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Alternative to wood for eg plough plane fences?

A

Andy Kev.

Nordic Pine
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As we all know it is usual to use a bit of stable, flat wood when making e.g. a plough plane fence and of course it works. However, what are the chances of the fence moving a bit and thus introducing a small bit of inaccuracy? It occurred to me that it is odd that nobody seems to think of using other materials e.g. a 1/4" thick bit of perspex / acrylic etc. What I mean is something that should never move at all.

Has this ever been tried? It probably wouldn't be aesthetically too pleasing but it might give a high level of assurance.

It could be that it's never been tried because most of us, most of the time get satisfactory results the traditional way, so I could have just answered my own question.

Any thoughts?
 
If the fence is running against the workpiece, is it better to have two similar materials, i.e. wood and wood, rather than two dissimilar materials which could result in the workpiece being marked in some way?
 
I don’t understand your question, a wooden fence shouldn’t move once it’s set.
Do you mean it wearing away? I have added a box wood wearing surface to wooden rebate fences, it’s a good use for broken yard sticks.

Pete
 
If you think about sorts of jobs where grooves were ploughed, a little bit of deviation from theoretical perfection didn't matter. A door panel would go into its groove ok even if the groove wandered a bit. A gross error could be corrected with a stroke of a plane to thin down the edge of the panel.
The same would apply to T&G work.

And most woodworkers can lay their hands on a nice bit of hardwood easier than they can find bits of hard, slippery plastic.
 
Pete,

I had a perfectly flat piece of American poplar as a fence on my plough plane. For some reason I took it off, left it for a day and then found that it had developed the slightest curve from one end to the other. I accept that if it's flat at the time of screwing on, it should stay that way but it did get me wondering.
 
Andy, I agree and I've never had difficulties with wood but it did get me thinking that I'm surprised that nobody has thought of developing something with bombproof flatness.

But as I said in my OP, I don't think there's an actual, practical need for something other than wood. Just Friday night speculation, I suppose.
 
Malc2098 said:
If the fence is running against the workpiece, is it better to have two similar materials, i.e. wood and wood, rather than two dissimilar materials which could result in the workpiece being marked in some way?
Click to expand...
Good point.
 
In my limited experience of playing about with a variety of plough planes old and new, plain steel is not great for a fence. If you do have to use one, rubbing it with a candle helps a lot.

On fancy planes like the Stanley 45 and its Record 405 copy, the makers used a strip of naturally slippery rosewood, which is both practical to use and smart to look at.
 
Don’t know if this would work in your case but I have a roll of UHMWPE tape that is used when I want to stop something wearing and needs to be slidey.
 
Or don't put anything on it? they still work the same and do not mark the wood.
 
Andy Kev. said:
Pete,

I had a perfectly flat piece of American poplar as a fence on my plough plane. For some reason I took it off, left it for a day and then found that it had developed the slightest curve from one end to the other. I accept that if it's flat at the time of screwing on, it should stay that way but it did get me wondering.
Click to expand...
Poplar is not a wood I would reach for when making a fence for any plane. Beech, temperate hardwoods, Walnut and Oak would be my choices.
 
Andy Kev. said:
As we all know it is usual to use a bit of stable, flat wood when making e.g. a plough plane fence and of course it works. However, what are the chances of the fence moving a bit and thus introducing a small bit of inaccuracy? It occurred to me that it is odd that nobody seems to think of using other materials e.g. a 1/4" thick bit of perspex / acrylic etc. What I mean is something that should never move at all.

Has this ever been tried? It probably wouldn't be aesthetically too pleasing but it might give a high level of assurance.

It could be that it's never been tried because most of us, most of the time get satisfactory results the traditional way, so I could have just answered my own question.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Andy, any movement is more likely to be caused by inaccurate set up or less-than-sufficient tightening down.

The material the fence is made of is of minimal concern as long as it is still/rigid enough - a problem can occur if the fence flexes. This happened to me recently. The original fence I made for a moving fillister plane flexed ...



The beefed up version sorted this out ...



The fence on this bridle plow I built is wood and is not going to flex!





Regards from Perth

Derek
 
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