Plough plane blade getting "pinched"
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- This topic has 5 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 10 months ago by YrHenSaer.
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11 November 2016 at 12:04 am #142337
Hi, I’m a new woodworker, and I have to plough a 3/8″ wide x 3/8″ deep groove. I’m using a record no 44 plane. As the cut gets deeper – close to full depth – it gets very hard to plough, as the plane gets stuck quite hard in the wood. It feels like the blade is getting pinched inside the groove. It’s the first time I’m ploughing that deep, so I never had this problem before. Any ideas, tips on that? Thanks!
Record 044s are very good planes, but they were made in numbers over a period of many years and sometimes the quality varied….. which is a way of saying that they sometimes needed a little attention when new direct from the box, which few ever had.
But your problem, not unknown, is that the whole thing is sticking at the base of the trench when set up:
The obvious thing to suspect and to eliminate first is the blade.
Look at it carefully end-on and you’ll see that it is probably trapezoidal in section. That’s to say that the back width is fractionally wider than the front. It’s intentional in order to reduce friction as the sides descend in the groove. It’s a good idea when sharpening to get and maintain a good edge for the first ½ inch or so where the back meets the edges so that it burnishes the sides as it cuts. Check that the blade is not narrower at the cutting tip than the portion at the top of the cut – if it is, try another blade, because the blade will bind at this spot and this may be the problem.If you’ve eliminated the blade and it’s good, the next thing to consider is the whether the sides of the skates are binding in the cut either front to back or top to bottom. Ideally, when set up, the two stocks are clamped together and overall, top to bottom, front to back will be approximately 0.5mm to 0.75 mm narrower than the blade width. This is important. Too much slack and the stock will shift about and give a sloppy cut, too little and it will bind…….
If this is the case…. Don’t be tempted to start filing bits off the sides…. There’s a better and easier fix.
Good luck
13 November 2016 at 2:52 pm #142390Thanks a lot for this detailed response, I’ll work on this today and let you know of the outcome.
I think that I got carried away and confused the 044 with the Stanley/Record 50/050 which has a pair of skate stocks that clamp the blade – binding in a deep trench is a problem with these planes, too. The 044 only has the one stock.
Obviously, the blade must be parallel along the working section, say the lower ¾ inch or so, and a cutting tip that is narrower than the width further up will cause the binding that you describe.
You may also consider if the metal fence is causing the tightening as the blade cuts deeper. Try loosening the fence to see if it frees the plane’s stroke.Good luck
13 November 2016 at 9:26 pm #142402How about that! The blade is indeed trapezoidal! The plane I got is rust free and true (I checked the aligments you mentionned, and it was good), but there are some rust spots on the blade, so I stroke the blade on a sharpening stone on it’s side to make sure that the width is consistent, and it helped.
… but I realised something else, at the end of each stroke, I raised the heel of the plane, but sometimes a little too much, in such a manner that the unique skate of the 44 was sinking and making a groove in the soft wood (pine) I’m plowing. So therefore on the next stroke, the skate got stuck.
Correcting those too things helped a lot.
Thanks for you help on this!@lucpourwood
Hi Luc,
All plough plane blades of this type, Record, Stanley et al are intentionally trapezoidal in section …. Except some of the modern British replacements for the 043. They seem to have forgotten this and make them rectangular.The basic skill is to ensure that the cutting tip is dead square across, the corners, most importantly must be sharp (or the blade stops cutting after a few strokes) and the sides are honed also to give a keen surface edge with the back.
I’ve never seen a plough blade yet that is properly sharpened this way from new. They come straight from the milling machine with all the marks left on that need to be polished off.
If you haven’t done so already, I’d suggest that a flat wooden fence about 30 mm deep screwed onto the metal one will improve the handling immensely.
Good luck
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