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Hi,

Soon I would like to try and make a handplane. I will try to make one of those palm planes similar to the curved Ibex palm plane - 90mm length and blade width 27mm. I have seen one made by an OLF member and Benedetto uses one for carving the tops and backs of archtops.

I have two questions:
1. What is the desired plane blade thickness?
2. What is the best radius for the sole of the plane?

Thanks, Gorjan

Hello, Gorjan,

I don't believe there is really a single desired thickness for a finger plane blade. It must be thick enough to resist chatter, but that leaves you a lot of options when selecting your blade stock. I have made my blades from industrial hacksaw blades. I cut them and grind them to the desired shape myself.

With regard to curvature, it will depend on the instruments you are building. I recommend you build two or three planes with different curvatures. They can be very simple (see my wooden plane) and still work very well. My wooden plane has a narrower, more aggressive curvature. My brass and cocobolo plane has less curvature. I build guitars. If you wish to build small instruments, such as violins, you will probably want smaller soles on your planes.

Good luck with your effort. I love making tools!

Patrick

Go to Stephen Boone's website. I believe he has a video of making his little plane. There are none better, IMO!

http://www.studioboone.com/guitars/fingerplane.html

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Here's a nice tutorial on making them out of old files from our wayward friend Padma http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=430614#p430614

Thanks for the tutorials, it is very helpful.

Waddy I was in Stephen's workshop yesterday. He was very nice to me and gave me many useful advises. What impressed me the most were his guitars, they sounded amazing!!! Very loud and articulate. I will go again to visit him and will ask him. There are just so many things to learn and discuss with him and time is very limited.

Hey Gorjan,

We can discuss it next time you come by. I would recommend as thick a blade as you can manage to resist chatter as described above. As far as radius goes, "it depends" is really the answer but I have found that not a whole lot of radius is typically needed for the things that I do.

Waddy, You are too kind. Thank you.

_________________
http://www.booneguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Boone-guitar-builder/488208541257210

I use mine nearly every day for something!

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I really like the design. Narrow for carving braces and made of all wood so less likely to dent the guitar. Price seems very fair. Nice work, Stephen... I decided to order a set!

I/m sure stephen makes a great plane. For those on a vy tight budget . I bought 2 cheap greatneck modelmakers planes at homeles depot I paid 8$ for each I flattened the edges an bottom on the belt sander, the second one has a longtiudinal curve for hollowing work . Makes vy quick work of brace shaving. Blade needs flattening and a super sharp 25 deg bevel to cut spruce cleanly

+1 todd, recycled or yard sale files, hacksaw blades , make great luthier knives , and plane blades.