Shoulder Plane

[marinosr]

@marinosr Thanks for sharing this link. I was not aware of Mr. Sauer or his work. Impressive. After spending some time on his site I am curious about what tools he uses to cut out the plane sides and soles. Does he use a milling or CNC machine, or does he do this all with hacksaws and hand files?

It's all hacksaws and hand files for him (and an amazing Yates-American Y36 36" snowflake bandsaw for the wood parts). The prices are commensurate with the quality of the work, I assure you A basic smoother starts at $2k if I recall correctly, and they easily climb to the high four figures from there. He's an amazing artisan (as are you) with his craft honed over many many years.

 

[Richo B]

I've also gone several years without acquiring a shoulder plane. The plane you made looks amazing but may be a little too challenging for me. I'll keep looking at antique shops.

 

[creasman]

It's all hacksaws and hand files for him

That is truly impressive. I would love to see his shop and watch him at work.

 

[bs7584]

I don't know why but I've always been intimidated to work with metal. Beautiful!

 

[creasman]

I don't know why but I've always been intimidated to work with metal. Beautiful!

Thanks! I was a bit intimidated as well until I tried a few simple parts such as making ferrules or brass escutcheons. The first tool I made which has a significant amount of metal work was a router plane. This got me hooked on shaping metal with files and tempering steel. Like anything else, skills grow through practice. I'm getting better but still have a lot of areas where I'd like to improve. My encouragement to anyone interested is to give it a try. There is a different sort of satisfaction that comes from using a tool you made.

Besides the tools you make you will also begin to acquire specialized metal-working tools. I now have a collection of specialized files, most of which I've gotten at estate sales. I purchased a metal lathe a couple of years ago as well. I suppose next in line is a milling machine unless I run out of tools to make before then.

 

[BML]

Very nice!