Brese Plane

Winter Smoother - Tote Shaping

2012-02-01T21:48:00.000-05:00

After returning from Brese Plane a couple weeks ago, the Winter Smoother sat on the bookshelf in my office for over a week while I caught up from time away.

Then it happened. Sunday afternoon. The eternal day. That magical time when working in the shop seems so right. It's unlike any other day.

I slung my camera bag over my shoulder, grabbed the tripod, and headed to the shop, Winter Smoother and tote in hand. I dusted off the bench, hit play on my Zune, and started making rosewood dust...

Winter Smoother - Friday

2012-01-20T14:21:00.001-05:00

Friday was a day to get as much done as possible. I had to leave for the airport at 4pm, and I was still running the mill at 3:30. With Ron's help I managed to get the body of the plane entirely assembled by the time I left. The wood components got roughed out, and still need to be finished. Ron had made the lever cap the week before I arrived, and ground the iron as well. He perfectly anticipated what I could accomplish during my time at Brese Plane, including loosing half a day from the first pair of botched sides. Thank you Ron!

I hope to get some free time in the coming weeks to finish shaping the tote and knob, and I plan to take some video of that as well.

Winter Smoother - Thursday

2012-01-19T14:05:00.001-05:00

After hump day, (and three 14 hour days) I was in the mood for something other than plane making.

Luckily, Ron had thought ahead.

Winter Smoother - Wednesday

2012-01-18T14:56:00.000-05:00

After Tuesday's highs and lows I woke up Wednesday morning enormously motivated to make good progress. Monday and Tuesday had both been 14 hour work days, with about an hour break for lunch and dinner. Ron and I would scrounge leftovers from the fridge, sit down for 20 minutes and head back out. Wednesday would be another 14 hour day. Wednesday night (Thursday morning actually) I went to bed, and when I awoke I realized I hadn't moved an inch all night. We were both exhausted. Thursday was a very important day, but more on that tomorrow.

Winter Smoother - Tuesday

2012-01-17T14:28:00.000-05:00

Tuesday was a momentous day at Brese Plane. I managed to almost completely negate what I had accomplished from Monday up until noon on Tuesday. In one bonehead moment I completely destroyed my chances of making this tool, and in the next moment I was back on top.

For any of you who have read David Pye, just because machines are involved does not mean there is no workmanship of risk. With digital readouts, strings of decimals, and the tendency to invert figures (3.167 can easily become 3.176) the workmanship of risk mostly takes place in the mind, and not in the hand. Coming from a hands-on background, I would much rather rely on my eyes and hands to create, than on the mind to control a machine in a numerically controlled manner. I flunked Algebra in high school and college.

The video tells more of the story.

Note: These videos are in 720 HD. Make sure you enlarge the video for best viewing.

Winter Smoother - Monday

2012-01-16T14:23:00.001-05:00

Jameel Abraham here. After a week in the Brese plane shop armed with a video camera, I'm sharing my experiences here, with Ron's permission. I'd like to thank Ron for allowing a tool-making neophyte as myself to post on his blog. I hope my experience doesn't sully Ron's golden reputation! Thanks, Mr. Brese.

~ ~ ~

For the last three years I've taken some time off in the early part of the year to visit my friend Ron Brese at his shop in Thomaston Georgia. This year I asked Ron if he would assist me in making a plane as a gift for a good friend of Benchcrafted. He happily obliged. So last week I spent several long days in Ron's shop building this plane.

But here's the interesting part. This is a prototype of a new line of planes that Ron has been developing for the past year. Before I arrived, Ron had begun his own prototype, in order to test out some of the details of the plane so my build could have a better chance of succeeding. As Ron finished up his plane, I built mine, and they both came together as a sort of fraternal twins by week's end. My plane did not get completed of course in only five days. But more on that later in the week.

Ron did not have a name for this new line of tools. So after looking over Ron's prints last week, and seeing that he had written "winter smoother" on one of them, the name stuck. I'm not sure if Ron will keep the name, but for me this tool will always be the "winter smoother."

~ Monday ~

The first day of the build I roughed out the plane sides from precision ground 1018 steel using a bandsaw. After a quick course in basic mill operation Ron set me loose on his Bridgeport-style mill and I proceeded to mill up the sides of the plane, as well as the sole pieces and bedding plate. My constant fear was crashing the bit into one of the vises, the table, or the workpiece. None of that happened, but I did end up encountering some rather tense moments. At one point I was feeling pretty proud of what I had accomplished, and the next I felt like I was back in junior high industrial arts. Needless to say, I learned an enormous amount on Monday. Ron was an extremely patient teacher, and gave me a wide latitude in figuring things out for myself. That ended up teaching me a great lesson, but it also made for some frustrating moments. I guess the best way to learn is to make mistakes. I won't argue with that. As Monday drew to a close I set my plane parts in a safe place and breathed a sigh of relief that I had made it through the first day without completely ruining Ron's mill, or my plane parts. If I had known what Tuesday had in store, I may have just booked an early flight home....

Haven't Made One Like this for a While, New Version 875

2011-11-18T08:16:00.020-05:00

Usually when people order an infill plane they're sort in for a penny in for a pound, if you know what I mean. Most woodworkers, and thank heavens there are exceptions, will typically order one infill and it will typically be a final finishing plane which explains the popularity of smoothing planes as compared to other type hand planes.

I offer walnut as a standard infill wood but I seldom build a plane with that infill wood. I stock walnut that I purchase from a supplier in Idaho. This material is harvested specifically for gun stocks and is air dried in the high desert environment. For this reason it is typically more interesting looking than your average walnut and the color is typically quite good as well.

But I digress, most customers decide that it's worth it to spring for the more exotic and dense woods for this type purchase so I seldom make a plane with walnut infill.

When I first selected the walnut for this plane I wasn't particularly impressed. I chose it because it appeared evenly grained and this plane is going to a shop in Chicago and shops that are close to major lakes typically need this consideration. However once I started the polishing process on these bits it did what wood commonly does....it surprises you.

I was applying a polish of garnet shellac and as this process progressed the contrasting colors of this walnut became quite apparent. Actually this piece was rather unusual with lighter golden colors contrasting with the darker brown areas of this wood. I had certainly underestimated the character if this piece.

This plane is a bit different in other ways as compared to the 875 Model planes that I've made in the past. Those planes had the model numbers 875-250 and 875-W50. The 875-250 plane used a 2" wide iron and was pitched at 50 degrees and the 875-W50 was the same configuration but accommodated a wider 2.25" wide iron.

I always preferred the plane with the 2" iron. Yes, I'm one of those people that like a narrower smoothing plane, plus I like to maintain a mass to iron width ratio that makes a plane easy to push thru the cut. Planing should be a pleasurable experience especially in the final smoothing stage of your work. A time to relax a bit after the hard work of using planes we rely on for the heavier wood removal required for straightening and flattening.

My recent design emphasis has been to find the ideal ratio between mass and iron width and to refine the balance of the elements that make up the 875 plane. The plane pictured above is the result of this work. The older version 875-250 typically weighed right around 6 pounds with a dense exotic infill and just a few ounces lighter with walnut infill. This new version which is now Model 875-50S uses a 2.125" wide iron and weighs 5 pounds 5 ounces with walnut infill and will probably have a weight of 5 pounds 8 or 9 ounces with dense exotic infill.

In the new configuration this plane now has a wider iron than the 2" wide version and weighs 1/2 pound less. A half pound is quite a profound weight reduction for plane of this size.

So how did I increase the width and take 8 ounces of weight out of this plane. The largest surfaces on this plane are the sole and the iron and those are the best area to look for weight reduction. The sole went from .375 thick to .312 thick and the iron went from .250 thick to .218 thick. The result is a plane that is easy to push thru the cut but doesn't tug on your wrist in the return stroke. It was this slight tug on your wrist that I was looking to eliminate.

I've been using this plane for the last couple of days since it's completion and I have to say I think it is a very refined version of this plane.

Ron

Product Development, T-Shirts? Best Laid Plans go Awry at First

2011-11-12T08:21:00.018-05:00

A couple of years ago I over heard my wife and her sister discussing a new outfit my wife was wearing. They had shopped tirelessly the day before procuring all the elements to make this fashion statement a reality and were admiring their accomplishment. The shirt that made up part of this ensemble was a white tee shirt and during the course of the conversation my wife made the comment that it was "Just A Plain T-Shirt" and this peeked my interest.

I had been trying to think of an idea for a tee shirt that would represent my business in a unique way and it only took me a few seconds to transition this idea to "Just A Plane T-Shirt". Changing the word "plain" to "Plane" made it work wonderfully for my purposes.

Best Laid Plans:

I set about putting together the art work. I knew I wanted a simple two color design with one of the colors being the tee shirt color and the other being the color of an illustration version of my 875 plane. Everything was going great until I had the idea for the crowning touch. A shaving stretched across the bottom to sort of underline the rest of the illustration. It looked great on the art work. When I showed the art work to the person that would be handling the making of the silkscreen and producing the shirts, she sort of raised her eyebrows and pointed to the shaving and asked "what's that?"

I then explained to her the correlation between the tool and the shaving that it produces and assured her that people in the know about woodworking hand tools would appreciated this added detail. I should have picked up on her skepticism. After all she was a professional that produced artwork for tee shirts on a daily basis.

The Woodworking in America Conference in St. Charles, Illinois was approaching and I thought this would be the ideal time to introduce the new "Just a Plane T-Shirt". I ordered about 50 shirts in assorted sizes and two different colors. A week later she called informing me that my tee shirts were ready and could be picked up that afternoon. I was a bit excited to see my creation on the actual shirts so I popped into town that afternoon to pick up the shirts.

I reached in the box and held up one of the tee shirts to admire my creation and my err in judgement immediately jumped right out at me. The wonderful shaving looked like a piece of delicious BACON!

The woodworkers that attended the St. Charles WIA event held up my confidence and purchased nearly every one of the "Just A Plane T-Shirts". I was right, they got it, but many people did comment that the shaving looked like bacon. In fact my friends across the aisle in the L-N booth chided me all weekend about my bacon laced shirts. Of course I made sure that they all left the event awarded with what was to be later known as the "High Cholesterol, Limited Edition, Just A Plane T-Shirt". If you purchased one of those shirts you now own a Collector's item.

The next week the art worked was changed to what you see in the above photo and since then many woodworkers have become proud owners of the new version of the tee shirts. Of course this did not take nearly as much product development efforts as our hand planes. Our tools have evolved over a number of years and many small refinements have come together to result in tools that are very refined versions of what I began producing a little over 4 years ago.

Until now the "Just A Plane T-Shirts" have only been available at different hand tools events we attend throughout the year. I've recently began to offer these shirts thru our Online Store accessible thru the web page. Just access the Online Store thru the link on our "Pricing and Ordering" page of the web site. They're listed in the "Kits and Apparel" category of the store and if you wish to order multiples we have them listed in different quantities with reduced shipping cost for multiples.

Ron

Things that Caught My Eye at WIA, and Questions About Plane Kits

2011-10-31T07:50:00.021-04:00

At the last two Woodworking in America Conferences the attendance has been great and the Market Place has been busy. For this reason I typically have a hard time getting away from the booth long enough to have a look around myself. This year however I was accompanied by my wife and also enlisted the assistance of a couple of customers that are local to me in the Atlanta area. Several times during the week end I would look over at my friend Steve Walls and say "Hey Steve, stand here and be Me for a few minutes". This gave me the freedom to look around a bit more than usual and I enjoyed seeing the new offerings of the assorted vendors.

Of course I didn't actually have to leave the booth to see the first item that caught my eye. In fact it was right in our booth space. The guys from Elkhead Tools resided with us in the Market Place and right away Gary Benson showed me the new screw driver they were offering. It is the official Brese Plane screw driver specifically manufactured to the fit the fasteners on the planes I produce. It's shorter length gives it more control closer to the work and it fits the slots in the pivot pins of the lever caps and the fasteners that hold the rear tote on the Precision stainless planes. Having close control due to the shorter length keeps me from skittering the screw driver across the plane side during re-assembly (yes this has happened to a nearly completed plane and it sent me back to the lapping plate for considerably more work).

As you can see it's made to the same high standards as the rest of their offerings. We enjoyed having them in the booth with us this year. Besides making great stuff they were fun to hang out with.

I've been looking for a properly sized plane hammer for a while. I've actually prototyped a very nice plane hammer but quite frankly we've been so busy making planes and filling customers needs that we just can't seem to find time to put another iron in the fire. Back Channel Tools was offering the hammer show below at WIA and I came home with one.

What I really like about this hammer is the weight and the length. It's light enough to allow fine control of the position of the plane iron. With this hammer I have to strike the iron with a bit more authority than usual especially for the lateral adjustment but then again that's what I really like about it. The hardest part of learning to adjust a plane with a hammer is learning how lightly to strike the iron for fine adjustment and I believe this hammer will shorten the learning curve which is typically only about 30 minutes anyway. It has a faceted handle which helps index the hammer in your hand and the only minor quibble I have is the sharp edges on these facets. This was an easy fix. It only took a few minutes with a scraper, a bit of fine sandpaper and some qualasole and now it feels great in the hand.

Many people that came by our booth at WIA asked about when we would be re-introducing plane kits. Actually I still don't have a definite answer, however we are working toward that end. I've recently brought an apprentice into the shop and his work is progressing rather nicely. His name is James Green and he's an enthusiastic student of the craft. As his work progresses and I feel that he can produce plane bodies to my standards then he will be responsible for producing plane bodies for that product line (with my oversight, and the shop's not that big). At that time we will re-introduce those offerings.

On a final note I wanted to once again say "THANKS" to Steve Walls and Charlie Levan for the help at this years WIA.

Ron

WIA, Random in Progress Pictures, and it's Catalog Season

2011-09-10T22:37:00.008-04:00

The Woodworking in America Conference is fast approaching. As a result my shop is in a state of total disarray. I didn't take any pictures but if you saw my shop your first question would be "did anyone get killed when the bomb went off?!" Given all the obstacles, I did manage to complete two small smoothers and made plane sides for a stainless panel plane today. I vow to clean up the shop before anything other work takes place in the shop. Getting ready for a show like WIA makes the shop schedule very hectic but I really look forward to this event.

I get a lot of questions about my plane body assembly method. Once a plane body is assembled it becomes necessary to make the assembly hardware go visually away. In the picture below all the pins on this 812-50S stainless plane body have been milled down to within 1/32 of the plane side.

Then the pins are peined around their perimeter quite thoroughly and then milled flush. The picture below shows the pins after peining.

Then the pins are milled flush and the sides are surface ground. You can still see the slight silhouette of the pins (pic below). Once the plane sides have been lapped they become even less apparent.

As many planes as I've assembled this process it still amazes me.

Summer is officially over and with Halloween just around the corner and Christmas looming in the near future all our mail boxes are filling up with catalogs. While eating lunch one day I was browsing thru some of these catalogs. I found some amazing products that I think you must know about. Please add a large dose of sarcasm to that last sentence.

In the picture below you will see that for $7.95 plus shipping and handling we have the unique opportunity to wear mismatched socks. This happens at my house anytime I try to get dressed before I'm fully awake. Save the $7.95 and put own your socks before you've had coffee.

KISS Christmas tree ornaments. I'm sorry but this is just wrong on so many levels. I think even KISS fans draw the line at Gene Simmons Christmas decorations. If you will have one of these ornaments on your tree this year don't tell me about it. I may just not want to know you.

I saved my favorite for last. It's the "ELVIS LIVE! MR. POTATOE HEAD".

I've been trying to imagine being in the meeting where they decided this toy was a good idea. I can't imagine any circumstances where this idea gets a thumbs up from everyone with a vote, especially considering the target audience is not old enough to have a sign of an idea about who Elvis is or was depending on whether or not you believe Elvis is alive or not.

Okay I double checked the appropriate age for this toy. It says" for ages 2 and up". Next time someone ask my age I'm gonna say "UP" and point to the sky. I won't specify which finger I'll be using to express myself.

If your age is "UP" then you will remember that when Mr. Potatoe Head was first introduced you got all the facial parts, ears and a couple of hats, but you had to furnish your own potatoe. Some assembly was required and it required a trip to the produce department of the grocery store.

By the way.... I was at Walmart yesterday and I swore I saw Elvis....turns out it was the guy driving the wrecker I noticed in the parking lot. As he was getting into the wrecker I ask him to sing a couple of bars of "Love Me Tender" at that point he gave me a finger gesture that expressed that his age was also "UP" and drove away.

Ron

Improving the View from the Shop Part 2, It's Finished

2011-08-08T15:38:00.007-04:00

When we embarked on this project we knew that there would be quite a change in the looks of this area, however I don't think we quite anticipated how much we would enjoy the finished outdoor space. All the plants in are, the landscape fabric is in place, and the pine straw and cypress mulch is in place. Now it's up to us to keep the plants alive.

We have a watering schedule and so far everyday we've watered it's also rained. When people complain about not having rain there's on old saying, "to get some rain you've gotta pay the preacher". Our landscape contractor Charles just happens to be the minister of our church so we've paid the preacher, literally. I guess that's why the recent scattered thunderstorms have found their way to our patch of earth for the last several days. At least that's my story and as long as it's raining I'm sticking to it.

As you can probably tell this is a woodland garden and it required some thought to select plants that would grow well under these conditions and would also be somewhat deer proof, if there is such a thing. The plantings consist of Kanjiro Camelia, Wax Myrtle, George Taber Azaleas, Tallulah Sunrise Native Azaleas, Formosa Azalea, Radican Gardenias and Autumn Fern. Recently we've added some Variegated Hosta which is probably like announcing that the salad bar is open to the deer. We'll be tuning up the motion activated sprinklers this evening in hopes of scaring the deer away if they happen to frequent the garden. If it doesn't scare them away at least it'll cool em off while they're enjoying the hostas.

It's been hot here but sometimes in the evenings after a thunderstorm it actually gets somewhat tolerable to be outside and these days Julie and I have spent a lot of time in our new garden space.

Of course now we have another problem. Since this area looks so nice, we now have about 5 other areas in the yard that look particularly ratty and poorly maintained. When you own property the list of chores never ends.

Ron

Improving the View from the Shop

2011-08-01T20:47:00.007-04:00

When I look out of the windows of my shop I see the pergola structure in the right side of the picture below and also this vacant lot looking space. This is an old house site. Julie and I have been brainstorming an idea to improve the looks of this place. We decided on some type of garden. We knew we could put down some timbers and back fill these spaces with soil and I guess that would have created some kind of garden but this idea seemed to lack any real inspiration so we just slowed down to take time to give this some thought. When we would visit the pergola structure for cooking out and just relaxing in the swing we studied this area in an attempt to develop a plan.

This is a view of the flat space with the pergola and shop in the background. As you can see the Wysteria seems to like the location of the pergola structure just fine.

One evening (before the onset of hell......excuse me, I mean summer) while sitting in the swing we began to visualize a plan for this space. The first idea that came to mind was that we desperately need changes in the elevation in order to offset the boredom of a flat space, in fact we saw berms in our vision that resembled sand dunes.

The idea of changing the lay of the land in such an extreme way certainly took the scope of the project out of the realm of DIY so we contacted a landscaping professional who also happen to be a good friend. Charles is good at what he does and has a vast knowledge of plants and for this reason he had a backlog of work. We knew he was our guy so we waited patiently for our names to rise to the top of his list. Charles contacted us just before we left for Maine to attend the Lie-Nielsen Open House Event and when we returned he was ready to begin. The first order of business was dirt and a lot of it. In fact two large dump truck loads of top soil. I thought we might need three loads of dirt, Charles looked at me like I had two heads and commented that he thought two loads of dirt would be plenty and of course he was correct. He's a professional landscaper and I'm a plane maker and I guess I would need to keep that in mind.

The predominant soil composition in Georgia is red clay. As you can see in the picture the soil that was delivered to us was nice rich, loamy top soil. Knowing where to access the right materials is another reason to hire a landscape professional for this kind or work.

Today was the day they starting placing the dirt and by the end of the day a transformation had begun to take place. All our prior landscape projects had been accomplished with hand tools and a wheel barrow. Of course I certainly advocate hand tools, but shovels, rakes and hoes are a very different kind of hand tool and two men and a good piece of earth moving machinery was certainly the way to approach this task.

Of course a lot of our projects in the shop start with power tools and then the hand tools refine the work. It's the same with landscaping. The planting berms were all hand worked before they had taken their final shape.

Next up is weed block fabric on the planting berms, cypress much on the walking path and then all the plants and shrubs settled in with pine straw mulch. When I looked out the shop windows today it was already a much nicer view, especially considering I was in an air conditioned shop.

Ron

Just Finished 812-50S Smoothing Plane, Going to Maine

2011-07-12T21:30:00.014-04:00

When I say "just finished" I mean "just finished", I began to shape the rear tote for this plane today just after lunch and about 7:00 pm I was applying the last bit of french polish. Shellac is wonderful stuff! This was the plane I needed to complete to be ready for the trip to Maine for the Lie-Nielsen 30th Anniversary Open House.

This is the first plane in which I used some of the Macassar Ebony billet for the tote and knob. Macassar Ebony is quite dense and quite hard to work, even more so than Gabon Ebony which is soft by comparison. However I have to admit it actually worked better with hand tools than with power tools. When working wood of this type with hand tools you get feedback thru the tool that lets you know to be careful, with power tools the feedback you get is the visual damage that occurs when it chips or tears out and then of course the hands tool have to clean up the mess the power tools left.

I'm sure these pictures don't do it justice, but the interplay between the dark and lighter areas is very pleasing to the eye and adds a lot of visual interest that's just not present in the solid black ebony we've used in the past. It almost looks as if someone swirled dark and milk chocolate together.

This 812-50S is one of my favorite planes. It's a true smoother with a sole length of 8 inches, the iron is 1.875" wide. The weight is 4 pounds 4 ounces and the balance is quite nice in the hand. This one is going with us to Maine so if you're attending the L-N event stop by and have a look.

The heat index in Georgia today was so high I won't even mention the numbers. Just looked at the 5 day forecast for Warren, Maine. High 70s during the day and high 50s for the overnight lows. I'm looking forward to a break from the heat!

Ron

Something Different this Weekend in the Shop

2011-07-03T22:46:00.010-04:00

I've been so consumed with plane making that it's been over a year since I've done anything like an actual woodworking project. In a phone conversation with another plane maker I made the statement " we should never get very far from woodworking because making furniture is different than making shavings". I followed that with "we'll be better plane makers if we continue to pursue other types of woodworking". Well like a lot of folks I guess I haven't been practicing what I preach.

I'll be participating in the Lie-Nielsen Tool Works 30th Anniversary Open House later this month so for the last couple of weeks I've been in the metal working room making plane parts, a lot of plane parts and then I made some more plane parts and a few plane parts after that. You get the picture? I've been making a lot of metal parts to very close tolerances and this takes a toll on a guy mentally and physically. Now don't get me wrong I'm not complaining. I live for making planes, but sometimes you just have to do something else.

This weekend I decided to pursue a woodworking project. I've been wanting to make the hanging Shaker cupboard pictured in this post for an awfully long time. I saw this piece at Pleasant Hill Kentucky many years ago and run across it frequently when thumbing thru some of my books on Shaker Furniture. When Chris Schwarz featured it in a blog post I was once again reminded of my desire to build this little cupboard. Saturday about 10:00 am I pulled out some cherry boards that I thought possessed the correct scale of grain for this project and by the afternoon I had enough parts roughed out for two of these. I spent most of Sunday afternoon completing and refining most of the parts and making the couple of glue ups required for the back and the front corners. By later in the evening I had most of the parts complete.

I was reminded of a couple of things while I was working on this little project.

(1) The guys at BenchCrafted make some great vises. As I was building this Shaker cupboard using my Shaker bench I never had to give work holding a second thought. The vises did just what they were supposed to do. They made work holding effortless.

Disclaimer: Jameel, Father John and Hunna Abraham are people that I consider very good friends, however that doesn't change the fact that the BenchCrafted vises are just awesome.

(2) Using hand planes makes very accurate furniture parts and saves a lot of sanding work. The cupboard in the picture has not been assembled. It is just freestanding on my workbench with no fasteners holding it together, only gravity and well fitted contact points. I mentioned sanding because I will be adding some age to this piece and that will require a few finishing processes that require a consistent scratch pattern for proper adhesion of the finishing materials.

Stayed tuned, when we get back from Maine I'll be getting the last details of this piece completed and will progress into the finishing process.

Ron

Cutting Bits from Chunks

2011-06-01T15:08:00.010-04:00

A previous post featured a large Maccasar Ebony billet that I acquired. Even though this piece is estimated to have been drying for at least 17 years past experience has taught me that it's a good idea to give billets of this type adequate time to acclimate to a new environment prior to processing. Of course the other possibly explanation to why I haven't decided to cut up this piece of exceptional timber is just that. In billet form it is a very formidable looking piece of wood and part of me did not want to alter it just yet. So I've admired it for several weeks and now it's time to cut it into usable pieces for plane making.

There is also another reason I've waited. It's early summer here and for that reason the average daily humidity is higher than it is during the colder months. These are much better conditions for breaking up a billet. Freshly exposed surfaces react much more favorably to an atmosphere that is not extremely dry and this gives the material a chance to react to it's new exposure without having the moisture sucked away from the surface much too quickly.

Past experience has also shown me that it is best to begin the process of breaking down log segments and billets by cutting pieces off the length in increments of 11". If there are checks on the end of the piece then the first piece will probably need to be just a bit longer than 11". This billet was 4.75" thick 6.5" wide and 53" long. Maccassar Ebony has very high specific gravity, yep it will sink in water just like a rock. This also means this piece was quite heavy. It was all I could manage just to hold it on the table of the bandsaw and feed it thru the first cut off it's length. I suffered thru the first cut knowing that every subsequent cut would make the piece lighter. Now that I had my first section cut from the length of the billet it was time to start re-sawing.

At first I thought I would probably need to change to a wider bandsaw blade than the 1/4" wide blade that I normally have on the bandsaw for general shaping of curved surfaces. After all I was about to attempt to re-saw thru 6.5" inches of very dense material. I instead decided to give it try with the 1/4" blade before going thru the trouble of making the change. The blade is a Timberwolf brand blade and I had heard of many people getting favorable results re-sawing with relatively narrow blades of this brand. I was very pleasantly surprised. The blade went thru 6.5" of this material with relative ease. I took my time and made sure I didn't ask the blade to cut at a faster feed rate than it was capable and the results were actually quite accurate.

At this point I stopped to seal the freshly cut end of the billet. Most checks start in end grain and I've found a good coating with a 3 lb. cut of shellac helps keep this part of the billet from drying too quickly.

After a couple of subsequent re-sawing cuts on the bandsaw I had some very nice blanks sized to yield two nested plane totes.

One side of the billet has some noticeable surface checks. This is actually very typical and I'm in no way complaining. Stresses build up in these billets and checks occur. The trick is to figure out how to work around the checks to yield the best material. When laying out my cuts I had this side marked to yield thicker pieces that would be appropriate material for turning knobs and this would also give me some leeway in cutting around the checks.

Now I have many surfaces exposed directly to the air for the first time so I worked quickly to seal the ends and spray a light coat of lacquer on the flat sawn surfaces of the tote blanks. All this in an effort to slow down the effect of being exposed directly to the effects of the atmosphere.

Now these blanks get to rest for a while and if I've done my job correctly the next time you see them they will be plane parts.

Ron

Sometimes You Just Gotta Get Out and Meet the People, or Back on the Road Again

2011-05-07T22:01:00.006-04:00

It's been hectic in the shop this week in preparation for another road trip. I'll be traveling to Cedar Rapids to spend some time in the shop of Jameel Abraham and then later in the week we'll be heading to St. Louis to participate in the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event being held at the shop of Kent Adkins.

After seeing Kent's shop featured in Chris Schwarz blog I jumped at the chance of participating in this Lie-Nielsen Event. When I later discovered who the other presenters would be at this event I came to the realization that I couldn't have made a better choice of venues.

To be at the same event with the likes of Konrad Sauer, Matt Bickford, Bob Zajicek, and Jameel Abraham and of course the excellent crew that Lie-Nielsen will have on hand, makes this a very special occasion.

Looking at pictures online and in brochures only gets you so far in making decisions about the tool kit you select to help you accomplish your woodworking task. At these events not only do you get the chance to handle and use the tools you also have the opportunity to gain the insight of the people that create these tools.

The group of presenters I listed above are just a few of the growing number of independent toolmakers that spend countless hours in their shops designing and creating tools for the growing population of woodworkers that now incorporate more hand tools in their work process than anytime in the recent past.

At these events you'll not be talking to a salesman, you'll be talking to the guy that conceived the idea, did the preliminary design, made the prototype, proved out the prototype and made subsequent changes and finally progressed to making the production version of a given tool. If you have questions these people have the answers.

I was once told that I should just make tools and let other people sell them. I could never get my head wrapped around that comment. The interaction with the people we meet at events of this type is a very big part of the enjoyment I get from creating tools for people on a personal basis. Woodworkers are some of the best people in the world and this is reinforced at every event in which we participate. Event after event we just meet more good people and make new friends.

If you find yourself in the St. Louis area next weekend, stop by the Lie-Nielsen Event, your attendance is a surefire way to make sure events of this type continue to take place.

Ron

The "J" Plane

2011-04-25T12:48:00.009-04:00

One of the most ordered tools at Brese Plane is the small smoother that we've come to call the "J" plane. As I stop to think about why this is so, several things come quickly to mind to explain the popularity of this tool.

This plane fits the hands of a lot of different size people. I've had people of quite small size as well as woodworkers of quite large proportions pick up this plane and comment that it feels good in their hand. The rounded end if the plane presents a nice to place to grip this plane and keeps your hand from sliding forward and possibly pressing against the back of the iron which can crease uncomfortably into your hand.

The performance characteristics of this plane are well known. Many people have witnessed this plane working very difficult woods with and against the grain with relative ease. When confronted with a planing challenge, which happens frequently at WIA and the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Events where we show our wares, I will always reach for the "J" plane first. It has never let me down and once I've been successful with the "J" plane then I will attempt these difficult boards with some of the other planes on my bench. In other words, it's my "go to" plane.

The combination of the 55 degree bed angle, tight mouth and the unified mass that this plane creates is a winning configuration. Combine a well sharpened iron with the other aspects of this plane and the wood fibers have no choice but to shear and curl up. There's no magic, just solid mechanical elements that yield a result.

If you compare the picture at the top of this blog entry to the ones below you will notice that this plane has undergone some refinements over the past couple of years. None of these refinements has changed anything about the performance characteristics of this plane. I have reduced the weight in this tool a small amount and feel that the balance was improved by this change especially in regard to using the plane on the edges of boards and in places where the sole is not completely registered to the work piece. Almost all the other changes have been cosmetic.

I've changed to a stainless steel lever cap screws and a lower profile button on the iron that makes a handy back bevel registration point. If you're using the scary sharp method of honing the iron it's easy to place a piece of painters tape over this button, swipe it with a some paraffin and with the button placed off the abrasive you can easily impart about 1/2 to 1 degree of back bevel to the back side of the iron.

I also think that the price point of this tool has made it an attractive entry point for many people looking to delve into the world of infill planes. This plane is almost always ordered with rosewood infill. The color of the rosewood works well with the stainless and brass. I've actually been sort of yearning to make one with ebony infill, fortunately I recently received an order for this plane with ebony infill. I like a bit of a change once in a while.

I introduced this plane at the first Woodworking in American Conference in Berea, Kentucky. This event was also when I was first introduced to the hand tool woodworking community. I brought two "J" planes to the first WIA and at one point myself and a gentleman from Canada were making alternate passes from different directions on a piece of curly maple that contain some of the tightest curl you've every seen. This worked because one of us was left handed.

Since the first WIA in Berea I have been wonderfully supported by the hand tool woodworking community, Thanks Everyone!

Because of you I have more "J" planes to make. This makes me quite happy because as you know......."I sort of live for this stuff."

Ron

"If you're too opened minded your brains will fall out"

The Last Equipment Upgrade for a Long Time!

2011-04-17T20:53:00.008-04:00

Equipment acquisition is sometimes a wonderful way to increase your capabilities, efficiency and accuracy in your work. However it's not a decision made lightly. When you embark on an upgrade it typically involves a large amount of time and effort to research the purchase thoroughly and also to market and sell the equipment that is to be replaced.

For these reasons it almost always impacts your regular shop schedule in a negative way and creates a time period in which you'll put in long hours maintaining progress on the in process work occurring in the shop and then additional time in the evening setting up the new machine and preparing it to take over part of the work load

This latest upgrade has been one of the most challenging I've attempted to date. I know there's a guy with a beard in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that might want to argue this point, stating this machine did not have to be moved out of a basement during two rainy days. However the acquiring of the knee milling machine pictured in this post encompassed many structural and technical aspects that had not been issues in prior machinery additions. The picture above shows the mill fresh off the truck.

When I put the forks of the lift under the pallet and raised them I could feel the hydraulics of the lift straining to raise this load. The first thing that came into my mind was "what have I done?", immediately follow by a mental picture of this thing crashing thru the floor of my shop and onto the ground underneath. However I was too far into this to turn back. The truck driver had just completed a trip of 2200 miles with this mill on his truck and I don't think he would have taken very kindly to the idea of making a return trip.

To begin with this machine is massive. It weighs a good solid ton. Yep 2000 pounds. The biggest milling machine that I've handled prior to this one weighed 1000 pounds. Once you start acquiring machines that weight in excess of 600 pounds you're past the realm of thinking in terms of how many people you would need to move a given item. You've also passed into the realm of how do we move this thing without getting someone hurt. In this case I would be attempting to install this 2000 pound mill in a shop with a wooden structured floor so structural issues had to be dealt with prior to moving forward with this purchase.

I also knew that I would have to traverse an unpaved area to get to the load in door of my metal working shop. This was one part of the move that really concerned me, however it turned out to be one of easiest parts of moving the mill to the final location.

To actually set the mill into the shop it was removed from the pallet and held aloft under the ram of the head. I was very deliberate with this entire process. This was no place to get in a hurry. Finally it was in the shop. The person in the picture below is my friend Terry Sebright. He's not a big guy by any means, however seeing him in comparison to the mill you get an idea of the size of this machine.

The mill was moved into final position using a series of metal pipes and pry bars. At this point I'm just glad it's still on the correct side of the subfloor. Obviously my design of the floor shoring was up to the task.

There was still an enormous amount of work needed to get this mill up and running and finally 9 days after the truck arrived with the mill it has finally made it's first chips.

Even before this mill arrived it was scheduled for several upgrades. I'll be using a new tool holding system that is a series of collets that will allow me to change tooling in a fraction of the time this task has required in the past and there is not a major change required to go from milling to drilling.

In stock condition this mill achieves speed changes by moving the drive belt to different pulley positions. I have already upgraded this aspect. This mill now has digital speed control achieved thru a device know as a VFD or Variable Frequency Drive unit. This is one of the more technical aspects of this entire ordeal and required a good deal of research to sort out the wiring, installation and programming of this device. When it all worked I declared myself an "Electro-Magician".

There is one more major upgrade to be installed on this mill. It will receive a 3 axis digital readout system. This system will allow locations to be precisely positioned to within 2/10s of one thousandth of an inch.

Now that the machinery moving is over for a while I'm going to concentrate on posting more about the actual process of plane making and how these machines figure into the process and also about when the machine work stops and the hand work begins. Machines can do a lot of great work, however it's only when the human hand comes into the work that a certain look and feel is imparted to the item, and that will never change.

Ron

"Experience is the Name we give to our Mistakes"

A Screw Driver can be a Very Enjoyable Tool

2011-03-30T08:16:00.016-04:00

Like most people I have a occasion to buy new tools for the shop and when I obtain a tool with which I am particularly impressed I like to share my joy of owning this tool or in this case a set of tools. When I have a need to fulfill I usually like to purchase tools from another independent tool maker such as myself. Bear in mind that when I write about other’s tools in this blog these are tools that I have sought out and purchased. I am not encouraged to promote other's tools and only do so of my own free will and most importantly if I think the tool is particularly worthy.

I pursue making fine tools on a daily basis and I know most of the people in the hand tool woodworking world that also produce products of a similar nature and quality so I’m not easily impressed. I now own a set of screw drivers with which I am very impressed.

I use screw drivers an awful lot. While sizing the height of the lever cap pivot pins for one of my planes I remove and install these slotted pivot pins several times and in the process of tuning the lever cap to the back of the plane iron I may remove and install the lever cap pivot pins several more times during this process, not to mention the many other occasions during the day that require the use of a screwdriver.

During the years that I made furniture I often wished for a good set of wooden handled screw drivers. I searched for this elusive tool and the best I could find was a set that I purchased from Garrett Wade. They had square wooden handles with a sprayed lacquer finish and even though they were better than the plastic variety they still left something to be desired. They were advertised as being made in Germany. They were not exactly the Mercedes of screwdrivers.

I continued to search and once I entered into making tools I often encouraged other tool makers that made small tools with turned handles to develop and offer a good set of screw drivers. Most of them looked at me like I had two heads and typically walked off mumbling something about how I had gone completely round the bend.

Thankfully waiting round the bend was Gary Benson, Dave Lindeman and Chuck Pyne of Elkhead Tools. They obviously also thought the world needed a better set of screw drivers because they have produced a set of tools that exceeded my wildest dream of what a set of screw drivers should be.

Cheap, poorly designed screw drivers are hard on your hands and most of them don’t fit the slots of common screw sizes well at all. When they slip they mark your work and this just creates more work for a plane maker. The Elkhead Tools drivers are an absolute pleasure and quite frankly every time I hold one in my hand I marvel at how they nestle in my palm and the feel of the cocobolo handles is just so enjoyable that I believe I unconsciously smile every time I pick one up.

I’ve waited a long time for a good set of screw drivers and these guys have obviously put a lot of effort into developing these tools. These tools consist of hand turned cocobolo handles, German tool steel shank and tip with brass ferrules integral of the handle insert that gives these screw drivers such a solid and well put together appearance and feel. The tips fit the slots of common size screws quite well and don’t ding and deform the edges of the screw head slots.

If you’re getting the idea that I like these tools you’d be correct. Let me say this however. These screw drivers are most likely a bit pricier, well actually a lot pricier than any set of screw drivers you’ve ever purchased but don’t worry you’ll be getting your money’s worth and you’ll know it every time you pick one up.

If you would like to learn more about these screw drivers and the other offerings by Elkhead Tools you can visit them online at www.elkheadtools.com

Once you've acquired this set of screw drivers you're going to need another set. Go right out to your local big box store and buy a complete set, maybe even two complete sets, of the yellow and black handle screw drivers. They'll probably be less than $10.00 for the whole set and then you'll be ready. Why you may ask. When your neighbor or brother in law comes calling wanting to borrow a screw driver you'll be ready. They most probably need it to open a can of paint and there is a better than even chance they will never return it. It will be well worth the ten or so dollars to keep harmony in the neighborhood and peace in the family.

Ron

A Plane Makers Dream, Billet of Macassar Ebony

2011-03-08T22:49:00.003-05:00

I participated in the Altanta Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event February 18th and 19th at Peach State Lumber in Kennesaw, Georgia. This was a great opportunity to reconnect with some good friends from that area and see the good people from Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, my friend Deneb included. Steve Qhuel, owner of the local Woodcraft Franchise invited me to display and demo my planes on a beautiful ash Roubo bench made for him by my good friend Jameel Abraham. I just could not pass up that opportunity.

Some weeks prior to this event I received a phone call from a gentleman named John Fiant. John runs a custom woodworking/millwork business in the Marietta area of Atlanta. We conversed about several aspects of tools, tool making and many woodworking related topics. As the conversation ended we agreed that the Lie-Nielsen Event would be a great place to meet in person and continue our discussion.

John introduced himself to me at the event and as our conversation continued he inquired as to whether I would be interest in a piece of Macassar Ebony that he had in his possession. As he began to describe the piece to me I had to work at controlling my excitement. I certainly did not want to give away my bargaining position by seeming overly interested. The truth of the matter was just this....if the wood was as he described, I by all means wanted it and I told him so. So much for my bargaining position.

This billet measures 5" thick 6.5" wide and is 52" long. The moisture content measured 6.2% on all four sides. Truly a magnificent piece of very dense, will sink in water, piece of wood.

As you can see in the pictures some sides contained wonderful tight contrasting stripes and other sides contained contrasting marbling. John delivered this billet to my shop the following Thursday. When he place this piece on my workbench there was only one word to describe my condition......I was GOBSMACKED!! Seriously this was the word that popped into my mind.

A piece of wood of this nature doesn't come along everyday and I really was interested to know more about it's origins. I consulted with a friend that handles rare woods in the Atlanta area and he stated that he knew of some billets of Macassar Ebony of this description that had originated from a dealer on the west coast and was fairly sure this was some of that same material. This would put this piece of ebony as having been drying for 15 to 20 years.

By the time John departed for home I was the new owner of this wonderful piece of wood and of course my wallet was much lighter as a result. I was also in more trouble as well. When I consulted with the dealer in Atlanta he informed me that he had stumbled onto another log segment of the now famed "Picasso Rosewood". As luck would have it my wife Julie was flying to New York the next day to attend my Grandson's 1st birthday party. After I dropped her off at the airport I stopped by my local wood pusher, I mean dealer's place of business and entered into negotiations for the rosewood log. I returned home with the log segment rolling around in the trunk of my car like a bound and gagged kidnap victim.

It's been an expensive week to be a plane maker in this part of the world, but I'm thrilled to have this material.

While conversing with one of my customers on the phone the next day I mentioned this piece of wonderfully striped and marbled Macassar Ebony. He asked to me to send a picture. Negotiations of a different type ensued and when all was said and done it was agreed that I would be making a matched set of planes using the Macassar Ebony material.

A matched set of planes will be a new adventure for me and it goes right along with the adventure and the opportunity of acquiring exceptional wood. This piece of Ebony is so pristine in it's present form that it almost seems a shame to cut it up into pieces.........but I will!

Did I mention before that........ "I Live for this Stuff!"

Yeah, I guess I did. (Grin)

Ron

Shaping an Ebony Tote, or, Have you been Cleaning Out the Fireplace Again?

2011-02-25T20:51:00.010-05:00

Obviously the rear tote is the first thing your hand touches when you pick up a plane and you will either immediately like the tool or you'll be indifferent about it. There's an old saying "you never get a second chance to make a first impression" and this holds very true to the rear tote of a hand plane. This is also the area in which you get all the feedback that the plane offers while in use. For this reason I spend an inordinate amount of time in the shaping the totes on my planes.

There are basically two types of totes. Closed totes and open totes. Open totes tend to be more upright and this makes sense because they are unsupported and need the more upright configuration to maintain structural integrity. The shape of a closed tote can be enhanced because it supports itself and this allows a more forward leaning shape that most find much more comfortable and inviting. In order to close the gap between iron and tote the even steeper pitched planes have an even more forward leaning shape and I find them the most comfortable.

I started first thing one morning with the tote already in the shape shown in the photo below. Roughly shaped, all the features that fit it to the plane body already in place, some of the areas rounded over. This particular tote will be part of a 132-50P stainless steel panel plane. I will use three tools to form the details of the shape I want to achieve. I start with an extremely sharp 1/2" chisel, you have to start sharp because it won't stay that way long while working ebony, a fairly course rasp, and a fine cabinet makers rasp. Both rasp are flat on one side and rounded on the other. This is critical for obvious reasons. You'll need to refresh the edge on the chisel several times during this process. When the chisel starts pulling out pieces instead of shearing it's time to hone.

I begin by blending the transitions from the rounded areas to the areas that remain somewhat flatter and I find that I can remove material much quicker at this stage of the process with the chisel.

As you start approaching the desired preliminary shape take lighter cuts with the chisel. This will allow you to refine the larger flat facets of the chisel cuts and make the shape much fairer.

Also note that I'm using the chisel with the bevel side against the surface I'm cutting. You can gauge the depth of the cut easier this way and it follows the contour. In the picture below you'll see that I'm making the radius of the neck of the stem deeper than it started. Some areas of the tote need to be shaped into a more elongated radius, I'll talk more about that later.

Next I shape the thumbnail at the top of the horn. It starts as shown in the picture below. You need a lot of control here so I do this with the finer of the cabinet makers rasp, and I find that I can achieve much better symmetry in the shape if I just move the rasp from my right to my left hand rather than moving the tote so as to work both sides with my dominant hand. Working left and right handed in some areas is just something you have to teach yourself to do. You'll find that it saves time and your perspective of your work piece doesn't change which is very helpful when trying to achieve a symmetrical shape.

The competed thumbnail shape at the top of the horn.

The process of refinement continues by working with the coarser rasp and continuing with the finer rasp as we approach the final shape. It's hard to show what a rasp really does in pictures so I decided to spare you those details. Below is the completed shape after shaping and sanding. I typically sand up to 600 grit and then use #0000 steel wool to polished the surface even further.

If you examine the picture below thoroughly you see that the radius of the neck has been expanded into a more elongated shape that accepts your hand in this area, almost asking you to hold the plane. The areas at the bottom of the main stem are also shaped into an elongated radius but here is where there are some minor differences.

The neck just under the horn needs to be shaped in a similar manner on both sides of the tote, however the area at the bottom of the stem should be shaped based on the approach of the hand. In other words if the user is right handed then that area will be more elongate on the right side or side of approach, the other side needs to be less elongated so that area of your smallest finger from the joint to the tip has an area to grip. This particular tote was made for a left handed user so it's shaped opposite that description.

Because this tote is for one of my stainless planes I have a little more leeway in the shape at the bottom of the tote. I did not have to work around the confines of the areas where the side pieces attach to the center section as is the case in one of my infills.

The next step is to apply the shellac polish. I apply the first coat as full strength two pound cut shellac which is allowed to dry and then flattened with 400 and 600 grit sandpaper followed by #0000 steel wool. Then I apply several coats of french polish which is subsequently rubbed down with steel wool and then buffed on a soft buffing wheel. This makes it look as satiny as it feels.

As I mentioned early I started first thing in the morning shaping this tote. It did not get the first coat of shellac until later than evening around 7:00 pm. It was a long day, my hands, shirt, pants and everything that was even close to the workbench that day was as black as coal.....and I loved it. If you haven't figured it out by now.....I sort of live for this stuff!

Ron

Oh My Aching Back, Legs, Arms, Shoulders, Neck, Etc.

2011-02-09T20:56:00.018-05:00

1950's Era Covel surface grinder in the shop of the former owner.

Ironically it sometimes takes machinery to make hand tools to a very high level of fit and finish. Last year I purchased a small 6 x 12 surface grinder. Initially I used this tool to perform the surface grinding on my plane irons when they returned from the heat treating process, but as it usually goes once you have a tool and get acquainted with the way it works you find ways to use it to the best advantage in other areas of your work. This sometimes leads to the pursuit of a tool with increased capacity.

Craig's List has recently met my needs in this area, maybe a little too well. In the case of the 50's era Covel surface grinder that I recently purchased it seems as though it worked out beautifully. A nice piece of old iron, in good shape, at a very good price. When I went to look at this machine I made sure that my good friend and master machinist Johnny Kleso could accompany me for the inspection trip. The ad stated that the machine had been completely disassemble, cleaned, painted and all parts that needed replacement had in fact been replaced. I've traveled to inspect machines in the past in which the ad stated they had been completely refurbished, or were like new, only to arrive and find a machine that had paint over rust.

Johnny and I walked into the sellers shop to find a machine that looked to be nicely refurbished. Of course the spindle is the heart of the surface grinder and if it's not running true then the rest of the machine is not worth much. I switched on the machine, the spindle started up and was whisper quiet. Not so much as a shudder when it started. Cool!

There was however a catch. This machine weighed 1800 pounds and was in a basement with only stairs as the access. The picture below shows the surface grinder partially broken down in the basement of the sellers shop.

A deal was made and I set a date in which to retrieve the machine. The day before I was to fetch the surface grinder my good friend Jameel Abraham was arriving to spend the week, escaping the Iowa winter. As you can probably imagine this was no coincidence. When Jameel left Iowa Sunday morning it was 12 degrees, when he got off the plane in Atlanta that afternoon it was 72 degrees, the sun was shining and the sky was quite blue. Unfortunately the next day it rained and so we postponed the transport of the surface grinder until later in the week. We arrived in Decatur, Ga. Wednesday morning with a bag full of tools, a camera, and a bunch of ziplock bags that would be used to label and package hardware. We disassembled everything that two people could carry away from the grinder and packed those pieces in the truck and then spent a couple of hours putting together a strategy for handling the three heaviest castings. We arrived home that night about 7:30 tired from a long day and we still had the task of unloading the truck.

We estimated the base casting to weigh 600 pounds, the base cap casting about 500 pounds and the spindle column casting maybe 350 pounds. A plan is needed to handle pieces of this magnitude safely, especially with the limited space in which to move these pieces. Things this heavy go down steps much easier than they go up steps.

The next morning we returned and unstacked the castings using a come-a-long hanging from a floor joist in the basement and lowered them onto a heavy caster that we then wheeled out the door. We made a ramp on the steps using a piece of 3/4" plywood. We tugged the pieces up the ramp with the come-a-long that was anchored to the base of a shrub that had been in place over a decade. No shrubs were injured in the moving of this machine, there was however a patch of oregano that took a pretty good beating from the foot traffic.

We wheeled the pieces around the house to the driveway to load them into the truck and that's when it started sleeting. The sleet turned into rain while we were loading the pieces into the truck with the help of an engine hoist. Luckily the areas of raw cast iron were well oiled, you can see the rain beading up on the oil in the picture below.

We were able to get all the parts in the truck, it was still raining and we were cold, tired, sore and wet. We headed home.

When we arrived home the first order of business was to take some Tylenol, the second order of business was to eat the burgers and fries that my wife Julie had waiting on us and the third order of business was to once again pull on our wet, cold gloves and unload the truck. Without the assistance of the young man pictured below using the engine hoist to remove the last piece from the truck, this machine would have not made it to my shop in any reasonable amount of time. Thanks Jameel, I will be forever grateful.

By 10:30 that night all the pieces were unloaded. We dried all the surfaces with paper towels and a hair dryer and applied a new coat of oil to the bare cast iron surfaces.

This picture was taken several days later and shows the machine fully reassembled and in my shop. This machine is truly massive and truly amazing in performance. This old iron thing could get addictive. I keep telling myself, "stay off of Craig's List"," stay off of Craig's list."

When pursuing the acquisition of a machine of this nature it makes all the difference to have the help of knowledgeable people and friends like Johnny Kleso and Jameel Abraham.

"Thanks guys!"

Ron

Working Stainless, You Best be on Your Game

2011-01-25T08:39:00.010-05:00

Mention stainless steel to most machinists and they look at you like you're some kind of sadist. If it's within your power to choose, why would you subject yourself to this kind of mental and physical abuse? The answer is simple, corrosion resistance. If you remember a couple of posts back I put a piece of 410 stainless on the door step of my shop exposed to the elements just to see if it would prove to be as corrosion resistant as claimed. The piece is still on the steps and for a week it was frozen in a block of ice, courtesy of the unusual winter storm that came thru a couple of weeks ago. The ice melted and the piece looks just as it did the day I put it out for the torture of mother nature.

The stainless does however live up to a reputation for being difficult to work. You'll go thru more tooling than with any other metal and cutting lubrication is an essential key to being successful with this material. Drilling is an area of much concern. You can work harden this material in the bat of an eye and once this occurs your only recovery will be with carbide tooling, however it's really just a better idea to avoid this occurrence. Sometimes it's just not within an acceptable design parameter to remove a few more thousandths with the carbide tooling so working hardening can also mean scrap parts and if this part happens to be a plane side that is match milled to the other side it could mean scrap parts time two. When one considers that precision ground 410 stainless is typically priced three times what you would expect to pay for mild steel....well, it can get expensive real quick. You learn that it's cheaper to pitch the drill bit that you're not really sure about rather than create stainless scrap. The trade off is evident a $4.00 drill bit versus a $135.00 stainless bar.

There is also a considerable amount of irony in working 410 stainless. In the photo above you'll see that one of the planes sides has been refined by removing the milling marks from the edge, and the piece in the background awaits this process. 410 stainless is formulated to be" wear resistant" so when you working an edge to remove the milling marks it comes to mind that you are trying to wear material that is "wear resistant." You can't think about this for very long because the idea of it will make you weary. As a comparison, anything that you can do in brass that requires 10 minutes of work will take 1 1/2 to 2 hours in stainless. Once again don't think about this too long or you'll go completely off the idea of corrosion resistance plane bodies.

I will have to say that milling 410 stainless with carbide end mills is a relatively easy task if you provide the cutter plenty of lubrication so it's not difficult in every aspect of fabrication but it will wear tooling at a much higher rate. It is not the easiest material to surface grind. I typically can get parts out of the mill at very close tolerances. It's pretty typical to achieve tolerances of .0005 on the width a plane sole in a length of 14" and that bit of inconsistency (if you would call .0005 an inconsistency) can be removed on the surface grinder if one wishes to do so.

Creating the stainless tweed pattern on the interior surface of the sole requires indicating every part when it is put into the vise and quite frankly what passes as precision ground bar these days usually isn't quite accurate enough to accommodate a milled texture that is only .002 deep in the surface. Therefore these pieces have to be reground here in the shop. The tweed pattern is a math/milling puzzle and attempting to assure that it is perfectly centered on the plane sole can drive a plane maker "round the bend."

The picture below shows the process of milling the tweed pattern, anyone can cut milling patterns in metal but to cut a milling pattern that has a holographic effect and looks like tweed fabric is a different thing altogether. It requires the correct starting point, the proper pitch of the overlap, the correct feed rate and depth of cut.

The picture below features two new additions to the shop. When attempting very precise work in demanding materials accurate working holding is very key. These two Glacern vises are very well made tools and are quite up to the task once they've been accurately set and indicated to the mill spindle and one to the other. I indicated these vise the same day I milled the stainless tweed pattern on two set of plane soles. Somedays you can just wear yourself out with math.

I certainly did not mean to post a gloom and doom of working stainless entry today. But sometimes a little insight into what's required to perform this work is helpful. I do believe the effort is worth the result. The stainless tools have a quality that is quite different in look and feel. The emphasis on very precise work in these tools is important in my effort to consistently create planes of this quality. Of course when all the pieces of a tool fit together quite precisely and solidly you have a plane that when in use.... nothing moves but the shaving. Include an iron with a quite sharp edge and wood fibers just don't have a chance.

My next post should show the final parts required before assembly of the plane body and the body assembled, that is unless I get off on another tangent. It's been know to happen. (grin)

Ron

Rosewood is Interesting Stuff and Sometimes it Comes with a Story

2011-01-09T22:56:00.042-05:00

Rosewood may be the most intriguing wood that I have the opportunity to work. I was lucky enough some years ago to acquire on some very old log segments of this material. Quite honestly I don't really know which category of rosewood this material would be a part of. One of the log segments had markings on it that indicated that it had passed thru the Panama Canal on the trip that ultimately ended at the door of my shop. South America is a big country so this still gave no clue to it's identity. Quite frankly I don't care what kind of Rosewood it is because one thing I do know, it's really dense beautiful material.

The other aspect that I really enjoy when working this wood is that it's very unpredictable. I don't mean that it's not stable, what I'm making reference to is the fact that you can cut infill blanks from a 20" section of this material and the first 10 inches may look completely different than the second 10 inches and the color can vary widely in just this much length. The growth rings aren't nearly as consistent as in most woods and sometimes a swirl occurs in the growth rings.

Let me tell you the story of how I came to acquire this very old and wonderful wood. I was at the annual meeting of the Midwest Tool Collectors Association in Madison, Georgia. This event is called the Peach Meet because of it's location in the Peach growing belt of the Piedmont area of our state. I brought along one of my infill smoothing planes and a gentleman from Athens, GA whose name was ironically "Brent Wood", became quite enamored with the mahogany infilled plane.

The next week Brent sent me an email proposing a trade. He explained that he had this quite old rosewood log and would be willing to trade it at some value against the price of the plane. Brent also went on to tell me a rather elaborate story about how this particular log segment had come into his possession.

During the 1950s it seems an artist from Elberton, Georgia had gone to Europe to study with Picasso. This artist, whose name I do not know, carved sculptures from exotic woods. Upon his return from Europe he purchased several rosewood and ebony log segments from Carlton McClendons Rare Woods in Atlanta, Georgia. This gentleman set forth in his career determined to make a name for himself as a full time working artist. Well as the story goes the fact that he had studied with Picasso did not seem to impress many people and this gentleman became the proverbial starving artist.

He rented a farm house and on the premises was a barn that housed his studio. His work was not selling and he was terribly behind on his rent. He had often touted to his landlord as to the value of the log segments that were his chosen medium. The landlord was devising a way to regain his back rents when the time came that he would ultimately have to evict his tenant. The landlord decided when he evicted the artist that he would seize the logs and then sell them in order to recover at least some of what was owed.

The artist caught wind of the landlords intentions and moved one night under the cover of darkness taking with him all but a few of the log segments. He stored the log segments in an abandoned building until he could figure out how to get himself re-situated and back to work. However just a few weeks later the abandoned building caught fire. The building and the contents went up in flames. ( I literally cringed when I was told this part of the story) The remaining log segments were sold back to Carlton McClendon and this is where Brent had purchased the log segment that he traded for the plane.

Well........, you could probably imagine that I thought this was a pretty elaborate story that could have well been made up by someone wishing to improve his bargaining position in this trade. On the other hand it also sounded a little too involved to be a made up tale, so I called Carlton McClendon's Rare Woods the next day and the gentleman with whom I spoke, patiently listened to my re-telling of the story and when I had finished he said, "every detail of this story is absolutely true" and he also stated that Mr. Carlton had recounted this story to him on several occasions before he passed on. He also informed me of how Carlton had come into possession of the log segments in the late 1940s but that's a story for another time. As I began to recount this story to others this wood acquired a nick name, "Picasso Rosewood".

The great result of this story is there were several more log segments of this material in a dark corner of the basement of this wood selling establishment. They were stuck into a dark hole beside an ancient veneer press. The next day I went to Carlton McClendon's. Myself and the proprietor, with some toll of effort, extracted the logs from the hole where they had resided for several decades. I'd like to believe that these pieces of this extraordinary wood had just been patiently waiting for me all those years. I was born in 1953 so these pieces of rosewood had been there waiting for me to grow up, get a education and then go off into the world to learn and absorb all the things I would need to know and accomplish to eventually become a full time furniture maker and eventually a plane maker, and then one day to make the acquaintance of Brent Wood and as they say "The Rest is History."

As I was recently completing the 875-250 plane in the pictures that begin and follow this story it set me to thinking about the day I met Brent Wood and all this was set into motion. The 875 plane is a version of the Norris number 13 smoothing plane. I've observed several versions of this tool made by other plane makers and I have to say it's one of my favorite forms of a smoothing plane. The sweeping curves of the brass sides in contrast with the steel sole and the color of the rosewood infill are just a very compelling thing to me.

Next week this plane will make it's way to Greenwich Village, NY and a piece of a story that started when the log segments came into the U.S.A. sometime in the 1940s will continue it's journey and possibly the beginnings of a new story will be inspired by the legacy of woodworks made with the use of this tool created in the first month of this New Year 2011.

Ron

An added note: If you have infill planes with dense hardwood infills you need to stay aware of the moisture content in your shop or the area where you store these tools especially during the dry winter months. Humidity levels of below 25 percent for extended periods of time can cause these woods to check. If you have a location in your home or shop where the humidity is controlled then just store the plane or planes in this location during the winter months. Another remedy is to place the plane in a large ziplock plastic bag along with a wad of damp paper towel. Stick the wad of damp paper towel in the very corner of the bag making sure the paper towel doesn't contact any part of the plane. Take the usual precautions for protecting the metal bits from rust and periodically replenish the moisture in the bit of paper towel.

If you discover a check don't try to repair it while the environment is dry. Just bide your time until the humidity returns to a more moderate level and you may well discover that the check will resolve on it's own.

I admit it!!! I have a Dovetail Saw Problem......

2011-01-03T13:08:00.012-05:00

As the title says "I have a Dovetail Saw Problem" but I only have six. Some while back I decided to start collecting dovetail saws from the independent saw makers that are at this time making saws. I had a few criteria that the saws I would purchase would have to meet. (1) I had to know the maker. (2) I had to like the maker. This one was easy because I already knew most of these guys and as of yet I haven't met a saw maker that I didn't like. (3) The saws had to have a wooden tote or handle. (4) The saw had to have a reputation for working rather well.

I started with a Lie-Nielsen saw and quickly progress to a Medallion Tool Works saw, I then had the opportunity to pick up a Mike Wenzloff Harvey Peace saw. Next up was the Gramercy that I purchased from Joel at Tools for Woodworking.

The next arrival was my Eccentric Toolworks saw from Andrew Lunn made using a piece of my Picasso rosewood for the tote. (Don't try to Google Picasso Rosewood, it's a long story but I'll explain in another post at a later date) This saw was unlike anything that I had experienced up to this point and I mean that in a very good way.

My most recent acquisition was a saw from Klaus and Pedder. Two attorneys in Germany that have a passion for making fine saws. This saw has a plum tote and strikes me as a more robust version of the Gramercy saw.

The saw is a little larger overall than the Gramercy and the back is notably more substantial. The plum tote (see below) is rather striking and I never imagined it would have this dark color. The details of this saw are quite well attended and it's as tight today as it was when it arrived.

I first discovered Klaus and Pedder on the Woodnet forum. They posted pictures of some of their saws and they were asking for feedback in order to improve the details and the working ability of their saws. It was also apparent in their comments that they did not take themselves too seriously which appealed to me on several levels. You can see their work at:

http://two-lawyers-toolworks.blogspot.com/

Plane making has cut into the time I have for my personal woodworking projects considerably. I'm not cutting several sets of dovetails a week so when I can get good consistent results with a tool I have to give a certain amount of credit to the tool being so well tuned and ready to work which is what I discovered in the box that arrived from Germany. If you look at the trial cuts in the picture below you'll see that I was able make cuts that were very square to the end of the board consistently and they were at a consistent angle as compared to the adjacent cuts. I didn't pay particular attention to depth on these trial cuts.

As hand tool woodworkers we are quite lucky to have so many great choices in this age of tool making. I featured the Klaus and Pedder saw into this blog entry because it is a recent addition but I have to say that all the dovetail saws that I own work wonderfully. Some are notably different in some regards but they all are quite well made by some quite wonderful people. I really appreciate the fine folks that purchase my tools and I enjoy celebrating and enjoying the work of others.

When I approach a project these days it's fun to think that I will be using tools made by myself and tools made by people I consider friends.

My fascination with dovetail saws may be satisfied for a while and I've resigned myself to purchasing only tools that I will use in the shop on a daily basis, however in a future post I just have to tell you about the awesome back saw with ebony handle that I just received from Ed Paik at Medallion tools......Oh No!! Back Saws.....can a person live with just one!?

On a different note....I had a visitor in the shop this week. This gentleman's name was Eric D'Ercole. Eric is in the Army and is stationed at Fort Benning about an hours drive from my shop. Eric has been deployed to the Middle East twice, once in Afghanistan, and also in Iraq. Eric worked with a luthier as a teenager and his father is an avid woodworker. Eric is looking toward his retirement and wants to get back to woodworking and is interested in including more hand tools in his work. As we discussed setting up planes, sharpening techniques and many other aspects of working with hand tools, he kept thanking me for sharing my time. When I thought about how he has spent almost all of his adult life and some of the places he's been in service to our country it seemed pretty absurd that he was thanking me for a couple of hours spent at my shop.

Ron

Stainless? Yes! But which one?

2010-12-23T20:16:00.011-05:00

If you're familiar with the tools that I make then you're probably aware that I've spent considerably effort as of late in developing a line of stainless steel hand planes. Corrosion resistant planes are something that has been requested by woodworkers for some while now, yet it seemed that no plane makers really wished to enter into making tools from these alloys.

The stainless alloys have a reputation for being hard to work and quite frankly this is quite true. You really have to be on your game when working this material and you'll go thru tooling like my family goes thru my wife's biscuits at Sunday dinner.

The choice of stainless alloy was a key element in regards to whether or not this would be a successful endeavor. I've had some dealings in my past with stainless steel. I once worked with for an industrial contractor that had a presence on site at a copper refinery and that included not only a smelter operation but also an electrolysis operation where some parts of the equipment were submerged in vats of acid and other parts where constantly exposed to acid vapors. I soon learned that these type of very caustic environments where the reason that the 300 Series stainless steels were developed. It seemed they were the only materials that survived any reasonable length of time in this kind of environment.

I don't know many people that store their hand planes in vats of acid or near acid vapors so I think the 300 Series of stainless alloys might just be a bit of over kill for use in the making of a hand plane. I took my lead from knife makers. It seems they've had success for quite sometime with the 400 Series stainless steels and their applications include hunting knives which are exposed to the outside elements as well as to blood. I reasoned that woodworkers sometimes expose their tools to blood as well but usually accidentally. Obviously knife makers have had success with the 400 Series alloys for this application and when you consider that a hunting knife may contain parts that are hardened, some parts can be differentially hardened and some parts are still in their annealed state. This bears mentioning because whether or not a material is hardened also has an effect on the corrosion resistance as well. Also in my research I also learned that surface refinement also had an effect on corrosion resistance. Corrosion will understandably begin in areas where the metal contained rough more unrefined surface.

Taking all this into account I decided to so some experimenting of my own. I planned to use this material for the body of the plane in it's annealed state so I placed a scrap of the 410 stainless on the front steps of my shop and left it for 4 weeks. I prepped this piece by lapping the two flat sides on 220 grit sandpaper and left the edges rough. During this period of time it rained on several occasions, the temperature range from 14 to 60 degrees during this period so condensation formed on the piece and in a couple of instances ice formed on the piece overnight. Below is the picture I took when the piece was first placed on the step.

I performed an inspection of the porch step sample today. It looks just as it did the first day I put it out on the steps, even the rough edges showed no signs of corrosion. Of course I wouldn't suggest that anyone store their stainless bodied planes on the outside steps of their shop especially considering that the high carbon blade would certainly rust. Below is a picture of the sample after 4 weeks outdoor exposure.

The other consideration is that 400 Series stainless is magnetic which increases the ease of work holding and anyone one that has done much machine work knows that work holding is paramount to good machine work. All these factors lead me to believe that the 400 Series alloys may be the most ideal alloy for plane making.

On a lighter note....I've been working to complete some planes in time to ship them off in time for the Christmas holidays. A pair of rosewood infill "J" planes were the first to leave.

Holiday Traditions

For as long as I can remember, well maybe not that long, but it seems as long as we've had children one of the holiday decorations that we've used in our house at Christmas has been a little train of letters that spells the word "Noel". Children have great imaginations and one day when I looked over at the little train it did not spell "Noel". See picture below.

Maybe you had to be there, but I about spit out my coffee laughing when I saw this. I've always told my children to never let a good education go to waste, I guess this is the result.

Merry Christmas

Ron

Welcome to my new blog

2010-12-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

My good friend and big-headed plane fanatic Jameel of Benchcrafted was kind enough to set up this blog for me. He's a great guy, but maybe a little too helpful sometimes. I don't know whether to thank him, or block his phone number. Maybe I'll just ignore him altogether....then again, maybe he'll get mad and try and burn down my shop....

No that's not my shop burning in the background it's actually Jameel's first attempt at making charcoal. As soon as he shut off the air to the container it starting boiling smoke and then the worst thing that could possibly happen occurred......the wind died and the air went perfectly still, nope not a bit of wind. 30 minutes later the entire neighborhood was engulfed in this dense white smoke.

When the Fire Truck pulled into their driveway Jameel and his brother Father John Abraham were standing by the drum in their cooking aprons acting as if everything was normal. They explained that they were merely smoking some pork roast and if the firemen returned the next day they would hook them up with some killer Bar-B-Que.

If you have't figure it out by now this Blog will not be exclusively about planes and the making of planes. There will also be some post about woodworking projects, tools that I acquire from other independent tool makers for my own use and post about people shutting the school across the street down due to excessive smoke pollution in the air. ( I couldn't resist!)

All in all I want this blog to be fun as well as informative. Sometimes, at our own peril, we take life and ourselves just a little too seriously, so I'll try to keep the post light hearted and we'll poke fun at ourselves and maybe at a few other people that we think might be able to endure some good natured kidding.