I Made a Wooden Toothing Plane

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In the days before the belt sander, a cabinetmaker also used a toothing plane when smoothing such heavily figured woods as curly and bird's-eye maple.

Michael Dunbar, Restoring, Tuning & Using Classic Woodworking Tools, 1989


I bought several toothing blades to use in my No.3 and No.5 Stanley planes to plane some "lower" grade East Indian rosewood back and sides. The irons work, but I have to be aware of the cutting depth of the iron, grain tear out is still possible using a toothed iron in a standard plane.

At the time I made this plane, I couldn't find any decent wooden toothing planes for sale on the internet. That's a good enough reason to make time to build one.



Following and adapting the plans for the "sandwich technique" found in Wooden Planes and How to Make Them, by David G. Perch and Robert S. Lee, which you can buy here, I started with a piece of 3x3 inch oak I had in my wood cache.



I ripped the sides from the main stock on a table saw, then sized the main body with the same saw, took all the pieces back to the bench and jointed everything with a No.7 jointer and a flat sanding board.



All angled pieces were cutting with my Bosch sliding compound miter saw. The cheeks to hold the wedge in were cut by hand with a handsaw.



I glued the whole thing together with hot hide glue, not the hide glue that comes in a plastic squeeze bottle, but the glue I made in my little brass glue pot and applied with a brush.

The plane does work. I made the width of the plane a little too wide for the iron and the iron chatters a bit. I think I will make another toothing plane, but this time I will make cap for the iron to see if that reduces the chatter.


Comments

  1. HolzpassionSeptember 8, 2016 at 3:47 AM

    Hello Wilson,

    a very nice plane.
    My question, what is the iron bevel angle? Do you modified it to a scraper blade. David Fink has a nice picture in his book "making and mastering wood planes" on side 177.
    Good luck for solving the chattering iron. Maybe Gerd Fritsche can help you with a wonderful plane iron. He is located in Bavaria, near Lake Constance and an exellent specialist for planes and all replacement parts.
    Have a nice time,

    Regards from Cologne

    Uwe


    ReplyDelete
  2. Wilson BurnhamSeptember 12, 2016 at 8:26 AM

    Thanks, Uwe! The iron bevel is sharpened to 30 degrees, like most bevel down plane blades. I made a scraper plane following David Finck's instructions and I never could get it to work properly, I fiddled with the bed and wedge for hours, then I threw the body in the wood stove. This plane works much better!

    Thanks for the tip about Gerd Fritsche!

    ReplyDelete

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