ZK Project Notebook

Some photos of the finished plane. Big images are here.

For whatever reason (probably just to see if I could), I made a computer drawing of the plane. Boy, the complex curves were really difficult. Probably not, as they are just distorted circles and ellipses joined in funny ways. I do wish TurboCAD had ways to smooth arc & arc/line joins.

If you would like to check it out (and hopefully build one for yourself), you can download the TurboCAD drawing (30K) or a one page PDF (170K; it is the full size drawing over there -->).

Raney commented about my “squid” “concept”:

Maybe a wedged miter, with a grip for your back hand integrated into the wedge? Heck, maybe an enormous bulb and you could rechristen it 'the octopus'…
… [improved mitre planes are] totally uncomfortable to use.

I gotta say, he knows what he is talking about (I’ve never used one, I think Konrad Sauer coined the term “de-proved” mitre plane, my term would be “disproved”). Even though I made the cap screw domed, it really digs into my hand, it is hard to use one handed and the ergonomics just seem vile. What to do? I decided to add shroud to the cap screw, aka poop deck, aka fake wedge, aka palm rest. It seems pretty silly, and redundant, to be adding a wedge but it does work and is reasonably comfy. It is clamped to the iron by the cap screw. I faired it around the cap in an attempt to add a bit of pizzazz.

I was calling this plane “swayback” but I think I’ll change it to “humpty dumpty”.

Notice the paper shim under the iron; the infill dried out and the back shrank (about 0.012”) when using heat to cure the finish. Which doesn’t seem like much but it was enough to keep the end of iron from contacting the mouth block. Arg. After about a week, it has now regained about half that. Which makes me wonder what is going to happen this summer, even though my other wooden bedded mitre doesn’t have any seasonal problems. Not a plane to ship to AZ. I think a vertical rod (metal or long grain wood) in the thick part of the bed will be on future planes.
The final palm rest taking a test run and some prototypes carved from fir.

Here is [most of] my collection of small planes, two high angles bookending three low angles. The Vertas is probably the best designed and constructed but, for some reason, I don’t use it much (I’m guessing it too heavy for my tastes). So I’m making this plane as a general purpose block like plane. The Gordon palm smoother is a wonderful little plane, one handed or two, very useable, useful, and comfortable, my only gripe is I have a hard time adjusting it (I need a square hammer). It was interesting to me that the shapes are pretty similar, maybe there aren’t all that many shapes that work well.

With the plane set to take a not-very-thin shaving, the mouth is 0.006” (six thousandths of an inch, a sheet and a half of paper). Paradoxically, the deeper the cut, the smaller the mouth gets (since the bevel gets thicker as the blade is pushed into the mouth).

You can see that I’m not all that concerned with a polished sole. This was flattened on a medium India oil stone. I start out with PSA (sticky backed) sand paper on a flat surface but I’ve never gotten anything truly flat that way so I finish up with other methods (such as the oil stone, diamond plate or sand paper on a long stick (better control of material removal)).

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).