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Home-made router plane WIP

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Home-made router plane WIP

Postby Mike G » 11 Nov 2017, 22:15

After three weeks solid drawing without a day off, I needed some workshop time. I'd a little project in mind for a while, and took the opportunity today. After half a day sharpening chisels and planes, tidying, and a bit of plane fettling too, I got started. This is all from stuff out of my scrap bin, and, for the fun of it, I set myself two rules: no power tools, and no sandpaper (or rasps). So this is all with saws and blades.

First, a found a piece of scrap oak suitable for the body of my router plane idea, and cleaned it up with my plane:

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Now, I made this up entirely on the bench as I was doing it, so there are no drawings, and I used no measurements. The only thing I know for certain is that the angle on the plane bed is 35 degrees:

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I was going to just do half-laps to join the side pieces, but last minute decided to do them as dovetail half-laps:

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With the ends being cut on the angle, there was no reference to properly mark from, and so the marking was by pencil. That was to have consequences..... Anyway, next, to the side-pieces:

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The first side went swimmingly well. The second dovetail didn't. Much too loose, and inaccurate:

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I found my old "egg beater" drill (remember the rules!!) and drilled a hole, then slit the dovetail up the middle:

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I fashioned a slim wedge (too slim, as I found out later).

I had a change of heart over the next part. Originally I intended to insert a short length of steel rod, but did this instead out of oak:

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That ugly gap was because I forgot to bring my glasses back out, and just carried on regardless. Pillock.

I don't like Danish oil. I particularly don't like it on oak. But this is only a tool, and a friend gave me a can of the stuff (gee thanks), so I thought I'd try to use some of it up. A couple of quick coats prior to gluing up:

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Then a dry fit, and a check on the arrangements:

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Glue up (2 joints.......just 2 joints. How could anyone cock that up?) didn't go well. I used D4, so didn't have long. The first dovetail was quick and easy, but the one with the wedge......erm.........wasn't. I glued everything, including the wedge,assembled the joint, then drove the wedge home. It hit the bottom of the hole without being wide enough to close up the gaps around the dovetail. I had to pull everything apart, and of course, the wedge wouldn't come out. In the end I had to cut it away, getting glue over everything including the saw teeth. With the glue drying rapidly, I had to fashion another wedge, touch up the glue, reassemble, bash the wedge home, and hope.

All's well that ends well. The fixed dovetail was somewhere near reasonable:

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Setting that aside to dry, I then made a quick shooting board. I came back to the router an hour or two later. The above photo is after I had cleaned up the ends with a plane, and re-did the Danish oil. The final job was to fettle the underside, and I'm afraid I couldn't think of any way of doing that properly without using sandpaper. So, I marked up the base so I could see where was high and low:

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Clamped some paper tightly to my planer in-feed table:

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Then fettled away:

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Finally, time to give it a try. I roughed out a housing in a bit of scrap pine, stuck in a 1/2" chisel and tapped it to position with a hammer, then scraped away:

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It worked a treat!!

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Re: Home-made router plane WIP

Postby RogerS » 11 Nov 2017, 22:24

Excellent WIP, Mike

:eusa-clap:

I share your loathing of Danish oil.
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.
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Re: Home-made router plane WIP

Postby Malc2098 » 11 Nov 2017, 23:09

Cracking job, Mike.

Last time I used a router plane was for my Woodwork A Level pieces in June 1968!!
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Re: Home-made router plane WIP

Postby 9fingers » 11 Nov 2017, 23:17

If the dado was cut properly with a dado head in the first place, there would be no need for such a strange device :lol: :lol:

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Re: Home-made router plane WIP

Postby Rod » 12 Nov 2017, 01:18

Careful Mike, you’ll have too many tools

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Re: Home-made router plane WIP

Postby Mike G » 12 Nov 2017, 09:14

9fingers wrote:If the dado was cut properly with a dado head in the first place, there would be no need for such a strange device :lol: :lol:

Bob


:lol: :lol:

Dado? That's a circular saw thing, isn't it? ;)
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Re: Home-made router plane WIP

Postby Mike G » 12 Nov 2017, 09:17

Rod wrote:Careful Mike, you’ll have too many tools

Rod


:lol: I think of this as a jig rather than a tool.

Wasn't it you, Rod, who used to have the signature about the most dangerous thing in the workshop being sandpaper? It was remembering that that led me to making this without abrasives. It would have been so much easier if I could have smoothed over the curves with a bit of sandpaper.
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Re: Home-made router plane WIP

Postby ScotlandtheDave » 12 Nov 2017, 09:46

I can’t believe you made joints that well, by hand, for fun! Great skills and also great to see how to recover things if they don’t go to plan- an invisible repair. Great read, thanks for sharing!
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Re: Home-made router plane WIP

Postby Andyp » 12 Nov 2017, 21:16

Brilliant.
I do not think therefore I do not am.

cheers
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