My new handplane--inspiration from WOOD, innovation by me

It’s as pretty a piece of sculpture as it is a plane, well done.
Mark

-- Mark DeCou - American Contemporary Craft Artisan - www.decoustudio.com

I love the looks of your plane’s as for giving you help I don’t know that much about hand plane’s to help

-- Nimkee** Joe

That is some seriously wicked grain on the wood on the sides. What is that wood? Very pretty.

I’m not an experienced builder of wooden planes, but from what you are describing, your problem with the wedge is due to the fact that by using the steeper York Pitch effectively made the bed for the iron closer to the pin. Your idea to use a brass cap iron is a pretty good idea. I had a small plane that had that type of cap iron and it worked well. Otherwise, the only thing that come to my mind would be to knock out the pin and redrill and move it a little closer to the front of the plane.

Doc

-- Hey, woodworking ain't brain surgery. Just do something and keep trying till you get it. Doc

Beautiful. Too bad it’s not working right for you. I’m not a plane expert, but the difference in irons can be night and day. For high quality plane like that I’d see if I could buy a Hock iron to fit it.

-- Benjamen Johnson, Burbs of Minneapolis

can you thin down the wedge and let it move further down on the blade? It would give you more support to the cutting edge of the blade. Or bit the bullet and move the pin and use a thicker blade, Either a Hock or make your own out of some 0-1. Learning to make your own will open up all kinds of ideas of new planes. And its easy.

-- Richard http://www.PictureTrail.com/gallery/view?username=thewizz

I agree with Richard. Get the wedge lower. Either build a longer wedge, or thin the existing one to get it lower.

Oh, and great looking plane!!

-- There is nothing like the sound of a well tuned hand plane. - http://timetestedtools.wordpress.com (timetestedtools at hotmail dot c0m)

It looks great, but I have always wondered if a show pony can also be a work horse.

I agree with the sculpture atribute. It looks like a formula 1 plane..

-- Dreaming patterns

I agree with the others, thin up the wedge before you try anything else. It looks from the pictures that you have some wood to work with on that wedge. I also freely admit that I have never built a hand plane, so what do I know. It is a nice looking plane and would be worth some work to get it functional.

-- Bondo Gaposis

How is the throat set? With a steep angle, an incorrectly spaced throat might cause chatter. Just a thought. Plane looks AMAZING – hope you get it tuned up!!

-- "Do, or do not. There is no try." ~Yoda

Thanks everyone for the compliments and input.

@MacSteveT—The throat is definitely wider than I would have liked. It got a little out of square when I was jointing the bottom and I couldn’t stand that. I have already been looking at mortising in a block to close the gap. Maybe something that is replaceable or brass. Dunno.

@bondogaposis, zwizard, Don W—I agree with you on the wedge. The only aspect of playing with the wedge that is a little dicey is once you lose a certain slope, the wedge tends to be super tight and doesn’t adjust with a hammer like it should. However, I would prefer having to reset the blade to having to move that pin. I could hide it, but you know how it goes. You know it’s there, and it just jumps out at you even if everyone else misses it. ;)

Also, I was just playing around with it after work and I noticed that part of my problem is that the blade is not sharpened square to the sides. It’s only out by 1/32” or so, but this blade doesn’t have a lot of play on the ramp, so this out-of-squareness is causing me to set the blade deeper to get a cut across the full width. Given how soft the metal is, I should be able to fix that almost effortlessly. WAY easier than squaring an A2 blade.

@zwizard—I would be interested in learned how to make a blade. I tend to avoid the grinder because I end up bluing the steel.

Thanks agains, guys.

I thought it was a lounge chair until I read your description and looked at a larger picture, great looking tool and wonderful job, thanks for sharing

-- Norman

Awesome looking piece, nicely done.

-- Martin ....always count the number of fingers you have before, and after using the saw.

This morning, I took my 1 1/2” Hock blade out of my block plane and tried it. The chatter issue went away entirely. I think I am going to buy another Hock iron and just call it a lesson learned.

The wedge is going to get interesting to accommodate the additional thickness of the new iron. I could just barely get the tip under the pin and I am afraid that thinning it might make it too brittle. Would it be completely crazy to make a combo wedge/chip breaker using my old blade? I am thinking that if I thinned the wedge and used epoxy to laminate the old blade to the back of the wedge it would protect the wedge and i could have some semblance of a chip breaker, though I haven’t really seen that the Hock iron is bothered by the lack of one.

Any thoughts?

I don’t think the problem primarily is with the wedge. I have made a lot of planes and the usual cause of the problem is the blade not bedding against the body properly. You can blue the back of the blade with vivid marker and then rub it against the body to show where it is touching and where it is not. Scrape down the high points until the blade beds down all over. Check that the bottom of the wedge is not jamming the shavings and blocking them from coming out. If so thin the bottom of the outer edge of the wedge.

Check that the blade is flat. They often have a curve in them. Gently whack with a hammer to straighten. A thin blade is not a problem in itself provided it cannot vibrate.

If you have trouble bedding the blade cut out a piece of paper or two and slip them between the bade and the body. An old Japanese trick. This works well mostly.

-- RusticJohn