Kerfing Planes In Wisconsin Part 2
Back from philosophising to sawdust slinging, or more correctly tool making. If you want to refresh where we left off on these kerfing planes the first installment is HERE.
Tool making is it's own deep subset within the greater woodworking community. There are folks out there like Jim Hendricks who spend a lot of energy collecting, restoring, and creating rare and wonderful hand tools. My hat is off to Jim and others like him (a dozen other names come to mind) and their obsession.
Though I dip my toes in the pool from time to time I know it's not for me. It is far more worth my time to buy a well made tool than muck around on my own. I will make them, (I have a half set of Roubo hollows and rounds on the short list) but one of the BIG reasons I migrated from power tools to hand tools is I was tired of making jigs to make furniture. I do harbor some of the same feelings about making my own tools.
But as there aren't a ton of prefinished kerfing planes or re-saw frames out there (Mark Harrell is selling a finished resaw kit now!!) my hand is forced.
Working off the template I made from the match planes I used for inspiration I had finished making the major cuts on the body. It was time to start shaping things to work.
I predrilled the radii for the handle and then roughed out the rest of the handle shape using a coping saw and a regular hand saw for the straight cuts. I cleaned up the flat cuts with a block plane and chisel and started to dig out my files and rasps to work on the handles.
Then danger struck! I had a somewhat independent thought. Shhh... please don't inform the NSA. My back was a little sore and it was a very nice autumn day and I was wishing I could work in the sun out on the gazebo. Sitting in a favorite chair instead of standing hunched over a vise. I connected those thoughts to the pleasantly lightly faceted surface of the spoons I sometimes carve and thought it would make an equally pleasant surface to hold as a saw handle.
I grabbed my Morakniv and moved to the sunshine. All too quickly I had the handles imperfectly perfect to touch. This really is my favorite part of this whole build and I will probably continue this trend in future tool endeavors
Sawing the kerf to fit the blade was another operation I needed to nail. No wavering in the cut, no patented Olson brand screwing up. I cut and planed shims to a measurement a wee bit thicker than 1/2" 1/4" and 1/8". The extra thickness will come off with a plane blade in the future. I put these shims in the mouth of the plane and ran my tenon saw tight up against the shim to make the cut.
The tenon saw plate is slightly beefier than the kerfing saw plate and will make moving the kerfing plate from one body to another easier.
Holes were marked and drilled for the saw nuts. Here after some time I am thinking about talking to Mark and upgrading from the softer brass to steel fasteners as they will see more "in and out" of the saw body than your average saw nuts would. Maybe in the future I will upgrade to a saw plate for each plane body but we will see where the need falls over time first.
A little stamp marking and some danish oil followed by paste wax for a finish and the kerfing planes were done. Then a decent sized commission fell into my lap and I had to put aside the re saw plane until a later date. Should be starting that any day now.
Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf
Tool making is it's own deep subset within the greater woodworking community. There are folks out there like Jim Hendricks who spend a lot of energy collecting, restoring, and creating rare and wonderful hand tools. My hat is off to Jim and others like him (a dozen other names come to mind) and their obsession.
Though I dip my toes in the pool from time to time I know it's not for me. It is far more worth my time to buy a well made tool than muck around on my own. I will make them, (I have a half set of Roubo hollows and rounds on the short list) but one of the BIG reasons I migrated from power tools to hand tools is I was tired of making jigs to make furniture. I do harbor some of the same feelings about making my own tools.
But as there aren't a ton of prefinished kerfing planes or re-saw frames out there (Mark Harrell is selling a finished resaw kit now!!) my hand is forced.
Working off the template I made from the match planes I used for inspiration I had finished making the major cuts on the body. It was time to start shaping things to work.
I predrilled the radii for the handle and then roughed out the rest of the handle shape using a coping saw and a regular hand saw for the straight cuts. I cleaned up the flat cuts with a block plane and chisel and started to dig out my files and rasps to work on the handles.
Then danger struck! I had a somewhat independent thought. Shhh... please don't inform the NSA. My back was a little sore and it was a very nice autumn day and I was wishing I could work in the sun out on the gazebo. Sitting in a favorite chair instead of standing hunched over a vise. I connected those thoughts to the pleasantly lightly faceted surface of the spoons I sometimes carve and thought it would make an equally pleasant surface to hold as a saw handle.
I grabbed my Morakniv and moved to the sunshine. All too quickly I had the handles imperfectly perfect to touch. This really is my favorite part of this whole build and I will probably continue this trend in future tool endeavors
Sawing the kerf to fit the blade was another operation I needed to nail. No wavering in the cut, no patented Olson brand screwing up. I cut and planed shims to a measurement a wee bit thicker than 1/2" 1/4" and 1/8". The extra thickness will come off with a plane blade in the future. I put these shims in the mouth of the plane and ran my tenon saw tight up against the shim to make the cut.
The tenon saw plate is slightly beefier than the kerfing saw plate and will make moving the kerfing plate from one body to another easier.
Holes were marked and drilled for the saw nuts. Here after some time I am thinking about talking to Mark and upgrading from the softer brass to steel fasteners as they will see more "in and out" of the saw body than your average saw nuts would. Maybe in the future I will upgrade to a saw plate for each plane body but we will see where the need falls over time first.
A little stamp marking and some danish oil followed by paste wax for a finish and the kerfing planes were done. Then a decent sized commission fell into my lap and I had to put aside the re saw plane until a later date. Should be starting that any day now.
Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf
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