Winter Smoother - Friday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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