Whenever there is a full size piece of furniture made it seems to generate a quantity of offcuts that are too nice in the grain to be immediately allocated to the stove-sack. Every now and then such pieces are sorted and made into little boxes, usually of a simple rectilinear nature.
Since using edge tools to enhance the machine-tool processes, I’ve been doing final shaping and smoothing of the boxes and their parts with planes. However, even the smallest (a Veritas bullnose) seems too big and clumsy for dealing with such small items; and putting a Marcou S15A on a wee box risks collapsing it!
A friend bought me some mini planes as a gift last Christmas. Here is a web-page showing them as part of a “modelling set”:
These items can be mde to work but suffer from chatter of the thin, not-well-bedded blades. They are adjusted with a hammer-tap but, being so small and a bit flimsy, do not adjust easily. The blades stay sharp for about 25 cuts as they are made of tinfoil.
So, being enamoured of the concept but dissatisfied with the cheapies, one naturally turned to plane-maker extraordinaire Philip Marcou. He took a while to persuade but eventually he made one, based on the cheapies which I had sent him to peruse; and this seemed to stimulate his interest. He has now turned out five, including some that have gone through a few design cycles to improve them. (Eg the round knob smoother replaced by the milled-knob smoother in the pics).
Here are pictures, supplied by young Philip as the blades are being heat-treated so I haven’t got my sticky mits on them yet. I am hoping they are box-maker’s planes of the first water.
Meanwhile, Philip has gone mad on the designer front and is thinking about all sorts of variations on all sorts of scales.
Lataxe, a spoilt little tool boaster
Edited 11/25/2008 7:48 am ET by Lataxe
Replies
Lataxe Sir, you are spoilt indeed. Thanks for sharing.
Steve Pippins
I wish he would really share.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Lataxe,
Phillip has done you (and him) proud!
Methinks you are setting yourself up to be a Luthier - probably viola da gambas.
Lataxe the Luthier - has a ring to it, yes?
Mike
Wow - Really cool. And way, way over the top for small box planes. ;-) The lever cap on these little guys must be 1/2" thick!
I'm interested to see how they work... Please do post again when you have them in hand.
"Meanwhile, Philip has gone mad on the designer front and is thinking about all sorts of variations on all sorts of scales.
I must say that at first the idea of simply reproducing some small planes with improvements seemed attractive but when they actually arrived in the post they soon found themselves a dark corner. But I do know myself- they would be done when the time was right if David would be patient-and he was (er , yes he was, I think).
I think that anyone with a modicum of metal crunching skills wanting to make himself a plane or two would do well to start with one of these rather than diving straight into a bigger dovetailed item-too much to learn the hard way all at once.
The first thing I decided to do was to substitute brass infill for the wood infill sole which allowed me to have an accurate non yielding reference to rivet the sides to and screw any knobs etc into.So the body of the plane is actually the sole, which is 18mm thick. The first one was the smoother and this allowed to me work out my method of riveting, then the others followed with extra extras creeping in all the time. In the end the original smoother was revamped to have an adjuster, after fitting the rebate with one. A 12 degree low angle item was also cobbled together. I used African Blackwood (Dalbergia Melanoxylon) for three and Dalbergia Louveli for the others-very pleasurable woods to work with.
Philip,Now then, I may have prompted you to take them things out of the dark corner just in time. In the Veritas block plane thread a chap referenced the Chris Schwarz interview with mr R Lee of Lee Valley. This little snippet was mentioned:"Also coming are some miniature shoulder planes in smaller widths, such as 1/4", 3/8", 5/8" and a couple metric sizes. A small scraping plane is imminent as well".Those big factories are always behind the real engineers of course. :-)Perhaps FWW should do a comparison test, in due course?Lataxe the patient
Well noted, I saw the same thing. Though given Lee Valley's recent stylistic and pricing stumbles I don't expect they'll hold a candle to anything Philip makes. From what I gathered from him, his pricing is quite reasonable on these new babies. Interesting metal options too...Frankly, if LV is mass-producing planes within 50% of a one-of-a-kind handmade tool from Mr. Marcou, they can take their elliptical knurling and shove it, I'm taking my money to New Zealand.
---Pedro
Frankly, if LV is mass-producing planes within 50% of a one-of-a-kind handmade tool from Mr. Marcou, they can take their elliptical knurling and shove it, I'm taking my money to New Zealand.
Amen, brother!
Lee
So Phillip what would some of these babies run for price wise? Although since I have to ask I know I can't afford them.
Bob
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled