| Blog series by llwynog | updated 03-06-2012 05:14 PM | 4 parts | 72155 reads | 31 comments total |
Part 1: Wooden body
I own a die and tap to thread wood but the diameter is 3/4” and this is a dowel size I can’t find locally.I have thus decided to try and build a rounding plane / dowel maker to create my own 3/4” dowels. A rounding plane is is like a giant pencil sharpener with a cone shaped inlet and an outlet bored to the exact size of the desired dowel.I never held such a tool in my hands and the only ressource I have is an old Fine Woodworking article I remember which gave 2 guideline...
Part 2: The blade
I am back with a new update which brings us to the current state of the project.First of all, thanks to everyone who shared their interest on this experiment.As I basically make it up as I go along, any advice, past experience or actual tool description is very welcome. I did not have a spare blade lying around so I bought a cheap (still it is high carbon steel and appears to hold an edge decently) block plane blade. I chose a block plane blade as the metal is thicker than many bevel down ...
Part 3: Tool making gone fractal + finishing the blade holder
If I ever succeed in making a usable rounding plane, it will be a tool to be used with a tool to make a tool.The rounding plane makes a dowel, which is used with a wood die to shape a thread in order to make a clamp such as these http://lumberjocks.com/projects/49549 Then it got convoluted when I realized that I needed yet another tool to be able to recess the blade into the blade holder somewhat accurately.As I do not own a router plane and as I did not wish to use my electric router, my ...
Part 4: Test run with first prototype
Now that the first prototype is finished, here are the results of the test run: Adjusting the blade itself was easy enough : just tapping the blade a little at a time until it cut enough for the finished dowel to go through the exit hole. I also had a little tweaking to do on the body for the blade to cut properly: I used a small rounding plane and some files to straighten the cone shape (remember how it was slightly crooked at the junction between the cone and the exit hole?). I al...
