edge much longer.
The wedge is Merbau, chosen as it is hard and tough, with gold tints to match the brass ...
The rear of the plane has a brass button for hammer setting ...
The shoulder plane does what it is expected to do. Works very nicely ...
Moving on to the moving fillister (that sounds repetitious), the heart of this plane is the adjustable fence. A moving fillister is simply a rabbet plane with an adjustable fence. Below is the attachable fence ...
All metal work was done with precision tools, namely a 100mm angle grinder and metal files. The brass started life as 30x30mm angle. Much was cunningly disguised by deep polishing on a buffing wheel.
This is the depth stop. Again, brass angle ...
Note - if you plane to copy this - the rear of the depth stop has clearance for the blade to peek a smidgeon past the side of the body ...
So ... does it work??
I'd say that is pretty square ...
Thanks for watching.
Regards from Perth
Derek
The Skew Rabbet Plane (rebate plane) is the more important of the two, and used - strangely enough - for planing rebates. The shoulder plane is not generally used for planing shoulders of tenons, as many imagine, but shoulders of rebates. That is, it will fine tune and clean up any rebate which is out of square or needs adjusting.
The issue is that, together, these two planes weigh 2.5 Kg (5.5 lbs), which is far too much for the tool box. My aim is a total weight of 15 Kg, and it is already at 12 Kg. Consequently, I set out to build one plane to do the work of both, and it needed to be much, much lighter. In the end it came in at 0.5 Kg (5 times less!).
I took some inspiration, as I often do, from Terry Gordon. Think of this as a poor mans HNT Gordon plane.
This is a small plane, 160mm long and 95mm high (at the top of the wedge). Height-wise, it has to fit under the top tray of tools. The body is 20mm wide.
The body is Jarrah and the sole is brass. The mouth looks nice and tight here, as it is set up in shoulder plane mode ..
The knob on the top actually has a purpose, which is to control the opening of the toe. This enables the mouth to be opened to allow the blade to enter, as well as take thicker shavings. The two parts run on a brass tube ...
The blade is temporary, made from an old Stanley #93 shoulder plane blade, cut to fit here. I have just taken delivery of 3mm thick HSS for the final blade. The Stanley works pretty well, but I expect the HSS version to hold an edge much longer.
The wedge is Merbau, chosen as it is hard and tough, with gold tints to match the brass ...
The rear of the plane has a brass button for hammer setting ...
The shoulder plane does what it is expected to do. Works very nicely ...
Moving on to the moving fillister (that sounds repetitious), the heart of this plane is the adjustable fence. A moving fillister is simply a rabbet plane with an adjustable fence. Below is the attachable fence ...
All metal work was done with precision tools, namely a 100mm angle grinder and metal files. The brass started life as 30x30mm angle. Much was cunningly disguised by deep polishing on a buffing wheel.
This is the depth stop. Again, brass angle ...
Note - if you plane to copy this - the rear of the depth stop has clearance for the blade to peek a smidgeon past the side of the body ...
So ... does it work??
I'd say that is pretty square ...
Thanks for watching.
Regards from Perth
Derek
