Peter McBride

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TOOL MAKING PAGE

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A couple of small planes. The wood infill is Australian Hickory Wattle (Acacia implexa)

These two planes started with a length of 1 1/2"square extruded brass tube found at the scrap metal merchants. I made the lever caps using a hacksaw, drill and files. The knurling on the knobs was done using a simple tool I made, seen here. I wanted to try a couple of techniques for planemaking, especially soldering bases on with lead solder, and also using silver solder to fabricate the body. This allows the base to be filed for the blade with the front open.

  

The longer plane has a steel plate lead soldered onto the base. After I filed the base for the blade to bed at the correct angle I made a nose piece, which is screwed onto the front with three 1/8 in. machine screws on each side. I soldered the plate on the plane body after binding them together with wire. A different but much quicker technique than I've used previously. seen here 

The piece of 1/4 in. brass angle was cut filed to size, and the 2 small lugs were filed to adjust the throat opening, then the nose piece was drilled, tapped and screwed to the sides.

On the smaller plane I cut the front of the base out so I could form the angled bed for the blade, then made a 1/4 in. brass block to close the front and silver soldered it into place. The brass is extruded and even after annealing is still quit hard. If the base doesn't hold up when I use the plane, I might take the wood out in the future and solder a steel plate on the base.

I found the brass distorted when heated, more so when silver soldered, so I had to place the bodies over a block of steel and beat them back square.

Copyright © Peter McBride 2007