Thread: Home made hand planer

This is genius https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1XwgdnA93I

Thanks for that Elan, a looks bit toooo much work for me.

I don't understand, what is he trying to do?

Simon

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

It's in the video description, but basically he wanted to true up the dovetails without having a dovetail straightedge.

It's like planing a piece of wood, TRYING to get it flat, I just make it worse.
Taking off a couple of thou at a time, seems like a lot of work.
Kryn

Rivett 608 1.jpg Rivett 608 (Image from lathes.co.uk)

Takes me back.
My first lathe was a Rivett 608, or at least the cannabalised and worn out remains of one. All the complex bits were missing, so no power feeds or screwcutting. The ways were very worn, but unlike the guy who made the video I had the bed ground - in those days it was quite affordable.
It is not apparent from the video, but the carriage runs on flat surfaces - front, top and back of the bed - plus the two angled surfaces of the dovetail way (behind the carriage apron when the lathe is assembled). So if you have scraped the flats on the front, top and back true these can be used to guide the sled for planing the angled surfaces of the dovetail. Interestingly it did not look that hard a manual task, maybe because the tool is only taking off a controllable smidge per stroke.

Bill

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

It's like planing a piece of wood, TRYING to get it flat, I just make it worse.

But it differs in that AP's method doesn't use the newly-cut surface to guide the cut, like the usual wood planing technique.

I'm suspect on his method. I doubt it's going to achieve a satisfactory result.

For starters, the bed I just sitting on a timber bench. Even if you are able to plane the bed flat, if its got twist in I t then you will end up planing a twisted bed flat. Then when you go to level it before use, it will be a pretzel.

Simon

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

Back in the late 1960's my school mate's uncle did the same thing, he was given a well used ancient lathe from a high school and trued up the worn bed much the same way. A few months later he proudly showed me his PO8 target pistol with a new barrel fitted, he had turned the barrel up from a 9mm blank.

If you check the description of the video he says he has scraped and trued the surfaces that guide the planing sled.
While it's not well supported just lying on the timber bench, the Rivett bed aint a lightweight casting - it's solid apart from two narrow chip evac slots down the middle, so very rigid compared with your typical small lathe bed. There will be some twist and bend due to the quality of support, but the sled should follow these imperfections and reproduce the dovetail inner faces quite well in relation to the surfaces that have been trued.
Clearly he is not going to achieve the original precision of the machine ("guaranteed to turn, face and bore straight to within 0.001" in any six inch length"), but still looks to be a serviceable repair for home use.

Bill