Hand made Infill plane (woodwork)

[famas]

Hi all, I know a lot of you are interested in build projects so I thought I'd start a thread on something I've been wanting to make for a long time.

It's nice to document the progress and have an on-line diary of how things are going. Any support will drive me onto the finish too.

I use hand planes every day and I've always lusted after a high quality bespoke plane, like a Lazarus, Holtey, Bill Carter etc but the price of these planes can go into the thousands and my pockets just aren't deep enough.

So making one is the next best thing. The only trouble is I've never done a day of metal work in my life.
Woodwork yes but metal work is a whole other ball game.
So how well this project will turn out is any ones guess.

I've done a fair few hours research into making infill planes and am confident in the process...mostly.
I've taken a lot of inspiration from Carter's and Lazurus planes, both makers are at the pinnacle of their career and the planes they produce are amazing.

So i think the best thing to do is get stuck in!

First things first I ordered some 4mm CZ108 brass 300mm long by 100mm wide.



I then cut it in half on the band saw.



I made a paper template of the sides of the plane working out the dovetail spacing.



And again cut them roughly on the band saw.



That little lot was enough for one evening.

As I'll only be working on the plane in the evenings its going to be a lengthy project but I'll keep this thread updated as and when more is done.

 

[Diddums]

I'm the opposite. I could probably do that sheet metal work with my eyes shut but couldn't even tell you what an infill plane is


Great project, keep us posted!

 

[touch]

Interested to see how this goes.

What are you using for the iron?

 

[famas]

Cheers guys.

The iron is way off yet but I'm probably looking at getting some 01 tool steel. Seems readily available and fairly easy to work.
Should also add I'm trying to keep costs to a minimum just in case it all goes Pete Tong.

 

[famas]

After cutting the dovetails roughly on the band saw I spent the next 3 hours filing them.
This was tedious work as the tails had to be square bottomed and as straight as possible, getting into the corners was difficult.
Any miss shaped tails would result in gaps later on.

I later found out that grinding the teeth off one side of a triangular file greatly helps in getting sharp clean corners. It did indeed make the job a lot easier and the results where far better than using a half round file.



After 3 hours they are still not quite finished but the majority is done.

After that I marked out and started cutting the sole of the plane from a piece of 6mm mild steel.



I've since learnt that 01 tool steel is a far better choice for the sole as it is accurately machined and harder.

The mild steel was freely available at the time so I went with it. It should be a little easier to cut and file over tool steel.

Time does fly when you're having fun and my allocated time was up for the day.

 

[Minusorange]

Doesn't seem very aerodynamic

 

[famas]

It's going to fly about as well as a chicken

 

[touch]

Maybe a bit late now, but I found a great video on youtube for filing

You could flatten the mild steel sole once it's complete by sticking a sheet of abrasive down on a flat surface. (Best to flatten when it's complete with the iron installed because the pressures of the mounting hardware can warp the sole a bit)

 

[famas]

thanks for the link Touch, have seen a fair few of clickspring's vids, it's where I found out about grinding the file.
He's a great source of information for fine metalwork. His work is going to put mine to shame

I had planned to flatten the sole towards the end of the build. We have a large over hand planer that has a solid cast bed that's nice and flat. I'm planning to use that as the base for the abrasive.

 

[famas]

I finished cutting out the sole and rounded the ends with a file.



Next was to mark out the pins onto the sole. I used blue marker and a scribe to make the lines easier to see.
I also screwed the brass sides to a block of wood to keep them from moving when marking the pins.



Then I carefully cut to my scribe lines using a hacksaw and 24tpi blade. The mild steel wasn't too bad to cut. Not easy but easier than some Wenge wood I was cutting a week before.



After that I took the sole over to the pillar drill and drilled a series of holes along the waste line. Had to be careful not to drill past the waste line as this would have resulted in cutting all of them to the lowest point which would have been a lot of work.
Thankfully it all went well.



And that was time again for another day.

 

[NoobCannon]

Excuse my igonrance. But what are you actually trying to make? Just looks like a random piece of metal to me

 

[famas]

Sorry, should have made it clearer in the first post as to what I'm trying to make.

This is an English Norris infill plane made in the early 1900



Some of them date back to before then.

Briefly
Norris infill planes where the Rolls Royce of planes and Norris was one of the first to introduce lateral blade adjustment. Before this adjustment to the blade was done by hitting the blade with a hammer to either increase or decrease the depth of cut, or by hitting the side of the blade to adjust it laterally.

Early Norris planes are collector items now, Rare planes command a high price tag with Norris mitre planes going into the tens of thousands.

Makers like Carter and Holtey follow the traditional Norris style while Lazarus planes are more modern in design. Lazarus has also made his own unique blade adjustment mechanism.

I'm hoping my plane will be a nice mixture of tradition with a twist of modern design too.

Lazarus planes are beautiful and made to perfection. His planes are what inspired me to start making one.

 

[famas]

With the holes drilled along the waste line I then used a junior hacksaw to cut out the remaining waste



Then was the slow task of carefully filing to the scribe lines. I picked up a tip of rubbing chalk onto the file to stop it from clogging, this neat trick really helps.



I'm finding much like wood it takes a lot of patience to hand work steel, just one stroke to many with the file can easily put you under the scribe line.
It took another two and a half to three hours to file all of the dovetails.

With all of the dovetails filed I could try a first test fit.



I'm pleased with how they have gone together so far but there is a little more refinement to do.
Swapping over to needle files to get the corners nice and sharp should do the trick.



Now for a weekend break, my arms ache.

 

[famas]

With the dovetails nearly finished I started work on the mouth of the plane.
Because I'm planning to make a single blade plane (no chip breaker) the mouth opening is critical, too small and the shaving with jam causing the plane not to work.
To large will increase the risk of chatter and the inability to create fine shavings.
I'm be cautious and cutting the mouth small as I'm not quite sure yet how the blade will seat. This wont be apparent until the body is made and the wooden infill is fitted.

I marked out the mouth and centre punched a series of holes.



took it over to the pillar drill and drilled out the holes.



With a hand drill I elongated one of the holes enough to fit a hacksaw blade in.



I cut away as much of the waste as possible to my scribe lines.

Then came the task of filing the mouth, as you can guess this took a while!

I know I'm going to bed the blade at 55 degrees so had to file a bevel on the mouth to match it.



With the mouth opening only being 4mm wide it was difficult to fit a file in straight let alone angled over at 55 degrees.
Luckily I managed to find a very thin file which I started with then once the majority of the bevel was done I could get a larger file in.

Needle files came in handy to finish the corners and I was always being cautious not to open the mouth any bigger than the scribe lines.



Thankfully after a good few hours it was done....for now.
I know I will have to adjuster it later down the line but that's enough for one evening.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Subbed! Our first project at college was to make a wooden plane, as part of the woodwork element of a broader NVQ. The actual course was guitar making and we tend to make an awful lot of specialist tools for ourselves!

I ended up turning my very boxy block plane into a carving plane by shaping the entire base into a convex. The beauty of wood I guess, it was easy to take more material off later.

Nice work so far

 

[howler]

I admire your effort! Dovetails with metal sounds like a right pain, I know how hard it can be with wood

 

[famas]

Thanks for the comments guys

Compass planes are pretty tricky to get right.
My boss has a very old wooden compass plane with an adjustable sole, it's incredible to think it was all made by hand with no machines.

Let's say I've cut a fair few dovetsils in wood, the technique is transferable to metal but it does seem more time consuming.

 

[famas]

With the majority of the mouth done I turned my attention back to the dovetails.

I spent a while making sure the corners where clean and sharp and that the bottoms where filed to my scribe lines. Getting them as accurate as possible will help later when I come to peen them shut.

Then I had a big decision to make.

Early English mitre planes had a decorative feature called a Cupids bow. Often shown on the wooden wedge or on the infill and sometimes carried over above the dovetails on rare planes.

Bill Carter likes to add them to his planes and if done well look beautiful.

To say a novice trying them is ambitious is an understatement. Even a competent metal worker can find them challenging.
Cutting them accurately is one thing but the hard part is peening the metal into the cuts. Something I've never done before and have zero experience in...... but as the saying goes nothing ventured nothing gained.

I had a practice on some scrap metal to start with. The first attempt on the left didn't go well but the second attempt on the right worked out better.



You can see why it's called a Cupids bow now.

With a few more practice tries done I went for it and started to cut one on the brass.



I used a triangular file for the centre point and a round files for the curves. I first cut the point in the middle of the dovetail. Then i start to create the curves equally on each side.



Once I'm happy with the placement and depth of the point and curves I round over the flats to finish the bow.



After a little more refinement with needle files to the bow and dovetail its finished.

Then rinse and repeat for the rest of the dovetails on both sides and sole of the plane.



I understand why this is a challenging task now. It takes huge amounts of patience and concentration to get them looking accurate and uniform.



This took over 2 evenings to finish and I'm only half way through.

 

[touch]

I think it would have been easier to cut the bow into the harder metal and form the softer metal into it. It might be difficult to get the hard steel to fill the gaps without just pushing the softer brass out of the way.

 

[famas]

This was exactly my concern too.

I've cut the bows into the steel on the sole also. My plan is to peen the brass into the steel bows on the sole but leave the brass bows on the sides of the plane exposed (unfilled).
Some of the older planes are like this and it's also something Carter does.

Like you say the steel is harder to peen than brass, hopefully.

I'm quickly learning nothing about this project is easy