Latest Planes

Here are some photos of my latest planes. (Click on any photo to enlarge).
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Low Slung Smoother: LSS-30 with figured Belah infill.

LSS-35 with ringed Gidgee infill

LSS-35 with Damascus steel sides and Ebony infill

And matching Damascus steel and Ebony adjustment hammer

Squirrel Tail plane with Coolabah burl infill

Gidgee burl smoothing plane

I was excited to get the opportunity to use some of this beautiful Gidgee burl in one of my low-slung smoothing planes.
(Click on any photo to enlarge).

This is rare and valuable wood, so I had to be extra careful on the band saw. I got some nice clean blocks and I made sure to keep even the smallest off-cuts.

The shoe box of small pieces will be good for inlay work, small infills or beautiful knife scales.
Here are a few photos of the finished LSS-35 smoothing plane.

This low slung smoother measures 156mm long, with a 35mm wide blade.
The imperial equivalent measurements would be approximately 6 ¹/₈” long, with a 1 ³/₈” wide blade.
I used to make this plane size with an 1 ¹/₄” (31.75mm) wide blade. The extra blade width definitely improves this small smoother.

Red Gum Slab Table Build Part 3

The next step is to dovetail in the lower and upper stretchers. This is the lower stretcher detail with the entire frame turned upside down.

I used 12mm birch ply, which is permanently fixed to the lower stretcher and the dovetailed section will just be dry screwed. This joint will again not be visible but I stained it black to match the frame when it is ebonised.
The upper stretcher is also dovetailed, but not glued, so the entire frame can be dismantled when needed. I used 19mm thick material so it not visible under the top.

Dovetail ready to be planed flush. This dovetail was also cut by hand.

Everything is finished and disassembled. The next morning I give everything a final smooth and begin the ebonising.

The ebonising solution is made by dissolving fine steel wool in household vinegar.

After dissolving for a couple of weeks, I just strained the solution through some fine cloth and then a coffee filter. The Victorian Ash is a good wood for ebonising because it has a high level of natural tannins. Of course I experimented with several off-cuts before doing the entire frame. I wanted the frame to be a very dark black to match the pitch pockets in the slab. The results were great and better yet the process was non-toxic.

The frame is top coated with five coats of Danish Oil and ready for the slab top.

I shot some video on the day I did some final smoothing before ebonising. I am using the low slung smoothers that I make. This one is 6 & 5/8” long with an 1 & 1/2” wide blade. I find it easier and more enjoyable to push a smaller smoother. The narrower blade means that you make more passes however, with a little camber even this Ring-Porous, Victorian Ash comes up glassy smooth.

Red Gum Slab Table Build Part 2

Here is a beautiful Red Gum slab that I purchased last year. (Click on any photo to enlarge)

It’s a monster! 2.4 meters long by 1.2 meters wide and 50 mm thick. It weighs approximately 150 kgs. First order of business was to fill all of the pitch pockets and checks with clear epoxy.

The more meticulous you are with the filling process, the better the finish you will get. Here is the top after a good polish and eight coats of Danish Oil.

The lower frame was a good challenge and pretty labour intensive. It involved cutting some big, half blind dovetails. Even though this joint will be hidden, perfect accuracy was important because of the massive weight of the top. Sloppy joinery would not hold up. The added challenge was that the frame was angled at 5 ½ degrees. I have cut many dovetails but it was surprising how this angle made it tricky to sight my lines when cutting. Also the Victorian Ash is 44 mm thick. After cutting all of the tails with my dovetail saw, I carefully lay out the pins.

You can see from the photo how I used an off-cut to register the 5 ½ degree angle to lay out the pins. Then I used my Lie Neilson dovetail saw to cut the pins.

A series of relief cuts are made and then the first section of waste can be removed with a Jeweller’s saw.

Then I switched to a more aggressive Coping saw to remove the remaining waste.

Removing the rest of the waste involves many hours of chiselling. You know the quote “To understand you must do”.
A glue up of this scale is always stressful but, my careful layout and accurate sawing and chiselling paid off.

In my next blog, I will finish up with the build of the base by showing the dovetailing of the the upper and lower stretchers. Then I will show ebonising and applying the Danish Oil finish.

Red Gum Slab Table

Sorry it’s been a while! Got the kitchen and laundry finished. (Click on any photo to enlarge).

We also have had our en-suite bathroom renovated over the last few months and I decided to make the vanity. The drawers are made from Birch ply and the solid wood is Victorian Ash.

The drawers are finished with my own homemade beeswax finish, which smells beautiful. The Vic Ash is finished with Danish oil. Re-sawing the Vic Ash was a good effort for my 14” bandsaw.

I only have a small thicknesser, so once the panels were jointed and glued I worked them to finished dimension with handplanes. It is always nice to find a reason to use my beautiful, Lie-Nielson #8.

I was just about to get back into some plane making, when this Red Gum slab caught my eye.

Here is a sneak peak photo of the progress. I will go through the building process in detail in my next blog.

Stanley #51 & 52 plane and shoot board

Wow! This year is flying by. As I said in my last blog post, my wife and I are doing some house renovations and we are neck deep in tearing out the kitchen. (Click on any photo to enlarge).

The reno is not allowing me time to make any planes but I am however, still taking a little time here and there to refurb some old tools. My latest is this old Stanley #51 & 52 plane and shoot board.

I was given an opportunity to purchase this from a friend, who is selling off his collection. I did not want to purchase this plane just because it was a cool object. I wanted to see how well this old plane and shoot board performed. My friend was happy for me to take it and if I could get it working, then money would exchange hands. The whole thing was covered in a thick layer of dust, so I gave it a good wipe down, covered it in Camellia oil and it sat for several weeks before I could get back to it. I then wiped all the oily residue off with a rag and some methylated spirits. When the plane body was clean, I could then get a good look at the plane’s condition and how well it was machined. The plane body was square and looked good. The next order of business was to sharpen the blade and tune the chip breaker. The back of the blade flattened up quickly, however you can see that there is a considerable amount of pitting in the blade.

I knew that it would work but, I need to get a replacement blade. I will probably try a Lee Valley replacement in that fancy “PMV-11” steel.

Then I needed to tune up the frog. I apologise that I didn’t get any photos of this process, but at the time I was more worried about getting it done than grabbing the camera. The frog did need a serious tuning. It was not meeting to the plane body very well, so I unscrewed it and filed the mating surfaces until everything was true. I screwed the frog back to the body and then trued up the entire bed angle. Next I turned my attention to the #52 shoot board.

The track that the plane runs in will wear over time so it can be adjusted to allow for this.

The adjustment screws and bolts were seized solid, so I soaked them in a pool of WD-40 for a few days. The next photo shows the shoot board, flipped over and one of the four bolts in it’s WD-40 bath.

By the next weekend the bolts were free and the fence was again adjustable. It was now time for the long awaited test drive. My engineer square was telling me that the plane body was nice and square but I was curious to see how flat the sole was. A quality straight edge is fine, but I like to test flatness by using another plane. If you have a plane made by Lie Nielson or Veritas, then it should be well machined and pretty damn flat. I jointed a piece of wood with my Lie Nielson 5½ Jack Plane and took a few light shavings. The old Stanley followed up the 5½ with equally thin shavings, no problem. So I knew that the sole was good and true.

Now it was time to see how it felt while shooting using the #52. Up until now my shooting set up has been the Veritas low angle jack and it has done a great job.

Here is a short video of the old Stanley in action. I am really happy with it and am confident that it will perform even better when I get the new thicker replacement blade.