Skew plane

On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:55:09 -0500, "J. Clarke"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>The boss handed me three nice little wooden planes in quite nice
>condition--dusty and there's some very very light rust on the blades--he
>had 'em up on ebay for 5 bucks and nobody bit. Two are molding planes,
>the third one though I think is the real treasure, it looks to be a 1"
>skew shoulder or rabbet plane. Blade needs a bit of work--it's in good
>shape but the angle isn't quite right.
>
>I plan to clean it up and get it into usable condition this weekend.
>
>Any sage advice would be welcome.


You mean besides "you suck"? ;)

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: [email protected] ---

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
>
> The boss handed me three nice little wooden planes in quite nice
> condition--dusty and there's some very very light rust on the blades--he
> had 'em up on ebay for 5 bucks and nobody bit. Two are molding planes,
> the third one though I think is the real treasure, it looks to be a 1"
> skew shoulder or rabbet plane. Blade needs a bit of work--it's in good
> shape but the angle isn't quite right.
>
> I plan to clean it up and get it into usable condition this weekend.
>
> Any sage advice would be welcome.

Well, got the skew plane mostly cleaned up.

Iron was bent a little on the narrow part that the wedge grabs, and the
wedge wasn't holding. Straightened that and the wedge started holding.

Angle on the iron wasn't quite right--no matter how I fitted it it stuck
out a little more on one end. Looking at it it has obviously been
recently machine ground, so I stuck it in the ol' 50 buck Harbor Fright
Tormek clone, eyeballed the right angle, and let drive. Fitted it back
when done and it was close enough. Went at with the the diamond stones
and finished up with the super duper fine ceramic. Looked good.

Put it together, and gave it a shot. After much wanging back and forth
I finally got it to where it would kind of cut a shaving.

I figured that my problem was that I was using too much hammer. Was
going to make a little mallet just for the plane. Was in Harbor Fright
and saw this little so and so <http://www.harborfreight.com/double-
sided-mallet-with-wooden-handle-98285.html> and decided to give it a
shot. Worked a treat--couldn't work better if it was purpose-made for
adjusting planes--and it wasn't long before I was getting little kind of
chewed up shavings from either side but couldn't get anything from the
center.

Well, took a good square and a straighedge to it and found that the sole
wasn't quite flat in any direction. Set the jointer for the smallest
cut it would make (maybe 1/128) and took three passes and the sole was
flat and perpendicular to one side in a couple of spots--turns out the
sides aren't flat or parallel but that's a problem for another day.

So, gave it another shot--took about 30 seconds to get it adjusted where
it was taking full-width shavings six inches long. Victory. And I now
have a sweet little plane in need of a project.

Next weekend I guess I fix up the other two.

My advice would be to give them to me for restoration.
End of story, and thank you. 8>)

On 3/10/2011 5:55 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
> The boss handed me three nice little wooden planes in quite nice
> condition--dusty and there's some very very light rust on the blades--he
> had 'em up on ebay for 5 bucks and nobody bit. Two are molding planes,
> the third one though I think is the real treasure, it looks to be a 1"
> skew shoulder or rabbet plane. Blade needs a bit of work--it's in good
> shape but the angle isn't quite right.
>
> I plan to clean it up and get it into usable condition this weekend.
>
> Any sage advice would be welcome.