A Dovetailed Plane Built From Scratch

by: Jerry Schueller

Ever since I saw the wonderful work being done by fellow members that make the dovetailed sides to sole type planes, I have been fascinated with giving it a try myself. Not really knowing where to start, I studied the sites of Mick Doherty in Australia, Jim Yehle, Wayne Anderson, Brian Buckner, Steve Knight and many others I've forgotten to mention. I e-mailed many of these people, asking silly questions, and basically asking them if somebody like me would even have a chance of making a go at a plane that would turn out 1/100 the as nice as any one of theirs. By someone like me, I mean somebody with some woodworking experience, but when it came to metalworking experience it was (no lie) " I think I have a hack saw around here someplace and once I cut the head off a bolt with it I think" kind of thing. Being a garage sale addict, I did have the usual $2.00 coffee can full of taps and dies, some files, drill press, and some basic stuff like that. Each person I emailed, was extremely pleasant, polite, and wonderful people that gave me much encouragement, sources of information to look into, and so forth, to see if any of it looked appealing to me after I got a bit more familiar with what needed to be done.

Many of them suggested, correctly, that someone like me should perhaps start with one of the Shepherd Kits, or others on the marked for my first experience, to make it easier for me to get the big picture, in a shorter amount of time, and they were right. I looked into the kits, and although I think they are worth the asking price, the bottomfeeder in me figured I could ruin a lot of metal, starting from scratch, before the price of a kit was reached. So I decided to start collecting material, and information and since I had lots to learn, it would be good for me to get my hands dirty and I would learn lots more from scratch than from a kit so that was the plan.

My local library system had the Kingshott book, "Making and Modifying Woodworking Tools", so that was a good starting point.

Then the miracle of miracles happened. Jim Yehle, made a wonderful little Norris A13, profile dovetailed smoother and placed the plans and a complete write of with pictures of what he did on the internet for all interested. I jumped on that one, got the info from him, and used it as a starting point. I say that because everything I did to duplicate his efforts, didn't turn out exactly the same, despite my good intentions. I will be giving you some pictures of my plane soon here, but first, Jim Yehle's information is available at his website at http://www.xmission.com/~jry/ww/tools/a13/a13.html

He has plans that can be viewed, downloaded, a bill of materials, insights on what he learned in the process, and step by step procedures that he followed in making it. Printing out his plans, full scale, was great. I could just cut them out and stick them to my materials when needed, and go from there. I talked to him recently and he has no problem with others using his materials, which he has graciously made available to all. This was a very magnanimous gesture in my estimation. It sure put me over the top when I got them and I was on my way.

Now before the pics of my so called plane, I want to point out a few things that I did differently, some intentionally and some not intentionally. Since this was my "sacrificial learning plane" as I called it, and I wasn't sure that anything would turn out, I didn't put a lot of money into it. I scavenged a lot of stuff, and don't think I have 10.00 into it yet.(this will change when I get my blade).

The steel for the sole is relatively inexpensive, and I used what they call "weldable steel" at most any big box borg store for the sole, steel rivets, the heel plate and the cap iron. Jim made his plane of 1018 soft steel I believe, which is a better quality. Also, I used a steel sole and BRASS sides. When I was practicing making the double dovetails, joining two pieces of steel, the dovetails would just disappear. Then when I would bring it to work and show people, they would just look at it and say, so you brought me some angle iron, so what. So I decided to use brass sides so the dovetails would show in the final product, and people would have a better idea what I was talking about when I went into one of my "double dovetail" rants.

I made the retaining screw for the "lever cap" from scratch from a 1 inch diameter brass piece. It was lots of work (fun), but I was out to learn. The retaining screws can be purchased, but I found making it to be pretty much fun, not too hard, probably not worth all the work to save 5.00, but fun anyway.

I stumbled onto some brass one day when I was at a friend's house. I was going on about how I needed some 3/16 in thick brass for this plane I wanted to make and he just looked at me funny and said "like this?" He had a huge pile of pieces about 4 ft long and 4-6 inches wide just stacked up in a corner. He used to work at a place that made lighting fixtures with brass, and whenever they threw out a piece like that he would rescue it from the dumpster. It didn't mean much to him, so I traded him something for a good sized pile of it. Unfortunately a lot of it was only 1/8th inch, but that was a nice find even though it can be purchased easily enough on the internet.

Also, I did not make the blade adjuster, as I didn't think I was up to it for my first plane, and these types of planes are adjusted, set, and left that way for long periods it seems, so it wasn't real critical. Also my front bun, instead of being flat on the side nearest the blade, had a cutout like the other 3 sides. This was not intentional, I tried to leave it flat, but got carried away with the rasp to the point of where it looked "funny" and I was pretty much forced to go with the cutout. To me it was a good decision, my thumb fits right in there, it feels good, and it doesn't come anywhere close to the retaining screw. But I must admit I have small hands and somebody with larger hands should stick with the original plans.

The most obvious thing you will notice is the lack of a blade on mine at this point. I know you should start with a blade a build the plane around that, but again, not sure how I would do, I just made a blade out of wood, 3/16 inch thick, so I could temporarily see what it was going to look like. I also didn't know how the wood parts would turn out, so I just used some walnut I had laying around, not wanting to ruin some fancy rosewood or cocoblolo at this point. OK! OK! its probably time for some for some pictures of this plane of mine.

Notice the crude knurling on my retaining knob. I have no metal lathe, no knurling tools, so I just made 3 or 4 cuts around its circumference with a small file from a needle file set while it was spinning, and the other cuts were done with the same file, one at a time by hand until I made my way around it. They look crude, but they really improve your grip on the thing. The homemade look doesn't bother me a bit, Hey I'm not starting a plane company here, and I think I can improve with a little more effort. By the way, the tool of choice for making the retaining screw was just a large flat file. I got the brass rod spinning, and after trying various high speed steel pieces, carbide, kenametal and so forth, the common file took the thing right down to 7/16, where I left it and threaded it.

Jim's plans called for a 3/8 inch screw, which would probably look better, but 7/16 worked out fine I think. I even make the little "dairy Queen" point in the center of the knob, using a high tech "hold a small piece of carbide with a vice grips" method. It was a bit touch and go at first, but was merely about finding the right angle to hold it to get it to cut. Not much good for production runs, but it worked once at least.

Right away you will notice that I completely missed one of the tails on the brass sides. See that long gray streak at the bottom? There is supposed to be another tail there and somehow I just missed it. I thought it might be start over time, but decided to plunge on and it seems to be holding together just fine (so far).

The "lever cap" is done differently than Jim's method of using lever cap pivot screws also. I used the kingshott method, drilling a 1/4 inch hole through the 1/2 inch thick brass lever cap, but only 3/16 inch holes through the sides of the plane for it. A small compression spring is placed in its center, then a 1/4 inch pin comes in from each side. Each 1/4 in. pin has its ends filed down to 3/16 in. Tthe ends snap into the 3/16 in holes in the plane sides, yet when you push on them there is just enough give and clearance so that the lever cap can be removed at will. It all seems to hold and tighten down very securely this way.

The 1/2 inch piece of brass again was stumbled upon on ebay. A giant 15 lbs piece for about 10.00, postage was the biggest expense there. I cut the various profiles on it and on the plane sides, with a metal cutting blade in my delta table model scroll saw (an electron eater I realize) and it went very well, also used a belt sander to help with some of the profiles on the lever cap,
more electons eaten, but my defense is that the final product is a hand tool.

I also didn't use the small blade adjustment screws, that keep the blade from moving sideways close to where it comes through the sole.. I will probably do this yet once I get my blade.

I also didn't use the cross pin spacers, which are hollow tubes that the rivets pass through,
that hold the sides together. This was probably a mistake, but by now my plane was starting
to look like something and it was the only thing I didn't have ready access to scrounging up.
I hated to place an order for such a small thing at the time, and we will see what happens.. I
am in the learning phase yet remember?

I placed some 3/16 in steel in there as a blade substitute, tightened every thing up and flattened the sole. The mouth opening much to my relief is NOT too big, I will need to open it up a bit more when the blade arrives.

Anyway, I didn't really plan on getting into all this stuff, sorry if it got too long. The point I wanted to make is that anybody with the brain of a woodworker, should have no trouble figuring out how to do this. If I, with no metalworking experience sort of did it, I think you can…Mick Doherty says the single word that is most relevant is COURAGE… most people shy away from this when they find out you have to start hitting the sides and sole with a hammer to get things locked together You need to find the courage to get your hands dirty and just DO that If it doesn't work you will have learned what you did wrong rather quickly. I think another word is DESIRE. You have to want to make one of these things. The more desire you have to make one, the easier it is to find the courage needed to try some of these things.

..You do need to practice those double dovetails that hold the sides and sole together, before plunging forward with an actual plane. Don't try that for the first time on a plane. I spent a fair amount of time practicing these. One day it hit me like some kind of epiphany, just how it was supposed to be done and everything improved dramatically. Another thing I learned, after making a beautiful set of double dovetails, when I tried it one last time, I left plenty of extra material, peened away, and had a terrible disaster. No Metal moved into the second dovetail. What had I done differently??? I left too much extra material to peen.. It moved like crazy on the top where I was peening, but there was so much metal that it just couldn't move down in the joint where it needed to move. 1/16 th inch extra is plenty-if that. I used 1/8th extra or more and had a total flop. Also practice the rivets once just for confidence purposes. They are quite easy, but don't do it your first time on your actual plane.

By practicing in scrap I mean, just get some cheap 3/16 in thick, by and inch or so wide piece of soft borg steel. Cut a couple of 4 or 5 inch long pieces, and make maybe 2 or 3 double dovetails in them to join them. When you get the tails and pins cut, drill some holes through the sides of each piece and literally screw them down to a 2 x 4 and begin peening the extra material. When it looks done, file the funny looking bumps down flat, or use one of those dreaded tailed apprentice electron eating belt sanders to do it for you. After a few tries you will have done it.

I think most of the technical stuff can be found at Jim Yehle's web site , so I don't want to get into every little thing to do here.

I just wanted to say that I had a go at it, and that it was much easier and much more fun than I expected, and hope I can inspire somebody else, even though I haven't actually produced one shaving with it yet, I think it will soon be in reach.

Thanks for reading this, or at least parts of it.
Jerry Schueller
Winona MN

Note: Jerry plans to keep us updated on how these work after the real blade arrives.

Update 12/4/03-

I got the blade. I got it from lie Nielsen, a no 9, replacement blade just what I needed. 2 in. wide, 3/16 inches thick. The only problem was the slot and hole in it. In dovetail planes the large hole is toward the top of the blade and the slot runs toward the sharp end of the blade.. this blade was just the opposite, the large hole was nearest the cutting edge and the slot ran upward.. Of course when I went to put the cap iron on it the bolt holding it together landed right in the middle of the "large hole" and I had to re-make a cap iron, a bit longer so the bolt landed in the slot. Not that big a deal really, I'll use the old cap iron on some other project.

Anyway I got the blade and put it in and it didn't go through the mouth.. That was good news. My mouth wan't too big. Now I slowly started filing the mouth open hoping for an opening for the shaving to go through in the 0.003 to 0.006 inch range. I hade it perfect at 0.005 all the way across except for the very left side, about 1/4 inch where it just had no opening at all. I filed a bit more but just couldn't go anymore without the mouth just plain getting out of square, so I finally got the brilliant idea of checking the bedding area of the blade. sure enough it was a bit "high" on the problem end and a few file strokes took care of the problem.. It also opened up the rest of the mouth way more than I wanted..0.010 or more. That really was not a major problem as many of these planes were opened up for more general smoothing work, so I went with it.

I got out a funky piece of walnut I acutally cut out of a board, a tight knot, surrounded by crazy burling and that surrounded with difficult grain that actually had little teepee shaped pieces of wood sticking straight up after going through the thickness planer. A few strokes with the plane and that piece was all glass smooth so I was happy. At first I had some chatter, but it was because I was trying to take too thick a shaving. It doesn't take much. Once I got the blade depth set correctly, things went smooth as silk..And that was using the blade right out of the "box", I should have sharpened it I realize, but I was anxious to get at it.

Now that it is sharpened, it is the best cutting plane in my shop, despite my little errors along the way, and the satisfaction I got from making it was tremendous. I'm working on a 14.5 inch panel plane now, or hope to get started this winter somehow despite the cold and see if I can do a better job of it.. Anyway here is a picture with the real blade.

Thanks,

Jerry Schueller, Winona MN 55987