Making a Mini Low Angle Block Plane with Dovetails

Today I'm going to have a go at making a mini low angle block plane after making a sketch I decided to make a mock-up out of plywood just to see the proportions and to see how it feels to hold and for a size comparison here it is next to my regular block plane the sides will be made from brass and the sole from and stainless steel they'll be joined together with dovetails and I'll get started first with making the sides I know there'll be somebody who won't like me using calipers for marking out but these are just cheap ones they're old and the digital readout no longer works and they're perfect for this I'm marking the dovetails out at 15 degrees I quickly made some wooden jaws for the vice and I'll use those as a guide to file down to the baseline of the dovetails I could have cut them out with a saw first but brass files down pretty quickly and I actually really enjoy filing when I started to get close I switched over to needle files to get right into the corners now I'll cut the sides to shape and to help with that I made a template out of aluminium in case I ever want to make another one that's the sides prepared and before I start working on the sole I'll take a moment to tell you about today's sponsor which is Surfshark Surfshark is a VPN which is an app or browser extension that allows you to place your device anywhere in the world this lets you access the Internet as if you are in that country and allows you to access and unblock content that you wouldn't normally be able to see also Surfshark is the only VPN to offer one account to use on an unlimited number of devices after a long day in the workshop and then reviewing and editing footage I like to unwind by watching something with the family using Surfshark to expand our viewing content is great just change the location and access a whole new library also with Surfshark's encryption there's an extra layer of security when you're online this keeps all of your personal things safe such as password, photos, videos or anything else that you'd like to keep private click the link in the description below and use my code PASK to get 85% off plus three months extra free Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee so there's no risk to try it out for yourself and thanks again to Surfshark for sponsoring the video I need the sole to be as wide as two side pieces plus one inch for the in fills of the plane and I've also added another piece and that's for some extra on the dovetails next I'll grind a 12 degree bevel for the blade to sit on and I'll make a second bevel on the other end of the workpiece and this will make more sense as I go next I'll refine the bevels and make sure they're accurate using 180 grit sandpaper and a bevel guide now you can see how those pieces fit together and next I'll shape the mouth after marking it out next I'm going to silver solder the two pieces together but before I do that I'll clean them up and wipe them down with acetone this is the first time I've ever silver soldered so fingers crossed it works out after applying flux to the joint I cut small pieces of solder I'm placing those in position and I'm putting some flux on those too it did work but there's definitely room there for some improvement there's a couple of low spots but I'll flatten the sole further when I put the plane together here's the moment of truth and it's not bad at all and here it is with the other side done unfitted now onto the bed of the plane I wasn't sure how thick I needed this piece to be so I soldered a piece of 3mm flat bar to a piece of 12mm just to give me a bit more material to play with it turned out this wasn't necessary but I got some more practice at soldering the plane will have a blade adjuster and this hole is for that to screw into next I prepared a couple of thin strips of brass they get soldered onto the bed and they form guides for the blade adjuster it needs a bit of a cleanup but the soldering worked pretty well now I need to cut the block down to a 12 degree wedge to match and continue the bevel on the sole I cut this wedge on the miter saw to help mark it out this is a bit of trial and error to get the correct size and position of the bed I need to take more off to bring it forward I did this a few times until I got it just where I wanted it now I'll start making the blade adjuster and for the first piece I'm using a strip of stainless steel I didn't show this very well but I'm soldering a small piece of stainless steel rod this is what will engage the blade and advance or retract it this hole will be a collar to hold an adjustment screw I'm just rounding it over to tidy it up I then made a saw cut and that will be opened up later on to fit the screw I'll put that aside for now and I'll start working on the screw I don't have a metal lathe although I may get one soon but as I don't have one yet I'm not gonna let that stop me and a fair bit of filing on the drill press should get the job done the rod is 6mm and I need to file this section down to 5mm ready to take an M5 thread and next I'm filing a recess for the collar of the adjuster to sit in the screw needs a head so I'm stealing one off this bolt and the remainder of the bolt gets used later in the project and again I'll solder that to the screw and it seems like I'm starting to get the hang of it I'm grinding the head ready to knurl but I didn't get the head on very straight I kept going with it but it ended up well off-center and I just wasn't happy with it I tried to remove the head by heating it up to melt solder but I managed to break the screw I made another screw but I went about things differently I put a drill with the cutting end in the chuck brought that down into a vise and then clamped that to the table and then I put the bolt in the chuck this drilled it perfectly in the center I also realized that a screw would have snapped when I came to knurl, it being so thin so I knurled the head now using my knurling jig before soldering it on to the new adjustment screw that came out nice so now get back to the sole and start putting the plane together even though I've already cut the dovetails on the sole I still need to file a small amount out of the corners this will make the joint into an impossible dovetail with tails on the sole as well as the sides this is done by peening the tails of the side pieces into these voids and locking both sides of the joint together before I start putting it together I'll anneal the brass dovetails by heating them to an orange and holding each tail at that temperature for around a minute each when they cool down they'll be softer and they'll peen better with less chance of cracking I did quite a few tests with different methods of annealing before jumping straight in and this had the best results here's a piece that cracked and wasn't annealed and here's a piece that was annealed to support the side pieces while peening I made this jig the sides of the jig were a touch too low I ground some off the top so the sides of the plane were better supported that's the brass tails peened they went very well and now it's on to the stainless steel ones I'm filing and shaping the pieces not knowing exactly where it's going and making decisions as I go next I'll glue the bed into the plane and off-camera I prepared this piece of rosewood for a front infill I already shaped the back that goes next to the mouth but the rest will be shaped after it's glued in place I couldn't get any high-strength epoxy in my local hardware store but they did have this adhesive apparently it sticks anything to anything I did a test and after 4 hours I couldn't get the pieces apart and it's not at full strength until 24 hours I could have used five minutes epoxy even though it's very weak I could have put pins through the pieces and into the sole but I reckon this product looks very promising and I could always put pins in afterwards if I feel like it needs it I used an old screw with wax on it to protect the threads from any stray glue now I'll start making the lever cap and I'm making that out of brass and the first thing I need to do is put a slight bend in it now I'm drilling a hole that will be threaded and take a screw the screw will clamp the playing iron down onto the bed and I'm making sure when I drill the hole that I don't go all the way through I ground the end of a cheap drill bit down flat so I could drill right down into the bottom of that hole it works but it didn't do it easily I have two m8 taps so I took the cheaper one and a ground some of the taper off so I could get the thread deeper into the hole I then went back to the grinder and took even more off until the taper was completely gone and this worked out great next I started to roughly shape it on the grinder again not knowing quite what shape it was going to become that's the basic shape done next I'll start refining it with files the lever cap screw needs a wheel to turn it and I'm making that from a brass end cap the endcap turned out great but as it isn't thick enough I had to solder another piece of brass to it now I'll drill holes for a piece of stainless steel rod that goes through the plane and this is what the lever cap pushes against I'm slightly tapering the outside of the holes and then I'll peen the rod into those tapers and lock it in now I'll start making your blade or more correctly I should say a plane iron and I'm making that from 1075 high carbon steel I'm using that as I already have it and because my setup using the forge to heat treat works great and consistently with 1075 steel I'd like to start using tool steels but first I need to get a heat treating oven to get precise temperature controls you're not going to get the best out of a tool steel without a heat treating oven you may harden it but the results will be hit and miss at best but 1075 is quite forgiving and you get great results with it now onto the heat treatment and hardening the blade I get the temperature up to 830°C I put the blade in and I keep it at that temperature for 10 minutes before quenching it in vegetable oil I give it a quick cleanup before putting it in the oven to temper for two hours at 210°C now I'm grinding a 25°bevel and I go slowly avoiding putting any heat into the blade and cooling it between passes that's the blade done and sharpened to 6,000 grit now onto sanding, polishing and finishing the plane there was lots of it and it took me quite a while but I didn't go too far as I'm going to put this plane to use and it's probably going to look pretty used pretty quickly I reckon it looks fantastic I'm very pleased with it but let's see if it makes any shavings I really enjoyed this project and it may even be my favourite one hopefully you enjoyed it too if you did please like and subscribe thanks for watching and I'll see you on the next one

Channel: Pask Makes

Views: 680,979

Keywords: paskmakes, pask, pask makes

Id: KKXAfy3p-d4

Length: 30min 25sec (1825 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 30 2020