The Planemaker's Workshop

Today I ran into exactly the kind of thing that makes me interested in planemaking, I'm building rather large bookcases into the main room of one of my co-worker's houses, everything is pretty much done except for the final paint, and one piece of moulding on the top of the baseboard. I tried a few different things, but short of buying a moulding head for the tablesaw and grinding custom knives there's no way for me to make this profile accurately with power tools.

So I met with my clients and we all agreed that it would be best to wait until I've got my hollows and rounds finished so that an accurate reproduction can be made. Until I finish the four or so planes I need to make this moulding, consider me a full part-time planemaker. 

Layout phase for the roughed out blanks, in this case done while watching Law and Order (favorite all time cop show). Bed, breast, mouth, mortice, sole width and wedge lead are drawn on in all necessary places.  

 Two pitch boards for layout of plane length, pitch and in some cases escapement. There's also a wedge template, used for checking an in-progress mortice as well as laying out finials. I use one Tablesaw/shooting jig to cut all wedges so there is never variation. 

On SMC I posted a little writeup on the remanufacture of this once warped and ironless Summers Varvill #6 Round into a #6 hollow for my quarter set.

Blind side. 

 Sole

This is my layout block for sawing bed and breast angles, I hate it, works fine, but I've realised that Larry Williams' has a strip attached to the bottom overhanging both sides, so it can be flipped to any orientation for sawing. I need to rip it off and attach a steel or brass sole to it. 

Time to get off my ass and get back to work. I have a lot of mouths to feed.

Finished V-Plane

Late last night, I finished sharpening and tuning the V-Plane I wrote about last time. I was too dark to get good photos though so I had to wait until now.

 Vintage iron salvaged from a beat up 7/8" skew rabbet. 

 Looking for fairly even projection here,  it looks massive, the majority of this is due to the mouth geometry, the arris of the iron is really tight, but the farther the two edge get from the point the bigger the mouth. That's okay, this plane is for hogging wood out of a moulding.

 Sample cut, this plane is awesome, it hugs a gauge line and starts a profile similar to a snipes bill, but with a much easier to sharpen iron. Only downside is control over the fillet, it will be 45 degrees, depending on the moulding that may not matter or it might even be preferable.

As a side note, Mouldings in Practice was an awesome book. I read it in one sitting the moment it arrived. Now I need to build a proper sticking board, grind and iron for a number 6 hollow I re-manufactured, and finish some other planes I'm building to work on some picture frames. Stay tuned.

V-Plane

I have one piece of QS black birch, rendered for the purposes of testing it as a planewoood and comparing it to beech which I've used previously. I labored over which plane to make out of this, I debated first about making a pair of small hollow and rounds which seemed like a waste for my only piece of material. Next idea was a rabbet of some sort, first straight, then skewed with a nicker. That did it for a while but I wanted still something more interesting. Then I saw a v-plane in Whelan's The Wooden Plane, and I knew that was it.

The downside is I've only been able to find four references to vee planes, one is a plow by D.L. Barrett and Sons, one was in Whelan (a side escapement), one was in an online auction with a rabbet escamepent, and the last was another v plow referenced in passing in the 1990 May/June issue of American Woodworker in an article on molding planes by Mike Dunbar, page 51 as a method of wasting large amounts of wood from a cornice profile to be finished with hollow and rounds.

 It's slightly harder than both beech and yellow birch, species used in commercial American make planes for centuries. Like beech is has the uniformity between early and latewood called diffuse porous that allows all parts of the wood to move according to humidity, making it very stable.

 Big, then small gouges and sandpaper wrapped dowels are used to carve the conical escapement, I was a bit dubious about this from some rabbet escapements I have, and have seen. After drafting it several times, attempting to get the proportions right I bored out the bulk with a brace and set to carving.

It's a subtle and sexy piece of complex geometry, a conical ogee. Mine isn't without a blemish or two but my initial dislike of the escapement has totally changed after rendering it.  

 The birch has been pleasant to work with and beautiful besides. the texture is very fine, not flashy like QS beech, and with more subtlety in color. I'm hoping I can get a lot more of it and start that plane making business!

Anticipation for Mouldings in Practice

If you're reading this, I think I know a few things about you. First, you're into hand tools, maybe exclusively, maybe not, but you like them. Second you're familiar with Lost Art Press, and you know who Matt Bickford is. Lastly you might be wondering what sort of anticipation I have that makes itself worthy of an entire blog post. It's planes of course!

 Staged for profile/iron assessment, marking and sharpening if they are close.

Somebody did some funkiness to this #5 Round. This iron is headed to the grinder.

Tuned up a a sash ovolo plane and now it's cutting pretty well.

And I also got a pair of #12s working fairly well, they still a little fat on one side but produced this cove and fillet pretty well. I found some holes in my sharpening needs for these shapes, I'm hoping Mouldings in Practice will help me find a good set of tools for fixing that.

Getting a bit closer on that pair of #8s I started a while ago. Iron blanks are on the way.

More Lap Desk Work

Finally back home now, I got to work installing the hinges and attempted a monogram carving in the lid, I'm happy with how it came out, but need to order some other carving tools to make the process a little easier. I could only find some #3 by 1/2 inch screws for the lid hinge leaves, now I have to nip and file them down to fit.

I also got materials to solder up the hasp, but I'm still working on the design. In the hasp drawing I think it's a bit too wide, and perhaps the slot is too far down.

Pine Lap Desk

I've begun work on a small lap desk out of pine. Because of my lack of space (I'd love to build a nice writing desk with drawers and pigeon holes) the best solution seemed to be repurpose myself into a desk with a few pieces of wood. I originally looked at Christian Becksvoort's article in Fine Woodworking, but made several modifications... It has no inkwell drawer, while I admire the interesting construction involved with his drawer stop, it's overly complex and I don't like it. Furthur, I don't plan on using dip ink anytime soon (not that I haven't, used to take class notes with a dip pen). I also adjusted the dimensions to a certain style of notebook I like and made a compartment for writing supplies.

The dovetail layout for this piece was a bit tricky. I had chosen the slope of the top beforehand at an angle that felt comfortable for an work surface on the lap, this means that the likelihood of having a layout match up, front to back, was pretty low. after some fuddling, I got pretty close, but on the second one I plan to define the slope based on tail multiples rather than a given angle. Cutting them is a cakewalk, it took me all of one and a half hours, considering I hadn't cut a dovetail in months that is pretty good for me.
 

 Mock-up with the lid on, I still need to acquire some QS Easter White Pine for the bottom.
 

Overhead shot showing the dadoed divider.

This is the part I'm most proud of, the breadboard lid. All the stock in this project is 3/8" thick, so the breadboard tenon is 1/8" thick by 3/8" long and the breadboard itself is 1 1/8" wide. I'm really happy how it turned out. The breadboards themselves are QS sycamore that I got from a fallen tree in a park right up the street. I slabbed some of it and this is the first bit I've gotten to use! 

Kitchen Table Progress, Finally

 I may have titled this post, Thank God for Motivation, or Visit PFW and You'll Get Things Done, but they aren't as immediately descriptive. Today started by finishing my "work season" in the morning, I took a walk to the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop to say hello and drop off some custom machined centering points. While I was there Mario Rodriguez asked how my table turned out, if you recall months ago I went over for some direction on pleasing leg shapes and turning. I hadn't done very much, and his comments spurred me into action. I put in a ton of hours in the last two days and now it's starting to look like something.   

Drawboring a Short Side

Mockup, little more legroom needed so off to cut corbels into the long sides and start finishing.

Currently it's got a coat of primer on the base and a 50/50 BLO/Turpentine prime on the top. The final coat of paint will be a dark slate, the top will get another wash of the 50/50 then one or two coats of BLO.