Rabbet plane build (COMPLETE)

[Scott H]

Spent some time tinkering with and tuning the plane today and it is working like a whole new tool -- very happy.

I was having some poor results actually cutting rabbets with the plane -- juddering and balking and jamming up too easily and generally making a ragged rabbet vertical wall. Probably should have been able to guess what the problem was but it took me a while. The thing that got me to figure it out was noticing it cut just perfectly when not up against a rabbet wall (ie the first few strokes) and also the fact that when establishing a rabbet it was rapidly wearing away the side wall.

I thought I was setting the iron 0.008"-0.009" out from the side wall of the plane by putting two layers of blue tape in two spots on a flat surface, laying the rabbet plane on top, pressing the iron down and then tightening the wedge. Using only one layer of tape still didn't help.

Turns out the plane has a slight dish in that side so it was actually out even farther than that, I'm not sure how much farther but the iron was ending up at least 1/64" out from the side of the plane. This was enough that the side of the blade, with its ~10 degree relief, could actually get enough depth to dig in/scrape the rabbet side wall, worse on softwoods.

I am now setting the side protrusion to the minimum I can easily achieve by laying the rabbet plane on a flat surface with no tape shims and just pressing the blade down sideways. It is maybe only out by 0.005" or something now instead of 1/64" and it works brilliantly. As I said it's like a different plane entirely.

I think it is also improving chatter although I think there will always be occasional chatter on this plane in some scenarios because of how delicate the wedge is, how steep the bed angle is, how thin the blade is, how thin the plane body is, etc.

I guess the takeaway is as always just set the blade side protrusion only far enough to not create a stepped rabbet wall.

 

[Robert LaPlaca]

Scott, first congratulations with your rabbet plane.

Wood rabbet planes are a finicky lot,, when using the plane you need to make sure your are planning uphill in both the X and Y axis. Adjusting the plane so you have right about of projection is not so easy, too little the wall of the rabbet starts ‘stepping in’ as you deepen, too much the wall of the rabbet gets wider.

 

[Scott H]

The silly thing is I know this is how you are supposed to set up a rabbet plane but it still took me a few hours of messing with it to realize I hadn't made the plane wrong, I was just using it wrong.

 

[Robert LaPlaca]

Scott, just as a FYI, I can setup my Lie-Nielsen shoulder plane pretty wrong and it will plow though rabbets with nary a complaint, even though it’s not the tools ‘real’ job. So one will ask, why not just use the metal bodied plane? Because it weights a ton, especially after you use in preparation for hollows and rounds, the mass gets old, especially for the old crotchety user (me).

 

[Scott H]

One other plane building tip that might be more important to molding planes with complex iron shapes than rabbet planes... I made the iron so that it could only barely be retracted up inside the plane. (Thinking: More iron = more plane life.) I spent some time truing the plane sole today, and since it had warped since it was made and that took off enough material that I had to grind back the iron so it wasn't sticking too far out past the sole! I would have been very upset if it was a complicated shape I had to re-grind.

I guess you could always grind the shoulder but that is definitely more annoying than just leaving a little room to retract in the first place.

Long story short, make sure the iron can retract well into the plane before profiling and hardening it, because you are likely to go through more wood sole than steel when initially tuning a new plane.

 

[Scott H]

Reading "Traditional Wooden Handplanes" by Scott Wynn today and it says "I do not recommend maple. Maple is hard and dense but does not grip the blade well." May explain some of the issues I had with this plane gripping the blade. I made a krenov style scrub plane out of hard maple and it did not seem to have issues but this particular design might be more sensitive to coefficient of friction between the iron and wood.

I almost wonder if sandblasting the iron or something would have helped, but for now the fine sandpaper shim trick is working okay.