Official Luthiers Forum!

hello

how flat does a plane sole need to be on my record 4 1/2?

I have it down to 0.004" at the moment

thanks

Keep on sanding! it will be worth it.

_________________
Pat

ok thanks guys

in that case, I'm going down to 60 grit aluminium oxide from 80 and moving to the glass dining room table!

I've been working on mine too-



I got to here and then will set the sides to 90 and recheck the sole.
I enjoy the toolmaking (and repairing) just as much as the building most days.

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Careful with that sandpaper method. You can end up making things worse! You have to know where and how much pressure to exert and frequently clean the paper so that it doesn't clog in certain areas. You also have to make sure that there's no flex or give to your surface. Check that sole frequently. I ended up mounting the Plane in a vice and taking the abrasive to the sole, kind of like leveling an engineers lathe with a scraper. Ideally you should have a reference plate and use a feeler gauge. As Todd stated, you only really need 3 points of contact to the sole of the plane. On woodies I relieve the usual areas, just a touch with a scraper.

Also, and you likely know this but just in case, leveling should be done with the blade installed and retracted. The pressure of locking the blade can slightly change the geometry.

When doing the sandpaper method a sharpie is your friend, use it often and check after a first pass as it will give you good info as to where the initial removal is taking place.

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

If one wants to check for a flat surface, mechanics blue and a surface plate are the way to go.
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

i used to square mine up on a surface grinder and it can be done on a vertical milling machine like a bridgeport. or any cnc mill as well. ime sandpaper, filing, stoning, bluing, scraping, lapping, etc.. just takes too long and isn't nearly as accurate. then again not everybody has access to toolroom and machine shop equipment and some people enjoy doing it su mano and there is nothing wrong with that. be that as it may though, it might pay off to befriend a machine shop in your area and slip them $50 or so or do some sort of trade in exchange to square the frame up for you.

thanks all, very helpful

I need a toothed blade too. Is it possible to file a blade to make your own teeth?

I am not sure what to buy, a new plane and tooth it, a new blade and tooth it or a ready toothed blade

ready toothed irons seem to be hard to find here in the UK, there is one by knuz but they are quite cheap

I have the Kunz blade. It works fine, intended for bevel down Planes. You really do have to move the chipbreaker out of the way otherwise you will get a lot of clogging issues. To be honest I don't use the toothed blade very much at all. I find I can get by with a seriously sharp and well set up Plane, often planing across the grain on highly figured woods. That, high angle and a scraper is really all you should need. Most of this is about sharpness. You should be able to finish Plane Spruce so that using 800G abrasive will result in a worse surface. There's a reason why they call some Planes 'polishing planes'.

thanks koa, I'll save some cash and lots of time by not buying another plane

the only reason I wanted a toothed blade is because my book (guitarmaking: cumpiano) advises me to

this is my plane http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EARLY-RECORD- ... true&rt=nc

i don't know whether it it is high or low angle

I did make a mistake when sanding the sole, however the extra taken off will hopefully get rid of the small chip in the mouth

It's standard angle. Pretty decent buy. Early Record and looks to be original square cornered blade. I have it's larger brother, a No. 6, similar vintage. You would have to go up to the Quangsheng or the new Stanley SW to get a better plane and they are just over twice that price. Tune that Record and it will work just as good as those two but try it out first. No need to tune something that works well.

I have been trying to date it, most of the plane looks like it's from the 1930's but a couple parts seem to be later, 1950's

unfortunately I went straight into lapping, have not tried it out yet

I would disagree with you on the "isn't nearly as accurate" part. Using bluing and lapping and or scraping can be very, very accurate. Way accurate enough for a plane sole. Accurate enough to tune up mills and lathes.
L.

_________________
Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

+1
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Going back 30 years I bought a little table top bandsaw from a retired engineer. He still kept his hand in with his little garage workshop. He was one of those guys who could talk endlessly about the days of his working life. He had started as an apprentice at the age of 15. After 6 months they had him leveling the machine bed on one of the engineering lathes with a scraper. He said it took him just over a week. He was being supervised as well.

You can get a toothed blade from Lie Nielsen by the way. Very much the opposite of cheap. You can try filing an old blade as Cumpiano advises in the book, but you'll likely end up with much fewer and wider teeth than what Nielsen offers.

I do find a toothed blade helpful, but if you're just starting out, it's probably not a priority.

Best of luck,

Dylan

The best commercial plane that I've encountered is Ulmia. The one I have is old, but they seem to have continued to focus on blade quality. They make a toothed blade model. I'm not sure why, but there are several models on E-bay right now at a very low price. Does anyone here have acquaintance with their current products?

Ulmia make or perhaps made wooden horn handled Planes. There's some similarities between them and the ECE Planes, so perhaps the two are now one. I used to have an Ulmia but sold it on. Quite easily the best Planes for the money are the old Coffin or Beech bodied Planes that are in copious amounts on that auction site. No one wants them. Get a good example, tune it and it will work extremely well. They nearly always have a thick, very good quality blade and chipbreaker. These are the Planes that 90%+ of cabinet makers used 100 years ago. The really fancy cabinet makers got to use the much more expensive infill Planes. Those Beech Planes did a huge amount of work though. They produced virtually all of the furniture of the late Victorian era. It was mass production as well.

Burton,

I'd be worried that the stress from the vise is causing as much distortion as the proverbial difference in having the blade clamped down or not?

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Jim,

It is blued freehand on the plate and only held (somewhat loosely) in the vise while being scraped. I'm not an expert by any means at this stuff so I could certainly be overlooking a situation where that could stress it but I think it is okay as long as I am only scraping the high spots while it is in the vise.

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

you are right

I am having a very difficult time getting this sole flat

does anyone know some alternative methods?

I think an abrasive glued to a brick sized piece of metal would be useful

Take a small block of wood, perhaps 1" x 2". Glue some abrasive, flat to both sides. With this remove metal between the front of the mouth and the front edge of the Plane. Don't go all the way to the edge of the mouth or the front edge, stop just short.
Do the same for the area between the back of the mouth and the very back end of the Planes sole. You are effectively producing 2 'scoops' or relieved areas. A good straight edge is needed to check how things are going. Just a touch of relief is all you need, a glint of light under the straightedge.
This method won't ensure that there is no twist in the sole. Most of the time it won't matter, especially if you've already tried to flatten it. Most important of all though is to actually try the plane. How the plane actually works is the deciding factor.

thanks for the help Michael

I found out what I was doing wrong, I was using too much pressure

once I let only the weight of the plane (even lifting it at the centre a little) be the only force acting downward, the sole was made quite flat in no time at all

I learned this the hard way though!

the right hand side (the body, not the sole) of the plane is not completely flat, but most of it is 90 degrees to the sole. do you know how or even if I need to correct this? My first job is with the shooting board so it may be important

Well unless it's got a horrible twist on that side I doubt that it will matter. Get the blade seriously sharp and the Plane on the shooting board.
BTW. Just bought 3 coffin Planes off the bay. One is an 8 inch smoother that no one loved and has obviously seen very little wood. Cost 99p. Took me about 1 minute to flatten the sole Leaves Ebony looking like it's been French Polished!