# Building a Moving Fillister Plane



## Wally331 (Nov 8, 2012)

*Precursor and laminating the body *

Intro-

I've been using a lot of wooden planes recently and have really come to enjoy their lightness and the feel of wood sliding on wood. Obviously there are a ton of vintage woodies out there; however, I quite enjoy making my own versions of them. They are a lot cheaper (if you have some time on your hands) and you don't have to deal with old warped wood and a host of other problems you may encounter. I can't say I am an expert by any means, I'm simply sharing my experience and hoping to pass some knowledge along to you. This series is going to be fairly long because it is so involved and there are many steps, but I promise to make it as interesting as possible  I have left out some small details and accompanying pictures just to reduce how long this series will be, if you have any questions feel free to ask!









Method to my madness-

Anyways, with my two smoothers and rabbet/moulding planes working so well, I decided that something a bit more complex was in order. I've been eyeing up a moving fillister for awhile now and figured it would be cool to build. They seem to be an extremely quick, efficient, and clean plane to use. They are also extremely versatile and don't appear to be terribly difficult to make.

To simplify construction I opted to laminate my plane. I'm not sure if this have ever been done before but it worked extremely well for me and it's so easy anyone can do it and come out with a spectacular plane. I'd call this method sort of a hybrid krenov style plane. 
I think that a short pro's list is in order to see why I am laminating the plane rather then making it from a solid block.

Pros
*Simplified construction
*No special tool required
*Superior wedge fitting for amateurs
*possibly more stable then a solid block
Cons
*Glue lines
*the laminations may eventually fail

The pros of my method definitely outweigh the cons as far as I am concerned. I will probably be long dead before the glue lines fail and any visible glue lines will eventually blend in with use. With all that said, its time to start building the plane.

Part 1. The Body

I started off with a decent sized piece of cherry, about 3.5 in. square and 10 in. long. This was a table leg blank and is perfectly quartersawn. Stock selection is one of the most important parts of this build so pay close attention here. The blank must be quartersawn, straight grained, and as defect free as possible. Any hardwood will do fine really. Also just as a note, the blade I am using is a Lie-Nielsen 1 and 5/8 in. tapered moulding plane blank.

I laid out the angles of the mouth and the skew- bedded at 45 degrees with a 20 degree skew. This is probably the most common set of angles on vintage planes so I saw no reason to stray from them. The old-timers knew whats up. I also laid out the general locations and widths of the rabbets on either side of the body. I believe these are mainly to reduce weight and make holding it more comfortable.









With the general layout done I sliced a side off ~.5 in thick and proceeded to flatten and smooth it. This will make up the non-escapement side of the plane.

The next part is the center of the plane- These pieces go on either side of the blade and wedge. The back piece is what the blade beds on, and the front is what the wedge beds on. Once again, rip a slice off of your blank either with a bandsaw or tablesaw. These should be a bit wider then the tang of your blade. Shoot for about and 1/8 in. thicker then your tang. By the time you have flattened and smoothed the slice you will be almost perfect.

The final piece is the escapement side. This also houses the cross-grain nicker, depth stop, and makes up the majority of the bed. This slice is at wide as the blade minus the tang. In my case about and inch and an eigth.









Right now you essentially have three slices of wood. The next step is to cut the bed and escapement. Set the non-escapement piece aside as it is not needed for this step. In order to make sure that the middle pieces and escapement have the exact same angles I advise screwing the other two pieces together. Two screws about an inch in at either side will work fine. Double stick tape is probably even better. At the table saw, tilt your blade to 45 degrees, and set your miter gauge to 20 degrees. Make sure your skew layout lines match up, aswell as your bed angle. The blade should be raised up to the hand-hold rabbets. Make one cut at this angle through both pieces forming the bed and then change the blade tilt by 12 degrees to form the front of the mouth.


















From there you can unscrew the two pieces. The next step is to finish the cuts in the middle block. Keep the blade at the same angles and cut just shy of the line. Then go in with a block plane and trim then up. You must not change the skew angle, or crown the bed. Use the part that the tablesaw cut to register a plane or chisel back so that these are perfecty flat and skewed at 20 degrees.









Your plane is now 4 parts consisting of a non-escapement side sidewall, the bed slice, front of the mouth slice, and the escapement side sidewall. At this point in time you can glue the bed and mouth slices into the escapement sidewall. This is one of the most important steps of all. During the glue up you have to ensure that the angles line up perfectly with each other. Check multiple time to see that your clamps didn't slip. The bed is more important to the planes function that the mouth, so really do your best to get them lined up









Now before you glue the non-escapement side on, you can make and fit the wedge. The wedge is 12 degrees if you followed the above, but otherwise the small cutoff that you have from separating the bed and mouth will tell you the exact angle. Cut it out from a piece of scrap, and then with a sliding bevel set to 20 degrees, plane the top and bottom of your wedge until they are exactly bang on at 20 degrees, with the correct taper over its length. keep fitting the wedge until there are no gaps and it sits very tightly with hand pressure. This step is so much easier with the laminations because you can actually see the wedge for a perfect fit. No floats needed!


















Plane the wedge just a few thousands thinner then the center sections and go ahead and glue the other side on. You now have basically have a perfectly cut mortise, skewed at 20 degrees and a good flat bed to match. Perfectly fitting wedge and no special tool required. You can now cut those handhold rabbets and chamfer the edges to your hearts desire.









Thanks for reading, stay tuned for part two which will include adding boxing, the nicker, depth stop, and maybe the fence if your lucky  If you have any questions just post em and I will do my best to answer.


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## rodk1 (Oct 2, 2009)

Wally331 said:


> *Precursor and laminating the body *
> 
> Intro-
> 
> ...


I'm very interested in this ! Thanks a lot for sharing this with us, I'm so looking forward to it.


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## Buckethead (Apr 14, 2013)

Wally331 said:


> *Precursor and laminating the body *
> 
> Intro-
> 
> ...


A beautiful build, and you make it seem so easy. I suspect I might curse. 

Thanks for sharing this! Truly impressive plane.


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## grfrazee (Jul 17, 2012)

Wally331 said:


> *Precursor and laminating the body *
> 
> Intro-
> 
> ...


Looking good, Chris. I recently picked up a set of NOS plow plane blades that I want to turn into a woodie plow, and this blog will be a big help when it comes to building mine.


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## mochoa (Oct 9, 2009)

Wally331 said:


> *Precursor and laminating the body *
> 
> Intro-
> 
> ...


I'm officially impressed! this thing is bad aas! I wont one!.


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## Wally331 (Nov 8, 2012)

*Boxing, Depth Stop, Fence and even a nicker*

Pics will be in a few minutes…

Where exactly did I leave off last time…ahh the main body is essentially done, and now all the adjustment features are all that's left.

Boxing

The one weakness of cherry for planes is that it's just a little bit soft. Not much softer then beech, but enough that a harder sole will help over the years. Especially on a fillister or rabbet plane where almost all of the wear is on a corner. I chose bubinga to box it with, because its what I had and it's tough as nails.

















I didn't really take too many pictures of this step because its pretty simple. Make some angled cuts and a small key at the top, then rip a strip of bubinga to match. The key probably isn't necessary but why not for traditions sake. Use the escapement and bed to guide your saw cuts, maybe 1/32 in proud and then pare to flush. The boxing really makes the plane look spiffy and adds durability too.

With that done I moved onto making the fence. The fence is really just a thin piece of wood, I cut small mortises into it about 1.5 in. from each end. I made sure to clamp the wood on either side with a parallel jaw clamp as its quite thin near the edges and now is now the time I want to break it. You could leave it at that, but once again for more durability and tradition, I made up some brass pieces so the wood doesn't get damaged or crack apart.

















I went to the hardware store and picked up a half inch by .93 thick piece of brass. Drill overlapping holes and then with a hacksaw and numerous files straighten and square up the slot. It's a lot easier to file if you hold the brass in place with a parallel jaw clamp, which is in turn clamped in your vise.










I also drilled a small hole and countersink at one end for a small screw. The other end it held under a small lip made by a chisel. To fasten the fence to the actual plane I put two threaded inserts into the bottom. While most vintage just had screws going into wooden threads, most of them happen to be stripped out too, just sayin..









Fence is done, now onto the depth stop. The design is pretty arbitrary, it just needs to function well and be strong. I though about soldering up a whole traditional system, and I may eventually do just that, but for now A walnut stop will do just fine.









I used a sliding dovetail to mate the stop and the plane, but a simple dado would do just fine. Using a drill press I drilled overlapping holes for the slot and pared and filed it nice and smooth.









I reinforced the area at the top with toothpicks as the small area of grain would be prone to splitting. A small piece of bubinga glued and screwed onto the bottom will serve as a good slippery and wear resistant surface.

I used a 5/16 all-thread and wing nut to lock the position of the depth stop. It works great with no chance of slipping. The all-thread is just threaded into an undersized hole in the wood.

Now the last functional part of the plane- the nicker. It's used to score the cross-grain so you don't get tearout or spelching. There are two main types of nickers used on vintage planes, one is where the nicker is tapered and holds itself in place, the other the nicker is straight and held with a wedge. I was weary about getting a good fit with a tapered nicker so I went for the straight nicker and wedge.









Using an old sawblade and hacksaw I roughed out the profile I needed, then moved onto mortising. The mortise is started by a small saw, and then I actually made a small chisel ( also from the saw blade) to finish up the mortise. I wanted it as thin as possible but my smallest chisel is 1/4 in. For the wedge mortise I ended up using a 3/16 plough iron from my stanley 45. While obviously not ideal, it worked fine for my purpose. The mortises are quite fiddly and took some tuning. Eventually I got an acceptable fit and fitted a small wedge to hold it in place.

















Finally the plane is almost finished! There are a few other options for nickers that I will go over in the next post, and also a few mods I ended up making to mine.Other then that all that's left is to shape, heat treat and hone the blade. Once again as always thanks for reading! Part three will be out sometime in the next few days.


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## shampeon (Jun 3, 2012)

Wally331 said:


> *Boxing, Depth Stop, Fence and even a nicker*
> 
> Pics will be in a few minutes…
> 
> ...


Such nice work, Wally. That's really shaping up to be a beauty.


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## donwilwol (May 16, 2011)

Wally331 said:


> *Boxing, Depth Stop, Fence and even a nicker*
> 
> Pics will be in a few minutes…
> 
> ...


Well done!


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## terryR (Jan 30, 2012)

Wally331 said:


> *Boxing, Depth Stop, Fence and even a nicker*
> 
> Pics will be in a few minutes…
> 
> ...


Goodness gracious, what a complex-looking build, Wally! But it looks great!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for sharing all the photos, I learned a few tips! Love that sliding dovetail for the depth stop.Wow.

Wally, my young friend, I hate to influence your life after high school, but I sure hope you are considering a trade that allows you express your skills by hand. You have some serious talents, and they DON'T belong behind a desk.

just my 2 centavos…


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## ToddJB (Jul 26, 2012)

Wally331 said:


> *Boxing, Depth Stop, Fence and even a nicker*
> 
> Pics will be in a few minutes…
> 
> ...


This is super impressive. Great work. I saw on another thread you tempered the blade. I would LOVE for a blog on that.


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## fmarabate (May 15, 2008)

Wally331 said:


> *Boxing, Depth Stop, Fence and even a nicker*
> 
> Pics will be in a few minutes…
> 
> ...


Love the plane. Excellent!

I made a block plane several years ago and have wanted to do others, but never seem to find the time. You make this look so simple. How many hours have you put into this, so far?


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## Oldtool (May 27, 2012)

Wally331 said:


> *Boxing, Depth Stop, Fence and even a nicker*
> 
> Pics will be in a few minutes…
> 
> ...


Beautiful creation, excellent work. I noticed you changed the nicker in the project posting on this, have a reason for this?
I'm sure it works great, you did a fantastic job, congratulations.


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## Wally331 (Nov 8, 2012)

Wally331 said:


> *Boxing, Depth Stop, Fence and even a nicker*
> 
> Pics will be in a few minutes…
> 
> ...


I switch between long grain and cross grain work a lot, and it was just too finnicky to adjust the wedge and blade all the time. It is much easier to adjust it with a simple thumbscrew, and I find it stays in place better. I will still have a third part to the blog explaining it, however the phone with the construction pictures was destroyed. Long story haha… thanks for the kind comments from everyone though!


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## MarcioWilges (Nov 6, 2014)

Wally331 said:


> *Boxing, Depth Stop, Fence and even a nicker*
> 
> Pics will be in a few minutes…
> 
> ...


That looked really tedious Wally and you managed to make the end results look so neat! It must have taken quite some time to achieve something so majestic as this, and that dovetail really puts the icing on the cake. Lovely masterpiece which is definitely not something to be missed out should you decide to clear out the space or do some spring cleaning. Ensure this work of genius gets in one of the boxes so it won't get abandoned behind!


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