Skew plane rebuild
Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2022 1:53 am
I got a pair of planes at an auction a while back and one was a wooden bodied skew plane. Unfortunately it hadn’t been looked after and the front part twisted in relation to the rear at the mouth making it unusable. The iron was pretty rusty but I was able to clean it up and get a pit free sharp edge on it so I decided to try building another body.
Because the bed and throat are compound angles I went with the sandwich method. That way I could cut those pieces on an scms. Measuring the old body I figured out that the bed needed to be 52 degrees with a bevel angle of 17 degrees. I cut that section out and glued it to a side plate.
Using the old wedge as a template I cut another out on the scms to the same 17 degree bevel angle. I held it against the bed section and traced where it should meet the throat piece on the side plate. Then I went back to the scms and adjusted the angle on it to match and cut the throat angle on the front half of the sandwich. Then I glued it to the side plate while holding the wedge between the bed and throat sections to get the angle and spacing correct.
Before I glued on the other side plate I roughed out the cutout on the first sideplate for the end of the iron and for hole that allows shavings to escape. Then the other side plate was glued on and it got cut out as well. The side plates have to match the bevel angle as the iron beds against them. A little careful chiseling and rasping got them ready. I trimmed the top and bottom by ripping them flush on the TS and squared the ends on the scms.
It had a little chatter at first but I trimmed the wedge down a bit so the tip was closer to the cutting edge and it’s close to eliminated now. The cutting edge is very close to being level with the sole of the plane. So close I’m not going to try to fix it. Maybe it can be perfected at the next sharpening. It cuts nicely so I’m happy with the way it turned out. The photo shows the old body and the new replacement.
Because the bed and throat are compound angles I went with the sandwich method. That way I could cut those pieces on an scms. Measuring the old body I figured out that the bed needed to be 52 degrees with a bevel angle of 17 degrees. I cut that section out and glued it to a side plate.
Using the old wedge as a template I cut another out on the scms to the same 17 degree bevel angle. I held it against the bed section and traced where it should meet the throat piece on the side plate. Then I went back to the scms and adjusted the angle on it to match and cut the throat angle on the front half of the sandwich. Then I glued it to the side plate while holding the wedge between the bed and throat sections to get the angle and spacing correct.
Before I glued on the other side plate I roughed out the cutout on the first sideplate for the end of the iron and for hole that allows shavings to escape. Then the other side plate was glued on and it got cut out as well. The side plates have to match the bevel angle as the iron beds against them. A little careful chiseling and rasping got them ready. I trimmed the top and bottom by ripping them flush on the TS and squared the ends on the scms.
It had a little chatter at first but I trimmed the wedge down a bit so the tip was closer to the cutting edge and it’s close to eliminated now. The cutting edge is very close to being level with the sole of the plane. So close I’m not going to try to fix it. Maybe it can be perfected at the next sharpening. It cuts nicely so I’m happy with the way it turned out. The photo shows the old body and the new replacement.