Making an Infill Smoother

This post has been written by Vittorio, a friend of mine very skilled with hand tools. I only translate from Italian (hope not too badly) his great job. Thank you Vittorio and welcome to the blog!  For some time I thought to build a metal plane and surfing the net I found a lot of ideas and this very good project:http://user.xmission.com/~jry/ww/tools/a13/a13.htmland my adventure started!
I thank you Jim Yehle from Salt Lake City, the author of the project from which my plane was inspired. I used Fe 430 steel. I think it is strong enough for good plane sturdiness and at same time permits to use hand tools for working it easily; I used 6 mm thick plate for the sole and a 5mm one for sides.
I started by coupling sides together, marking joints and boring for reducing the steel amount to be discarded; with patience I shaped the dovetails. These have 60° angles, as well as files have.

I cut the sole, marked out tails and sawn them as precisely as possible; this job was far more difficult.

Finally, the two sides are ready as well as a wooden support, useful for dovetail peening.

The iron holder comes from a 10 mm steel plate. It has a 47.5° angle and also is useful as support to the file for cutting the mouth back.

Side shaping, first lapping with 100 grit abrasive paper and 6mm rivet plugging in for blade holder fastening. 

The dovetail peening is the most important step; although the wooden support helps, it is important to control that the internal part of sides is square, to avoid troubles during plane assembling.

Cleaning up with a file and abrasive paper, until joints disappear and the sole is flat.

For making the lever cap I used template steel, a very strong material. I had to do more work for shaping it.

Handle and knob come from a 3mm thick well seasoned ash board; apparently working wood seems easier than shaping metal, but I spent several hours to obtain the right shapes.

I used 8mm steel rods (bored in a machine shop) as spacers for handle fixing. Rods were threaded inside and inserted into the wood; as said above if the inner side is not square to the sole, the spacer ability of firmly holding the wood in place will be decreased. 

The wood has been finished with 8 coats of shellac, fixed to metal body with screws firmly screwed and then clinched.   Unfortunately ordinary screws have the conical section too low, so the countersink has not completely filled. However the final lapping  helps to attenuate the gap.

The blade comes from an old industrial cutter. It has been worked with glass paper for obtaining the 25° bevel and with 3M abrasives (40, 30, 15, 5, 1, 0.3 microns) for honing a 30° microbevel.

Finally the road test. I tried the plane with fir, lime and beech. Its a pleasure use it. This is sufficient for satisfying me enough of the job, done only using hand tools. 

The mouth opening is 1 mm. The plane weights 2260 gr.

Here is a pic of the polished infill plane. It is already at work.

Final notes.

While I am waiting for a knurled screw for lever cap, I have done a wooden cap.Although the plane lacks of adjusting mechanism, its set up is easy.

The handle tail could appear too accentuate, but the grip results very ergonomic.

After all I am very happy beaucause has been a great experience with a good result.Ciao 

Vittorio 

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-family"

n?1,spiers,dovetail,plane

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MWA Podcast Episode 24 Scott Meek

MWA Podcast Episode #24 - Scott Meek

MWA Podcast Episode #24 - Scott Meek (60:30)

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Selasa, 15 Maret 2016

2013 March Shop Tour

March is now upon us. And with it, another monthly shop tour.

The Ghetto WorkCenter Boom Arm built last month is now stored on the wall.

While I conceived of the monthly shop tour series as a choice of documenting the progress Im making on the shop, the March tour is unfortunately a documentation of my lack of progress since the previous tour. About the only thing I managed to do in the shop since the February tour was the preparation of 8 birdhouses which my sons Cub Scout den assembled last week.This lack of shop progress is to be expected as life often gets in the choice. What are we to do? Just keep our heads down and steal some shop time when we can. Hopefully your last month in the shop was productive.

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Jumat, 26 Februari 2016

An Alternative To Tin Can Carts Part II

Once the pieces were cut to size and shape with a combination of track saw, table saw and miter saw. To cut the handles, I first drilled out each end using a hole saw, then I connected them with the jig saw. The bottoms and can retaining pieces first had their curved outer corners cut with jig saw. They were then refined on an oscillating belt sander. Finally the can holes were cut with a hole saw.

Lots of Caddy pieces.

It was at this point that I realized that I had cut the bottoms as two (2) pieces which would have the handle between them. Unfortunately, I cut the handles to fit on top of a single bottom piece. Once I realized this, I then cut and fabricate new bottoms to make up for it. Two (2) of the mistaken bottom pieces were used to make additional can retaining pieces. With an additional handle and bottom, this allowed me to make four (4) rather than three (3) can caddies.The next step was to cut out for the cans. I accomplished with with a hole saw. In order to hold the pieces still, I made an impromptu jig with scrap plywood. I placed each piece against the jig, and then used a single clamp to lock it in place. I powered the hole saw with my old Milwaukee ½” drill. This was the first power tool I received as a gift when I bought my first house. I can’t say I use it often, but when I do, I’m reminded what a nice drill it is.

The old Milwaukee is a workhorse.

The jig held two faces of the parts. A single clamp locked them in.
The clamp in the background hold the jig to the bench.

The hole saws left a bit of burning on the inside edge of the can holes, so I next took the can retaining pieces over to the oscillating spindle sander and cleaned up the inside of each hole. Unfortunately, I lost hold of one (1) of the pieces while doing this, and managed to break the fence lock-down nut on the sander. Shame on me for leaving it in place.

Be carefull of spinning can retaining pieces.

Now that all the pieces were completely cut to size and shape, I took out my trim router and put an ?” roundover on all the outside edges and the can holes and handle. ?” isn’t much, but I find it’s just right for easing a hard edge without making it too soft (especially in ½” material).

A simple 1/8" roundover makes the edges much friendlier to touch.

In order assembly the tin can caddies, I used 4mm Dominos to joint the bottom and can retaining pieces to the handle. Since the Dominos penetrated in more than ¼”, I ofsett them relative to each other so that the Dominos of each can retaining piece wouldn’t hit the opposite one in the handle.

Setting the Domino against a fence is an easy choice for accurate joinery.

Lots of parts and lots of Dominos.

For glue-up, I simply used parallel clamps. I left the Dominos to keep the parts square. They did a pretty good job of this. All of the tin can caddies look square to the eye and are certainly close enough when put against an actual square.

The Dominos were all it took to keep the pieces square.

For the finish, I wanted to try something new (to me). I use boiled linseed oil. While I’ve heard many things about how heating your BLO allows it to penetrate better, I simply followed the instructions on the can and cut it 2 to 1 with mineral spirits. I then applied it heavily with a rag, and kept applying to keep it wet for 15 minutes. Then I wiped it off and let the tin can caddies dry. I’m still on the fence about how I feel about BLO as a finish, but for this project it was certainly a success. The tin can caddies have a nice warm tone to them.

The BLO sample is to the left (almost faded out by the flash).

The finished Tin Can Caddies.

With the caddies done, it’s now up to my wife to decorate some cans and give them to her crafting friends.An Alternative To Tin Can Carts: Part I

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