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9 October 2021 at 1:59 am #731891
I’ve found that split shavings (and other degradation of the blade) can often follow from hitting just one or two knots, requiring the edge to be cleaned up by resharpening it. Microscopic nicks and roughness in the edge can be detected by lightly dragging the end of your fingernail across it, but obviously be very careful when doing this.
4 January 2021 at 1:56 pm #692926I just finished making some windows for a new shed/workshop I’m building (see attached). I followed the YouTube series by Bradshaw Joinery called “Oak Casement Window” in which a guy designs and builds a double-glazed oak window. He uses a lot of industrial machinery but the series is good to get an idea of the design and build principles. The first video in particular is very useful as it walks through the design drawings in detail. A modern window has a lot of technical features to control water (e.g. drip edges, grooves to prevent capillary action, drainage holes, and of course rubber seals) which you might not be familiar with if you (like me) are building a window for the first time.
As Larry said, you may need to make sure thermal performance meets local building regulations if you’re going to install them in a dwelling (mine is and outbuilding so not subject to those rules, but I still want it to be warm inside). My windows are simple single-casement designs with standard 28mm double glazed units. I don’t have machinery to cut large rebates and couldn’t work out a good way to do it with hand tools so I formed them by attaching stops with screws and glue (unfortunately the stain finish I used has highlighted the screw plugs which were previously quite subtle). They’re a bit rustic looking but overall I’m very pleased with them. Next time I’d glue on the stops using clamps rather than screws.
I’d say that window-making is definitely achievable for an amateur woodworker, although I’d advise practicing on an outbuilding window or a cheap pine prototype before making a start with expensive hardwood.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.4 January 2021 at 1:01 pm #692920Great information Larry, thanks for sharing.
The engine paint method seems to hit the sweet spot for me between durability, ease of application and looks. 18 months ago I painted a couple of planes which I had stripped back to bare metal. I used some rattle cans of primer and black paint which I had kicking around. The results were quite poor – it didn’t look at all right and began to chip off after a few months. I’m sure engine paint will perform a lot better. The Dupli-color paint you mention is still available but shipping it across the pond doubles the price, so I’ll look for a similar UK product.
My #4 (attached) has quite a glossy finish which I was using as my reference for how a plane “should” look. I thought this might be the original japanning, although it could well have been painted by a previous owner. In any case I’m a user not a collector so I’d be more than happy if all of my planes looked like that one.
Cheers
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You must be logged in to view attached files.31 December 2020 at 9:11 am #692313Apologies for straying off-topic – the Japanning on your planes looks really good Larry. Did you do it yourself, and if so would you mind sharing your technique?
4 December 2020 at 9:45 am #688787Its sounds like you got a good repair with the squeeze-out on all faces. I have found that Titebond-3 is a good glue in these situations – it is quite runny and has a long open time. I prize open the crack as much as I dare and then squeeze in this glue from the top as far as I can, and let gravity pull it down for 5 minutes. This glue will move down several inches in that time, even in tight cracks.
I’ve made a similar mistake on quite a few occasions. My understanding is that joints should be just tight enough that a couple of fist or a light mallet blows will close them up. However I often forget this and resort to acts of barbarianism when the fit is too tight.
14 September 2020 at 12:45 am #678004Thanks all. I meant to include a photo of the sole earlier – see attached. As I mentioned, the sole in front of the mouth has already been replaced at least once. Nevertheless the mouth looks a bit wide to me. I don’t think I’ll be able to disassemble the thing in the pub as it is quite dirty, so Colin’s suggestion of borrowing it is the only option for a good look at the iron and other internals.
Regarding the point about what long planes are actually useful for – it’s a fair question. Nowadays I find I can get pretty good results straightening and squaring the edges of boards with a 5 1/2. I guess I’m just curious to see if a longer plane makes that easier or better in some way. For flattening a board I would generally use scrub and jack planes to get it roughly flat and twist-free on one side, followed by a couple of passes through a lunchbox thickness planer, and finish with a smoothing plane.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.6 September 2020 at 8:45 am #676988That tool looks like it would be very useful for trimming tenons, due to its asymmetric design. I believe you’ve used a veritas router blade? And I assume a large eye bolt runs through the centre of the tool to the tightening nut?
Nice work, thanks for sharing.
27 July 2020 at 2:17 pm #671548In the UK it’s pretty common to buy ¾” (18-19mm) machine-planed stock from a DIY store or timber merchant. After hand-planing it would probably end up at about 5/8. Perhaps that is where the dimensions come from.
If you can start with ¾” stock it would definitely save a lot of time, effort and wood!
10 July 2020 at 4:54 pm #669085I believe the most likely issues are that either the board is convex along its length (in which case the plane will only bite at the ends) or the plane iron has a bevel that is too steep. If you sharpen by hand, or even if you are not careful when using a strop, it is possible to change the angle right at the tip of the blade to beyond 45 degrees, after which the tip will no longer meet the flat surface of the wood. The plane will still work in pine as the blade can bite into the soft surface by a fraction of a mm, but it will fail on harder woods. If this is the case you can restore the bevel to 25 degrees using a honing guide or similar, and then evaluate your sharpening technique to figure out what is causing the angle to steepen.
Hope you manage to resolve it one way or the other.
3 May 2020 at 11:16 am #659785Thanks Colin, that’s very helpful. I see what you mean about the lack of distinction between grain orientations in the finished joint.
As the finished project will be right in front of me for most of my working day I would like it to look as nice as possible, so I think I will build it with the normal grain orientations for the dovetails. I have a few ideas about how to reinforce the legs across the grain to allay my concerns about them breaking off, and will go with one of those.
Cheers,
Stu.
31 January 2020 at 9:49 am #647097Yes that handle looks great – what a huge improvement! Thanks Dionysios.
I’m inspired to try the same thing on my S&J saw. Can anyone advise the best way to remove the rivets, without damaging the handle?
24 January 2020 at 6:13 pm #646293Yes that seems like it would work really well – I’ll definitely try that next time, as personally I struggle to keep track even with 10tpi. Also one could use the same trick to mark the fleam direction when sharpening a cross-cut saw. I have only a small number of saws so it might be worth making something reusable for each one.
Many thanks!
21 January 2020 at 11:26 am #645814Yes that looks really good – lovely details with the large chamfers, and also the scallops at the bottom. Is the wood sapele?
Great work.
Stu
1 January 2020 at 9:45 am #641700Also if you have a metric ruler, 4mm spacing would give you very close to 6 Tpi. If you need to accurately divide an inch into 6, draw a right-angled triangle with one of the short sides 1″ and with a 1.5″ hypotenuse. Then mark off 1/4″ points on the hypotenuse and drop them perpendicular onto the 1″ side, to leave you with six evenly-spaced points on the 1″ line. Obviously you can extend this technique for any Tpi by choosing suitable lengths and divisions. I recall that Paul Sellers demonstrates a similar trick for dovetail spacing in one of his videos.
Going back to the original question – if the existing teeth are evenly spaced and you just want to change the rake then you may not need to file them off completely. In which case if you still want to use Paul’s jig, you should transfer the tooth spacing from your blade onto the jig using the trick he demonstrates with a hacksaw blade.
1 January 2020 at 8:19 am #641683Hi Rafael
Those boxes are very beautiful. Presumably, a portion of the end-grain block is morticed into the base of the box, which looks to be at least an inch deep, and twice that in some cases.
I’m about to build a holder for diamond plates and I wonder if the same thing would be of use. What is the sharpening technique that would benefit from this? I assume that the end-grain is to be used as a landing surface for the tool at the end of the sharpening stroke? I guess the end grain would need to be very closely aligned to the surface of the stone in order to avoid damaging the edge as it runs from one surface to the other.
Also, the watery slurry from diamond-plate sharpening might be more damaging to end-grain than oily slurry from an oilstone.
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