My Planes are Finished; Well, Almost!

Today was the sixth and final day of the wooden bodied planemaking class with Scott Meek.  The class, held in Scott's basement workshop in Asheville, North Carolina, was a great learning device, not to mention a lot of fun!

Today we sharpened and honed one blade so we would know how to do it.  I already have learned to sharpen freehand on diamond plates so for me, this served more to get one blade prepared for a trial run with the new planes.

Here is the blade I honed, using a solution of Hone Rite on DMT's Diasharp diamond plates

Then we opened up the mouths of our plane bodies just so the blade would protrude through the base with enough room to spare for the desired shaving to pass through.

We spent additional time refining the shape of our plane bodies to fit our aesthetic objectives and also to fit out individual hands, given the differing ways we hold our planes.  They are our unique creations.  We didn't finish this part of the work and will further refine the fit and then the finish at home.

My 22 inch jointer plane, showing it rough shape; I'll refine it further after I put it to use

Finally, we put our planes to the acid test--taking shavings with each of them on the famous 2X6 Scott has taken to woodworking shows for years and that is now closer to a 2X2.  What a great thrill it is so see a wonderful full width shaving curl off the board and feel the mirror-like finish it leaves behind.

My Osage orange smoother, white oak jointer and teak jack planes

In addition to what I learned about planemaking, I got to use a Benchcrafted leg vise and plan to get and install one of these in my own woodshop.

Installing a Twin-Screw Vise

A couple of years ago, I bought the Veritas twin-screw vise from Lee Valley.  Since then, it has been sitting on the bottom shelf of my old workbench, awaiting the day when I would be able to install it.  With the near completion of my new workbench top, shown in the photo, that day finally came.  I should say days, plural, because installation was anything but simple, though in the end everything works pretty much as it should.

I built my bench with an apron the width of the outer vise jaw that extends the full length of the bench. (I know, Chris Schwarz recommends not having an apron on your bench to make clamping easier.  But I intend to drill dog holes horizontally to support long boards for edge planing.)  The apron became the back jaw of the vise.  As you can see, I also installed it on the left end of the side of the bench and not on the end as Lee Valley shows in their photo.

The installation went pretty much according to the instructions.  I have a caveat, the one given to me by a friend before I started my own installation--"read the instructions at least a thousand times."  One of the key points is drilling the large holes for the screws.  Their location must be measured very accurately so it is well worth triple checking the measurements.  Also, my friend had drilled his holes by hand-holding his drill. As a result, his jaws bind up when fully extended.  I used a drill guide I got from Woodcraft to hold the drill at 90 degrees, the same jig I'll use to drill dog holes later on.  Even so, my holes got slightly off and I had to ream them out with a file so the fittings would lay at 90 degrees to the rear jaw.  After that, with the exception of making the chain fit (the instructions are weak on the point of assembling the chain), it was pretty much a piece of cake.  The result--it works as it should.

Almost.  The instructions call for planing the outer jaw at an angle so it is tighter at the top than at the bottom. I tried doing this with a hand plane and made a mess of it.  So I ran it through the planer to make it flat again.  Having done that, the jaws don't pull entirely tight at the top.  So someday I will disassemble the vise and re-plane the outer jaw at the suggested angle.  I recommend doing it according to instructions the first time.

In the end, it is a great vise and I am delighted to have it in place where I can use it.  The lack of a vise was one of the main reasons I built the new workbench top.  Now I'm ready for projects that will make good use of it.

Norm