Brice Burrell
Member
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2007
- Messages
- 7,385
Okay, I ordered my first Lie-Nielsen, a butt mortise plane. For those of you that have never seen one before or you'd like to see Nielsen's version, here you go.
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A butt mortise plane is used for mortises for hinges, strikes plates and other (relatively) small hardware that requires a fairly shallow mortise. The plane has a long, thin body (9 5/8" x 1 1/2") to span the mortise and narrow iron (3/4").
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The idea is to mark out your location for the hardware with a marking knife then with a chisel create shoulders in the ends of the mortise to act as stop for the iron. Then you can use the plane to cut out the mortise, leaving a perfectly flat bottom. Once you've done it a few times the process is pretty quick.
There are advantages to this plane over a router for small jobs and where it's not possible to use a router template. But with a price tag of over $100 USD it's not cheap.
This wasn't an easy decision for me. However, a job has come along that I can justify the expense. We are working on an older house, early 1930's, where almost none of the doors open and close correctly any more. This house is big, there are fifty regular interior doors, two sets of french interior doors, one very large exterior door and ten sets of exterior french doors. Over seventy doors that need work (and that doesn't include any of the doors in what was the servants wing of the house). Most need to cut down to fit into sagging openings and about half are getting new lock sets. The mortise plane is ideal for fitting the strike plates for the new lock sets since it can be difficult to get a jig for a router on an existing jamb. I think the mortise is will earn its keep on this job.
I can't really give any meaningful comments on the overall quality of this plane since I'm little more than a bumbling fool when it comes to hand tools, but I have faith in the Lie-Nielsen brand given its standing in the hand tool market.
[attachthumb=#]
[attachthumb=#]
A butt mortise plane is used for mortises for hinges, strikes plates and other (relatively) small hardware that requires a fairly shallow mortise. The plane has a long, thin body (9 5/8" x 1 1/2") to span the mortise and narrow iron (3/4").
[attachthumb=#]
The idea is to mark out your location for the hardware with a marking knife then with a chisel create shoulders in the ends of the mortise to act as stop for the iron. Then you can use the plane to cut out the mortise, leaving a perfectly flat bottom. Once you've done it a few times the process is pretty quick.
There are advantages to this plane over a router for small jobs and where it's not possible to use a router template. But with a price tag of over $100 USD it's not cheap.
This wasn't an easy decision for me. However, a job has come along that I can justify the expense. We are working on an older house, early 1930's, where almost none of the doors open and close correctly any more. This house is big, there are fifty regular interior doors, two sets of french interior doors, one very large exterior door and ten sets of exterior french doors. Over seventy doors that need work (and that doesn't include any of the doors in what was the servants wing of the house). Most need to cut down to fit into sagging openings and about half are getting new lock sets. The mortise plane is ideal for fitting the strike plates for the new lock sets since it can be difficult to get a jig for a router on an existing jamb. I think the mortise is will earn its keep on this job.
I can't really give any meaningful comments on the overall quality of this plane since I'm little more than a bumbling fool when it comes to hand tools, but I have faith in the Lie-Nielsen brand given its standing in the hand tool market.
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