Grooving Planes - Some Tips on How to Make Them

An artist prepares for weeks, months, and years...but lives only for moments. Moments, then that have no sense of time.

Gustave Leonhardt, harpsichordist



This is not a "how-to" post.

I just want to pass on some things I learned about assembling them. I hope these tips help you.

I assume many of you are interested in making these neat little grooving planes, but haven't gotten around to making a pair yet.

Bob Easton was the first person to bring them to my attention, be sure to check out his blog.

I am grateful that Lie Nielsen has posted Matt Kenney's great article on how to make them. Click here for the article.

Accidental Wood Worker also has a great post on these little planes, click here for that posting.




I am making these planes so I can cut the saddle slot in a guitar's bridge without using a table saw. The skate depth is 4mm and the plane's fence is 5mm from the iron.

This morning, with Mr. Kenney's article on the work bench, I started glueing parts together.

When I started glueing the "bed" for the iron I had a devil of a time trying to keep it in it's proper position, it kept shifting under the clamps' pressure even after the glue got a little tacky.

Everything turned out fine, proper skate depth, etc., but I wanted to eliminate the risk of the next piece moving under clamp pressure.

Then it hit me...all I needed were some brass brads!




I didn't follow Mr. Kenny's instructions and made the plane about one half inch bigger than what his plans call for. I learned long ago to make tool parts larger so I can make them smaller, you know, "room for mistakes".

This extra wood gives me room to use "registering nails".

All I do for this is snip off the head of a brass brad and chuck it into a drill. This is my drill bit. Now with the wood clamped where I want it, I drill the number of holes needed and insert brass brads, that still have their heads, home into their respective holes.

Then I remove the brads, apply glue to the piece in question, re-insert the brads, position the piece, push the brads home and then apply clamps. Nothing should shift.

Pretty simple, huh?

I use this technique when I glue veneer onto the head stock of a guitar neck.




I did the same thing for the other blank to complete the plane.

I then ripped it to finished width on the table saw and trimmed it to length on my sliding compound miter saw.




Making the plane work.

I tried to keep the mouth opening to under 1/64th of an inch, it's a little wider than that, but the big problem that I ran into was the shavings constantly clogged the mouth.

I rounded over the very end of the iron wedge so the shavings would ride over it, but the size of the escapement became the next problem.

I had to chisel away some of the area in the escapement that is just above the mouth and just below the wedge, you'll see what I mean if you follow Mr. Kenney's instructions to a "T".

On the next plane, I am going to use a 3/16" or so drill bit chucked into the drill press to remove this offending area. And don't forget to make the skate a little narrower than the iron, that part is in the instructions, it really helps make the plane work better.

I finally got decent shavings from a piece of California laurel after about a half hour of fiddling with the plane.

The plane works like a dream and is well worth the time and effort.

And remember - Hand tools rule the school!


If I have posted this video before, my apologies!

Scott Tennant is an incredible musician and I really like this piece by Couperin!

Enjoy!





Comments

  1. You're right Wilson. One of the harder parts of making these planes was getting the slip/slide under control. After that, it's all a matter of fine fiddling til they work. I know you're going to enjoy yours.

    I enjoy Scott Tennant too, for his excellent skill of course, but also for his entertaining facial expressions. So many guitarists stare directly at their instruments with intense concentration. Scott looks off into the distance most of the time and often shows an expression of surprise or satisfaction when a passage goes particularly well. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You want to see facial anctedotes watch Marc Teicholz! Ugh!

      Delete
  2. As an aside....
    Since you moderate comments anyway, why do you keep that damned CAPTCHA enabled?

    What CAPTCHAs do best is ANNOY people who have to get past them. The right answer is a REAL spam prevention service... and THAT is the responsibility of the service provider (Blogger - owned by Google), NOT the visitor. Google has absolutely superb spam prevention technology for Gmail, but somehow can't be bothered to use it on Blogger.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So what do I need to do to unable those dreadful whatchacallits?

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts