Jeez, I hate waiting for finish to dry. So I didn’t and started to use the plane. Made some much needed ergo improvements. Verdict: it sure works well. In this photo, I’m planeing a chunk of oak flooring against the grain. No tear out and a very smooth surface.

Next up: birds eye maple flooring (yes, birds eye maple flooring. And this is scrap from a job that involved thousands of square feet of it). Here we have a 55º bevel down smoother (2” x 1/4” iron) and a 55º bevel up smoother (1 1/4” x 1/8” iron), both set to approximately the same depth of cut. As far as I could tell, no difference, both were able to do a very nice job (ie very smooth, no tear out, finish ready).

Here is a photo that says more with what it doesn’t show. But I like it so you get to see it. Here are three planes, 47.5 (or so) degrees, 55 degrees and 60 degrees (left to right). Two metal infills, one woodie (HNT Gordon), all have 1/4” irons bedded on wood, or mostly wood with metal (middle). No girlie man adjusters. So I was having a plane-off, pulling every piece of wood out of the piles and seeing if there are differences between them. Short answer, yes, lower angle takes less effort to push (or pull). But you knew that. Is one better than the others? No, they are just different. Depending on the wood, one will work better than the others. About the only other conclusion I have is the Gordon is a pain the butt to adjust compared to the others. I have a truly nasty to plane piece of purpleheart, and while I was finally able to get all three to plane with the grain (forget against the grain), the finish wasn’t very good. Scrapers and sand paper leave a better finish (the stretchers on this bench, the rest is a joy to plane) . After that bit of frustration, I pulled out a chunk of mahogany just to have some fun. Planed with the grain, against the grain, forwards, backwards, upside down, behind my back, the planes worked great. About the only conclusion I can draw is a nick in the iron will split the shaving (middle).

The untold story is twofold. The amount of screwing around I did to get the planes adjusted for the photo shoot. Quite a bit more effort than plugging in the ROS. Then again, I usually don’t do much adjusting when I grab a plane and use it.


The funny part (to me anyway) was after I took the photo and finished patting myself on the back about how well these “fancy” smoothing planes worked, I went “hmmm, I wonder how other planes work”? In a word, great. I tried Stanley Baileys, Bedrocks, shoulder planes, low angle planes; basically everything on the Wall-O-Planes (except the block planes, forgot). The only one that had problems was the Sargent 407 (#2 sized), which, in general, has issues but is too cute to put in a box on a shelf somewhere. Lesson,: this photo doesn’t tell you anything about how “great” these planes are compared to old iron. However, I have lots of woods where there isn’t any comparison: these planes do, Stanley’s don’t (but I bet Varitas or LN would).

A gratuitous photo of one of my infill planes being used to plane a shoulder plane infill (try to say that five times fast). All brass mitre plane with purple heart infill taking a few thou off another chunk of purple heart.

Arg! So much for ability for epoxy to stick to anything. The sample brass/wood/brass sandwich popped right apart when lightly smacked with a hammer. I don’t know if it was improper surface prep (I sanded (150) and cleaned with acetone), crappy epoxy (30 minute Bob Jones) or what but I sure don’t feel good about it. So, go old school and nail the infill in. The most important place is above the wedge as there is a lot of force there trying to remove the infill. I’m using 1/8” low fuming bronze brazing rod (the stuff you get at the welding store to braze steel with).
Pros: it is 0.001” over size so it will be a nice fit in a 1/8” hole. It is a different color from brass so you see, and admire, the pleasing pin placement and amazing craftsmanship it took to put them there (half serious – I do like to see construction details (like dovetails or finger joints).
Cons: harder than brass, crumbles if you try to mushroom it too much, visible. This bronze really isn’t an ideal material for the pins – it doesn’t mushroom as anywhere as nicely as 360 brass. Use only if you like the color.

Addendum: I epoxy’d two pieces of brass together and they are one. Color me confused.
Addendum2: Further testing shows that that cutting off the corners generated enough heat to caused the glue failure. I use a small power bandsaw to free hand the corners and gets the brass hot enough even though I don’t wear gloves (however, the cut area is too hot to touch). In my test, the failure was complete – the brass detached from the wood (in the glue) while being sawn. This article on West System epoxy indicates the epoxy I’m using can’t take the heat (unlike some epoxies).

Procedure:
- Drill holes and lightly ream with a tapered reamer. You want a shallow taper (maybe half way through the side) that the pin can expand into and wedge. Too big and you’ll never fill the hole.
- Cut some pins a little over 1/16” too long. Too much longer and and you’ll never be able to smash them all the way back to the sides. Lightly chamfer one face (the driven face).
- Tap in the pin, center it, lay it on the anvil and smack the pins a couple of times on each side to start the mushroom. Use a belled (curved) face hammer (less dent damage if you miss). The Japanese style hammer pictured has a flat face and a belled face (showing).
- Center punch the pin and then punch in a ring around the center. Don’t punch the edge or the punch will slip (or the pin edge will break) and you will dent the plate (really – a flaked edge leaves a crater). Use a rounded over or blunt punch – pictured is a el cheapo punch that I actually tried to use as a punch, which flattened the end and now I have a nicely rounded punch.
- Smack the pins with the hammer a few more times for good measure.
- File. Be surprised at how far away from the pin the brass has swollen, about one diameter.
- *NOTE* you don’t need much force. Control is your friend; miss and it creates a hell of a mess. Use shields (such as real thin washers). Use an anvil / big chunk of steel or you’ll just move the pin back and forth.

There are four pins in the photo: one freshly inserted, one peened, and two finished. The marks are from not cleaning the anvil (opps).

For the DIY AL13 plane, there are a couple of metal bits to make (depending on how crazy I get), lots of wood and metal shaping and lots of assembly. The body being stainless, there is going to be a mass of silver, it will be interesting to see what wood I use to get the proper contrast. Ebony would probably be quite nice but I don’t know if I can break into my [black as night] ebony 2x4 stash.

I haven’t received the kit yet, but I’ve been eyeballing Johnny Kleso’s (Rex Mill) lever cap screws that he made for the likes of Ron Brese (who makes an A13 styled plane). So I decided to make one. Andy didn’t have any stainless rod but I had some 1” titanium rod that I thought would look better than brass. It has a 3/8” x 16 (NC) thread and 0.855” OD head (a bit under 7/8”) (1” squares under the screw). I eyeballed everything, no measurements (other than the thread OD), no die (Ti doesn’t like dies), no nothing, just me, a Sharpie and a lathe. The top (rings and all) is supposed to represent a pagoda, why, I don’t know, I wasn’t conscious of it at the time. If I had CNC, I would have made the top dished.