Thread: Adventures with cast iron - a wood plane.

My god AB, you have excelled yourself, that's one fine bit of milling, what do you do in your spare time?........and don't tell me you bake scones and cook a mean roast.

Excellent work, you'll have something to be proud of, something to hand down to Greg or myself, when it's totally finished with a sharp blade.

Ken

BT,
You keep machining bits off it and there will be none left
How far off do you think the finish(of the body) is?
Keep up the good work.

Stuart

Hi Bob,

That looks great, it looks better and better every time.
Fascinating process to watch a plane body emerge slowly from a solid block of cast.

Beautiful stuff.

Regards
Ray

You are doing some nice machining there Bob.
I too have found the local prices of milling cutters are unbelievable and ridiculous.

It's always a bad day when you break a tool, but as you say at least it didn't mark the table, as that would look at you for your life and you would constantly remind you of it.
The bent end mill shank mill will make a good lathe tool at least.
I did see a post a few years back where a guy used an end mill in the lathe tool post as a small hole boring bar and it could be rotated so you had 4 new cutting tips, might be a good use for it?

Dave

Originally Posted by neksmerj

My god AB, you have excelled yourself, that's one fine bit of milling, what do you do in your spare time?........and don't tell me you bake scones and cook a mean roast.

Excellent work, you'll have something to be proud of, something to hand down to Greg or myself, when it's totally finished with a sharp blade.

Ken

nick off... I saw it first

yes...great work Bob

Other than drilling a few holes, the machine work on the cast iron base is concluded. The cheeks need to be internally curved but I'm now thinking of using a die grinder to tackle that task. They should also be about half their present thickness The remainder of the work required will be hand filing. I purchased a set of small rubber sanding drums and a range of sleeves from Carbatec for $25 yesterday. They performed well on the cast iron. I was concerned about rounding the sides of the base and had contemplated leaving them parallel. Glad now that I didn't pike out.

BT

Wow BT. Pretty! (To show off my knowledge of hand planes lol)"cheeks need to be internally curved" Which part would this be?
How is the blade search going?

Stuart

Yeah, wow too. I can see so many opportunities to stuff up. I reckon I would be on at least my fifth piece of material by now.

Originally Posted by Stustoys

Wow BT. Pretty! (To show off my knowledge of hand planes lol)"cheeks need to be internally curved" Which part would this be?
How is the blade search going?

Stuart

The round topped humps, Stuart.

The blade search hasn't progressed far. I did have a look at the link mic-d provided but the bloke's blades were thinner than what I'm after. I do need a blade to be able to work out the position of the lever cap pivot holes. I guess I could by some tool steel from Bohler but I'm not up with head treatment. Maybe Ray can steer me in the right direction. I also need the blade to enable the finishing of the mouth.

BT

Originally Posted by Bryan

Yeah, wow too. I can see so many opportunities to stuff up. I reckon I would be on at least my fifth piece of material by now.

I've had a number of glitches that I've been able to machine off. I was down to the short strokes this afternoon, using a 1/2" end mill to chomp away the excess at the tapered nose end of the base. I had it angled in the vise with only one hump contacting the vise jaw. Naturally enough, it shook itself loose when I overdid the depth of cut. The cutter took a couple of small chips off the front bottom edge of the base. I felt sick but I was able to carefully sand the damage off. Disaster strikes when you are greedy with the feed or careless with a setup. Can't tell you how many times I've been caught out.

Hi Bob,

What can I say, it looks magnificientl. That's some beautiful machining, complex setups... something to aspire to.

I doubt that, that bit of walnut I sent you isn't going to be big enough, can you do some rough measurement and, if you want, I'll see if I can rustle up a larger piece.

Of course you'll want to install one of these...



Actually, I seem to vaguely recall that Peter was going to send you a lever cap?

Regards
Ray

Bob I may have missed it, but did you start with CI block, or did you cut out a block from round? I've only been able to find CI in rounds and it typically feels like such a waste to me to just bandsaw a bunch of it away.

Pete

Great work and coming along nicely Bob,
At this rate it will be finished by Christmas.

Dave

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

<snip>
Maybe Ray can steer me in the right direction. I also need the blade to enable the finishing of the mouth.

BT

Hi Bob,

First stop would be here .. Hock Plane Blades at The Best Things (scroll down to the bottom of the page)

He sells the hock blades for norris infills in various sizes.

Second would be to buy some 01 precision ground flat in the thickness you want.

Third, I could make you one in M2, whatever thickness you want (up to 7mm) the new heat treatment furnace will be finished later this week, and I'm buying the left over 7mm M2 left from the group purchase. Might be an option if you aren't in too much of a hurry.

Regards
Ray