Reply To: Plough plan?
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I have been in the process of updating a stairway in our house (built by my grandfather) with walnut treads, and I decided on a sugar maple inlay on the treads for a little extra decoration. The steps were 10″ deep, 32″ wide and the inlay strip 5/16″ wide, so cutting with a handsaw didn’t seem like an option. I needed a groove, but had no plough plane.
I did the knife / chisel approach for one step. I should’ve used the marking gauge and it would’ve helped with areas where the knife wanted to follow the grain (against my trying to be careful about it). There were a one or two small areas it wasn’t as tight as I would’ve liked but everything looked good. It also took quite a while to get one done.
The second one I tried to do a knife wall and then use my stanley 71 router plane (has no fence) . There was a lot of wood to take out for the 32″ long cut, and the router plane had a tendency to undercut parts of the wall if you weren’t very careful (and stubborn where the grain was complicated). There were more areas I didn’t like on the end result of that step than the first one. It was faster than just chiseling it out, but less accurate. There was definitely a loss of control.
The real solution I found was a stanley 45 combination plane. The next steps I made were much easier to cut with the 45 (and depth was more consistent over the 32″ span). I was very pleased with the results.
The combination plane does beading and many other things as well, so you would possibly do better to look at that instead of just the plough.
good luck
-Stephen