Griffiths Norwich Half Set Remanufacture

While at the local lumberyard picking up some persimmon and black locust for boxing, I met a guy really excited about molding planes that asked be about rehabilitating antique planes. I explained some of the previous work I've done on remanufacturing planes, and talked about a few of our favorite types.

Recently I got the opportunity to restore a Griffiths Norwich half set, some of them are pretty rough, namely the 2 and 4 hollow, and an 8 round with a badly chipped mouth. But others are in pretty decent shape. I thought I'd document the process from the large planes and later show the whole job complete.

There are some interesting defects in the set. On several the irons are very much too wide for the sole profile, but in some cases they matched pretty well for the first half of an arc. In the #18s the size doesn't correspond to "normal" by which I mean it's more like a 5" circle than the 3" radius Clark & Williams or Matt Bickford uses.

Most of the irons were in decent shape, but need sharpening, some need a lot of profile work.

Here is the #18 and #16 rounds, they are having their soles trued to a more common numbering size, they have been rough planed as you can see by the facets. I have to order some pipe or rod in the right sizes to finish profile them to the correct size, then continue with the shaping of the irons.

3/4 Rabbet Plane with Rosewood Boxing and Spoons

First off, I listed two very large, very cherry spoons I carved from some fallen wood at school. They can be found on the Store page.

On to the real stuff.

Here's some progress on a 3/4 boxed rabbet, it's black birch, which I kind of love and has East Indian Rosewood boxing. I'm thinking about channeling E.W. Carpenter, a planemaker from nearby (spatially) Lancaster, PA who often make planes with contrasting wooden parts and putting an ebony or bubinga wedge or something. I'll probably wind up with maple or beech though. Though I may have a little piece of black birch around to cut a wedge from.
 

Here is a small toothing plane I've begun to think on. It measures four inches long, with probably a one inch wide iron. I have to machine some parts to cut the iron, tapered and with the grooves at 20ppi. I will be making several of these as well.

In other plane news, I've got a few really interesting basket cases coming my way to rehabilitate, some need irons, some need bodywork, and I've sourced irons for the Mathieson drawer planes so that can move forward as well.

Mathieson Drawer Bottom Planes

 I borrowed one of these from Josh Clark about two years ago to take measurements to someday build these. The time has come. I did some rough CAD to figure out where I needed dimensions and what else I had to think about. I found a few spots that need tweaking, but for the most part it's all thought out.

The Mathieson planes have a dull rounded sort of chamfer on them you see on later made planes. I dislike it, the broad chamfers look better to me.

Beech bodies roughed out, three currently in the works maybe more to come if I don't decide to use my wide stock on something else. I'm trying to decide if I want to use brass or steel for the skate. Any thoughts?

Quick Project- Hook Knife

Ever since I saw Robin Wood's work a few years ago, I've wanted to do something as simple as split up some birch logs and carve a few spoons, a few things stood in my way at the time, not having nice and recently felled wood, and not exactly having all the right tools. Well I started to fix the latter today, I made a hook knife, which is used to carve the bowl of the spoon and work into other curved areas on woodenware.


Everything starts with a sketch, in unfolded and bent side view.

After cutting out a rectangle and grinding the profile it was time to cut the bevels. The best way to hold small parts like these is to attach them to a board, stick, refrain from parting from the parent bar etc. seeing as I had 1" wide O1 to work with I mounted it to some scrap ash for filing.

The technique used for filing is Drawfiling. This is accomplished by holding a file perpendicular with both hands, with the tang facing the right and pushing the file. Used this way the teeth act similarly to a card scraper and make smooth surfaces. I like finish filing my bevels this way.

After annealing the thin O1 is hammered at a black heat over a wooden dowel into the arc shown here. I've only got a few photos and a rough idea how these are used so I'm guessing pretty hard on the shapes and sizes here.

After the oil quench and tempering we have a dark straw color, this leaves a harder blade, but I think it will hold up okay, time will tell.


I have a fair amount of grinding to do on the inside, I was cautious about how much material to leave for the heat treating, now even that thin line of hard steel is seeming like a mountain of work. Tomorrow morning I hope to finish it up and get a razor on it.

T.H. Witherby Restoration

Restoring a tool to it's former glory is a very rewarding thing for me. It's better than building a new project, better than showering. Heck it's even better than scoring a crispy #9, NIB for $2 from the rust hunt. Well maybe not on the last one, I'd love that too.

But still, I love restoring a tool, it's the matter of taking something perhaps missing a handle or deemed mostly unusable by most people (even better if everyone says "What the hell is that?") and returning it's dignity by cleaning it up, getting it's parts back together and letting it serve the job it once performed. Objects have a soul in this way, call me crazy, but I think they look happy, after being pressed back into service.

All this started after some time on the lathe creating a beech handle for a 1" TH Witherby bevel edge firmer chisel. The overall length is 13.5 inches.

Dovetail Marker Pcitures

As promised more pictures. I did some metal stock research and found a great source for some brass bar. I've prototyped version two in wood and I'm liking them a lot.

Dovetail Marking Gauges

Today I built something I always wanted, a dedicated dovetail marker. This was spurned by some boredom and the (re)finding of some bits of brass bar I'd milled square way back when I had a small milling machine. I debated about practicing peined double dovetails, but didn't exactly have the right stock for it. If there was some steel plate around, I would have loved the look of those.

I've got two markers, one is a 1:7 and 2:9ish with cocobolo, and a square and 1:7 marker with ebony. The blades are all 1/8" inch brass and are capable of laying out DTs on 1" stock. Now for the sexyness. I didn't get a good picture of the finished markers, so I'll post them tomorrow when I can shoot them in the sun.

I can't wait to bring them to the Blanket Chest class at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop in a couple of weeks. I'm intending to do a production run of these, so if you're interested leave a comment with a slope you think should be produced. I favor the square/slope version. 

Krenovian Jointer Plane

After browsing through every page of the Inside Passage School of Fine Woodworking website, I discovered several things...

-I love the Krenovian style and methodology
-Dowels don't seem as icky as I once believed
-I want to make some knife hinges and wall hangers
-Grain "graphics" as they call them, and rift sawn wood are incredible
-I'm building a small jointer plane, I must have this for shooting small long grain pieces and other trimming tasks.

That let me to browse some of my wood collection (don't worry I use it) located in my office. At the end of my workday Monday I snatched up a piece of beech I've had for some months and ripped it into a body and sides, I did the rest of the work at home. The iron is a Lee Valley replacement blade for a Stanley #60 1/2. in O1 steel. I have another identical iron, destined for a small smoother or gutter plane for coopered doors etc.

The pins, wedge and cross pin are made from East Indian Rosewood, turning stock from eBay. The pins are split and whittled to shape. The finish is orange wax, with High Gloss Formby's finish on the wedge. The mouth is super tight and even, I love the colors and contrast. I've gotten some great test shavings and surfaces, but I still need some time in the shop with it before another review. Enough yap, here's the proof.

   
The color is significantly more orange, and the rosewood is richer in person. I'll fiddle with the lighting during the workshop use photoshoot. All in all, I'm extremely excited about the first Krenov plane I've built.

Gramercy Tools 12" Rip Carcass Saw Build

I found someone on eBay selling a Gramercy Tools 12" carcass saw kit, I bought it. After testing one at my dovetail class I was sold. 

Tote cut, and the slots cut for the plate and spine. 

 Shaping the tote, on a refinished bench, I just added a layer of plywood and a brace to prevent sagging.

Put together, shaped and just a little left to finish.

Great tracking, and the build only took about an hour. Now I've got a new saw! It's going to come in handy for a new project I've got cooking. 

Working on a Fret Saw

In preparation for my handcut dovetails class turned the parts for this fret saw. I still have to figure out the hardware for attaching the blade. I've done two versions already, and I think I have it figured out. I just have to get some brass sheet.

It's turned out of cherry, no real plan other than some photos of antiques. I like how the inner stretcher came out. My only regret is that the top arm is a little fat and less attractive than the bottom one.

Moulding Planes and an Endevor

A group of mixed hollows, rounds, two rabbets and some other moulding planes, sitting along with a generously loaned copy of "Wooden Planes in 19th C. America" at my new (read, cleaned) planemaking bench. I've got a sash moulder, and covette, 7/8th and 1" rabbet, a pair of #'s 5, 6 and 12 H&R, a #2R, a #8R, a spare #6R and some unmarked without irons. They will become the base of a quarter set of H&Rs I'm building, the ones missing parts will be practice for fitting irons and wedges.
 

Using illustrations and photos from  Wooden Planes in 19th. C. America, I recreated this planemaking vise. It uses two different sets of wedges to hold planes in different orientations for the various operations. It's very easy to maneuver around the vise and change the position of the plane within it.

I cut the U section out of a split pine 2x12, it's about 15 inches long and 6 inches wide. The channel in the center is approximately 4" wide and 7/8 inches deep. It runs the full length. While you night be tempted to mortise this section don't, the gap under the end, clamping blocks are useful for blowing chips and sawdust out of the mating surfaces. I cut the channel with a plow and cleaned it up with a #78 rabbet plane sans fence.
   

The clamping ends are oak, and the wedge (sort of visible on the left hand side) is also oak. The wedge meets the end piece at a taper (not the taper of the wedge) like a french cleat so that the wedge can't be pulled up and out of contact. The plane I was working on here is going to become a #10 round, it is made of cherry. I've designed my H&Rs with shallow champers and deep notches, I still have to design the wedge profile, but I think a round finial with a curved return is going to be my preferred design here. 

It's working out really well, I still have to make a few more floats and other tools but I'm pretty much set for planemaking. I'll work mostly in cherry and maple because I have quite a few plane-sized blanks ready to go. I also love how cherry looks in plane form.

After a few H&Rs I plan to make some snipes-bills, boxed and sprung moulding planes, rabbet stick (for window sash), and sash coping planes. I plan to sell some of these odd planes, particularly matched sash and coping planes.

He Can't Be Serious, More Chisels? Yup.

Well, when you come across a 1" Wetherby BEC for $2, a 1/2" Foulton socket firmer for $1, and a 1/2" B.S. and W. Co. (or maybe it's P.S. and W. Co. can't tell) for $.50 you have to get them. Even if you have to steal a dollar from that 5 year old staring at you rooting through piles of ferrite and carbon.

Then when some guy'll take $8 for a 2" slick ('nother hard to read'er) blade with some mushrooming and a pair of calipers (not shown) you should grab that too.
   

This morning I turned an oak handle for the slick, I finished it with straight beeswax on the lathe. I grab a big hunk, and hold it against the spinning part, until I get a decent coat. Then I take a rag, cotton tee shirt works best, and holding the ends like I'm buffing a shoe, buff the wax. The friction from the rag melts the wax and forces it into the pores, after a while the wax really makes it's way in and shines up really good. Then move to a clean portion of rag to take off any extra. After a while, your rag has enough built up wax in it to wax and buff parts as is.

The bottom tool in the above photo is an edge float for planemaking. Which will be the topic of my next post.

Getting a Handle On It: Socket Chisels

     Today I decided to get cracking on some handles for a group of socket chisels I've had waiting for me. On the top, left to right is a 2 inch Buck Brothers BEC, a 1 1/2 inch Buck Brothers BEC, then three Stanlet No. 750s in 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4 inches. The 1/4 is horrifically abused, a long 15ish degree primary bevel? WTF is that? I may grind it back to remove this mark which will leave me about 2 inches of usable blade or try to find more 750s for the set. I'm going antiquing tomorrow so I'll wait to handle that and see what turns up. Below those are two that I handled earlier, a long 5/8 inch Craftsman paring chisel with some chips, and an unmarked 3/4 inch former.  

The handle stock is a bunch of blanks cut from a maple science lab table that found its way into our school shop, pretty grimy and wild I wasn't going to use this for anything else. Blanks were cut months ago when I found the wood. I have two stiles, longer and skinny and shorter and thicker. Using this v-block hook, I cut a rough tapered octagon on the blanks.
   

I don't care if it's not perfectly symmetrical, as long as it has 8 sides it will be comfy and work. 

The first buck I get to cheat on, it still had a "handle" on it, I took most of the tenon measurements from it. You need the depth (measure with a drill bit), the large diameter (outside calipers), and the small diameter (drill bit again, or guess and check). I use outside calipers because it's faster than using inside and transferring them to outside and I have to fit the tenon to the socket anyway, make it a touch oversize and you'll be golden.

Now the easy part, strike a baseline for your shoulder and cut the major and minor diameter, bam you have a tapered socket. I've done these on the lathe, and by hand. The lathework is simple spindle turning two your two diameter measurements, followed by a skew to fair the transition. By hand I like to saw the large diameter depth all the way around then chisel and file the taper. Either way will get you there, what you're looking for is something that mostly fits the socket of your chisel like so...
 

As you can see there is a bit of a gap, this means the socket hasn't bottomed out yet. This could be from any number of things, irregular side walls on your socket, irregular tenon. a too-fat portion etc. Fortunately they are all easy to fix, mark a spot on your handle so you know where it will orient to the blade, and lightly tap it down. Then pull the tenon off, if your chisel is older there will be enough dust/rust/grime to mark the tenons interference spots, if you're doing this with brand new chisels or they are too clean, wipe some soot in the socket and try again.

Here you can see some light spots indicating where to take off material, lather, rinse, repeat until a little gap remains. Then hold the chisel by the steel and slam it butt down into a stump or other mass until it seats fully, have a little gap so that the tenon can compress and move into the socket a little more.
 

The end product. The only thing left to do is to trim the taper so that it blends into the taper of the ferrule. Then bevel the end (if you don't plan on hitting it with something) or cut a tenon for a hoop and fit the hoop (for say bih heavy duty whackers).
   

 
After all was said and done I scraped the handles with a shard of glass and wiped on some mineral oil. They look amazing and rustic and I can't wait to do more.

Mini Plane Finished

Victoriously standing on some conquered wood, ironically walnut. This little guy is made from walnut if you recall the earlier posts about the build. Also this one. There's still some fettling to be done, he chatters and but and the blade needs a better edge.


Here's the signing of the iron. the iron might be too short, It's a bit hard to adjust. I might remake one that's longer.