Tool Time

[Kim]

An infill block plane for $28 at the local swapmeet. No I didn't 'need' it, but it was there and needed some love and a couple of screws to get it going again :D

From the top of the heel radius to the tip of the toe she's all of 7 1/4" long by 2" wide.

Its all there however the cutter iron is a badly converted Matherson from an old wooden plane. These irons have a taper which is not an overly good thing for the wedge fit of an infill plane. The blade had been roughly ground off on one side to fit the 43mm throat of the plane. The plane has been designed for a flat 1 5/8" iron with no slot.

You will not find a 6" slot-less 1 5/8" iron for love nor money these days, but Lee Valley have a flat slot-less 6" in either A2 or O1 steel for around $45USD...problem is its 1 7/8" so it will need a trip to the machine shop and that will add around $30 to the deal. Add shipping and the blade will be around $100 making this a $130 block plane...we shall see.

So here she is in bits...No the wood is not BRW. Its too lite weight and quite soft. It has the depth of old red brown mahogany however it also has very close grain...any guesses?

Here's the bed and its full of cracks and old PVA glue.

In fact it is split right through so with little effort....

It all came apart..revealing what a piss poor job has been done by who ever had a go at it before.

Yes it would be far easier just to make another wedge...........but the patina mate...what about the patina??

[Kim]

We have the technology....to rebuild it faster, stronger and more powerful....and still keep some of that old vintage mojo.

Glue and dust, glue and dust.

Clean up to see what we are working with...

and to get rid of the OD of patina mate.

Next determine the 'correct' bed angle from the metal work of the plane...The last bloke had this way out, he must have sanded to clean up and gone too steep leaving the blade only supported at the leading edge of the throat. You can't take away what is no longer there so the bed would need a veneer. But that is not such a bad thing as it will help hold all thoses bits together.

If you are wondering I chose some western mayall for the veneer. It is old stable wood with very fine grain and about the right colour match...besides I had a scape bit that was around the correct size sitting on the bench so it was a choice of the gods..and you can't argue with that.

Will add some more in a tic.

[Kim]

So here is the underside of the bed with the mortices blocked off by the veneer.

A drill and a coping saw to re-establish the mortices.

Reset the bed angle using a sanding board. Once done there will be little left of the veneer at the very back end of the wedge.

And with a bit of a clean, fill and blend...the bed is good again....sorry about the patina mate,

but even if this tool will end up just being an ornament...in my opinion it should still be able to work or else it should go in the bin.

So here she is all ready and waiting for a new cutting iron...and some older style steel wood screws to fix the infill in place. Will need to have a scratch around and see what I can dig up.

Cheers all

Kim

[Clancy]

Noice one Kimmy.
Seriously mate, I would have binned that bed straight off.
Just goes to show who's the craftsman & who's the pretender.

And how could you not get the blade it now deserves. Go on.

[DarwinStrings]

Looks like fun to me Kim and those infills are a cool tool with their combo of metal and wood. No guesses on that wood really. Could it be one of the other "rosewoods" or from your description one of the African mahoganies if it is English made?

Jim

[Lillian]

You lucky bastard! If you haven't ordered the blade already, you might try Hock. If he doesn't have one that will fit sitting on the shelf, might be able to whip one up for you for less than the 130.00 But then again, HNT might be able to hook you up with what you need.

[charangohabsburg]

Nice find, and you are doing great work here!
Well worth the effort, it's a beautiful plane.

[sebastiaan56]

Well done Kim! Nice find, nice fix. It looks like it will serve you for years to come. Tools can be just as addictive as anything else,

[Kim]

Thanks all

Lill, I tried Ron Hock, well just the product list on site, and he has nothing I can see. I have also spoken with Paul of Academy Saws fame here in AU. Up until very recently Paul had been making all of the HSS blades for Terry Gordon, but he has nothing either.

The Lee Valley Blade I referred to is only $36.00 but its 1/4" too wide. Therefore it would need a trip to an engineering workshop to bring it down to 1 5/8". They would probably charge > $30 for the service so to include shipping from Canada makes the blade worth pretty close to $100. I have sent an email to Ron Hock but I was warned by Paul of Academic not to be too hopeful as their stock of 1 5/8" is very likely to be precut to 4" long to suit replacement of early Stanley block planes and I need 6.5" to make this work....so it may come back to the LV iron.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.a ... 43698&ap=1

Cheers

Kim

[Kim]

You lucky bastard!

That ain't lucky Lill...THIS is lucky

Wednesday arvo finished work and doing the kid pickup run from school. Drove past Cashies and could 'feel' the draw..Picked up my daughter and on the way back, for no other reason than the earlier feeling that I should do so, we stopped in for a look see....

The lid of the box had come unglued so I had offered the guy $40 but he said "No can do, they only came out on the shelf an hour ago"....I said ohhh OK, guess I'll take'em then ....I got home and re-shot the joint and you would never know it had been apart...the ugly repair you can see on the lid is not mine, it was like that so it will stay that way.

It is hard to see but the last image shows the 'yellowing' of original lacquer still on the blade...they are all like that, near 'as new' as you will get. Only let down, some tosser has at some time in the past used the largest chisel in the set, the 32mm, as a lever and in doing so bent the shaft a little at the neck ...

Still, its all good.

Cheers

Kim

[Bob Connor]

Jammy bastard

Great score.

[kiwigeo]

(looking at Cash Converters label)

"Red Handel".........didn't know Handel had a Russian brother who made chisels

[rocket]

I'll swap ya Kim,,,, i've had this one from new, reached it's use by date now though.
Cheers ,,,,,, Rod

IMG_1147 (Custom).JPG (45.83 KiB) Viewed 30558 times

IMG_1150 (Custom).JPG (53.5 KiB) Viewed 30558 times

[Kim]

Hey Rod,

I just lifted the story of EA Berg quoted below from here: http://straightrazorplace.com/razors/26 ... story.html

Read on and it will explain the Bacho stamp and quite a few interesting things about the company.....

I got this in my email compliments from some of the people over at Bahco, it has a short history of the manufacturer EAB. Helps to date some of their razors and get an idea of how they were made.

The story of Erik Anton Berg in short terms...

This is a short summary of the life of Mr Erik Anton Berg and his company E. A Bergs Fabriks AB (E.A. Berg MFG. Co. LTD).

Mr Berg was born in Sweden in the town of Eskilstuna well-known for the manufacture of knives and hand tools. As a young boy he was practising at the Heljestrand and Johan Engström knife-factories. Only 23 years old Mr Berg started his own to forge and manu-facture razors. He rented a place in one of the Rademacher forges which today is a museum where you can see how it started. The story says that he borrowed 500 SEK to start the activity but after that he only used his own capital. However the most important for his success was his professional skill and his spirit. To underline how small and modest circumstances were in the beginning it can be mentioned that the wife of Mr Berg took part in the manufacture by stoning she edges of the razors right in her kitchen.

However the activity grew very fast and soon he had to move to larger premiers on the opposite side of the street. The success for the products was based on his use of a very high quality plain carbon steel in combination with the hardening operation. He also knew that the forging was of great importance for the quality of the finished product. Therefore Mr Berg very soon established good contacts with the leading experts of steel, forging and heat-treatment. For example can men-tioned that melted lead was used for heating the tools for hardening which gives a very uniform temperature and which also was carefully controlled. Mr Berg was also a pioneer about quality control including testing of the raw material, testing of the hardness of the products after hardening and testing of the finished products. The result of this was a very high and uniform quality of the finished products which was the main reason for fast growing sales, of the products in Sweden and in many other countries.

In 1889 he bought a site for a new factory building and later on he had to enlarge the site and the factory in several steps. International knowledge of the products was also spread by the world-exhibitions e. g. in Chicago and Paris and also in Stockholm 1897.

The manufacturing program was enlarged in several steps. In 1896 was the manufacture of carpenters tools started and in 1898 were pliers added to the program. Other new added products were garden tools 1914, shears for sheet-metal 1924, bolt cutters 1924 and finally butcher- and kitchen-knives in 1933.

In 1901 the company was transformed to a public company, E. A. Berg Manufacturing Company Limited totally owned by the family. In 1903 Mr Berg died only 47 years old.
His five daughters now became the owner of the company. The most important person for develop-ment of the company for the future was Mr C. Gustaf Andersson who 1928 took over as managing director and staid in that position until his pension 1959. Mr Andersson was primarily a very skilled technician but also very clever regarding marketing. Under his leadership the design and performance of the products were improved and the manufacturing technique modernized. The culmination of his long time in the company was building of new modern factory of 10000 sqm in a new manufacturing area of the town of Eskilstuna. This factory was very well planned just for hand tools and was mentioned as the most modern tool-factory of the world.

Regarding wood-chisels can be mentioned the wooden handles were manufactured in own factory using a hard type of wood called masur-birch or curled birch. In 1950 the plastic handles were introduced and from 1969 the chisels were delivered only with plastic handles.
At the time for the pension of Mr Andersson the five Berg sisters were quite old and as nobody in the families were prepared to take a leading place in the company it was decided to sell the company. Buyer was AB Bahco, the largest hand tool-company of Sweden. Bahco was a large manufacturer of adjustable wrenches, spanners, sockets and pipe-wrenches but was missing mainly pliers in there product range. Therefore it was a good co-ordination between the two companies which started in 1959. The year after Bahco also another large tool-company in Eskilstuna, Eskilstuna Jernmanufaktur AB med “Anchor” as a trade mark and mainly knives, scissors and wood-chisels in the manufacture. Bahco brought the two companies together in Eskilstuna and in the beginning it worked out quite well with 700 employees at the most. However later on in a period of declining business Bahco decided de reduce the number of factories and to move the total manufacture in Eskilstuna to their main factory in Enköping. It means that from 1970 pliers and wood-chisels have been manufactured in Enköping. Regarding trade marks AB Bahco decided from the beginning to only use the Bahco trade mark but in combination with “The Shark” and “The Anchor”. It means that the trade mark “Berg” has not been used after 1960.

Later on AB Bahco took over some other hand tool companies as follows. In 1974 the F. E. Lindstrom company in Eskilstuna mainly manufacturing smaller pliers for the electronic industry. In 1980 Record Ridgeway in Great Britain, a large manufacturer of the Carpenters tools but after a few years this company was taken over of some British people. And in 1988 Belzer-Dowidat in Germany was taken over. This company was mainly manufacturer of pliers, screwdrivers, spanners and sockets.

But 1992 it was time for Bahco to go the opposite direction. The total AB Bahco Tool Group was taken over by AB Sandvik which mainly is a steel-mill but also manufacturer of carbide cutting tools and hand tools such as saws and carpenters tools.

But the Sandvik ownership last for only a short period. In 1999 AB Sandvik sold their total hand tool business to the American hand tool company Snap-On-Tools. But the manufacture of the Bahco hand tools was still left in Enköping and also the Bahco trade mark was kept and also to be used also for the former Sanvik products.

However the next step was not so good for Bahco and Enköping. This year, 2006, Snap-On-Tools decided to concentrate their production in Europe mainly to there factories in Spain. It means that the total production of hand tools in the former Bahco main factory will be ended during 2007. But the manufacture of wood-chisels will be kept in Sweden as it already has been moved to another Bahco factory in Sweden which also is managed by Snap-On-Tools.

This is at least for the moment the end of the story which was started by Mr E. A. Berg in 1880.

Enköping 2006-10-21
Folke Möller
(Employee at the Berg and Bahco companies 1949-1993)

Other sources:

“Beskrivning över Eskilstuna med omnejd” published in Stockholm 1938

”Eskilstuna – ett kvalitetsbegrepp” published in Stockholm 1949

Cheers

Kim

[Lillian]

SWEET!

[DarwinStrings]

That was a bird of a buy Kim....cheap cheap cheap!!!! I am surprised it came from cashies as they mostly seem over the top with prices up here.

Jim

[Kim]

OK and update on the infill plane:

When I last posted about this little plane I was still procrastinating about whether on not to spring for the cash and buy a new iron from Lee Valley and then pay to have it machined down. It probably would have meant an over all investment of >$100 just for the cutting iron and the reality is that investment would have only resulted in yet another good functional plane, the size of which I already have in the arsenal. The other down side to the LV iron was that it would have stood out as 'new' killing the look I was able to maintain by salvaging the original bed and wedge.

Well a short time later I received a PM from ANZLF member Auscab (AKA Rob Brown) letting me know he has an old slottless iron that should do the trick if I was interested. Not only that, but for a small fee Rob offered to grind the sides so it would fit the throat of my plane and would also 'sneck' the back end of the iron so it would fit with the infill look and function..I was to discover that snecking is a process that requires riveting and welding of a slug of steel to the very back end (unhardened) portion of the iron, I assume this is to allow the iron to be adjusted in depth of cut by tapping the sneck with a mallet while under load from the wedge, the sneck is probably shaped the way it is for comfort when the plane is in use... (Sneking...now there's a term you don't hear every day..prior to Rob's PM the only snecking I had experienced was in the back of my XR Falcon with the squeeze after a snix pack or two)

Some examples of snecked irons:

sneck a.JPG (160.65 KiB) Viewed 30375 times

The iron:

iron 1.JPG (188.22 KiB) Viewed 30375 times

iron 2.JPG (190.41 KiB) Viewed 30375 times

So a deal was done, Rob would grind and sneck the iron and send me images when done....

The snecking:

sneck 1.JPG (198.31 KiB) Viewed 30375 times

sneck 2.JPG (115.25 KiB) Viewed 30375 times

sneck 3.JPG (176.87 KiB) Viewed 30375 times

So with the iron now snecked Rob put it in the post where it was allowed to matured over the extended Easter break until I picked it up yesterday. I got to work on it yesterday afternoon and ...laaaaate..last night dressing it up and lapping it in to finish the plane. The sides of the iron were ground as per my specs so the first thing was to take just an ant's dick off the sides so it would fit the throat just right...I used a 40mm Norton 'Bluemax' grinding wheel on the 8" bench grinder. I really like these wheels as they run super cool and give quite a fine finish, so with a few quick lite passes the job was done.

Next I lapped the back of the iron working first on the linisher/belt sander (the snek made this job a breeze because it doubled as a handle saving the fingers and allowing good control of the grind) and later through the grits on the 10mm plate glass. I am sure that I did not 'need' to lap in as much as I did however the thought behind getting the iron as flat as I could was to provide as much surface area as possible for the wedge and bed to hold the iron securely whilst in use...

Here is the back of the iron lapped in, honed, and ready to go:

The plane ready to assemble showing the top of the iron cleaned up and fettled with wet and dry:

A closer look at Rob's great snecking effort:

Ah! But does is work I hear you ask???

Indeed it does

In this image the shaving closest is mahogany, next is jarrah, and of course radiata is curling from the plane itself in the background.

And here she is all done and look'in fine and dandy:

A HUGE thanks to Rob and the ANZLF because without them both I would still be procrastinating

Cheers all and thanks for looking

Kim

[liam_fnq]

Those last photos are the sort of think that blows my hair back. Well done. Don't tell the missus though. If she finds out I've got a thing for 'shavings' there could all sorts of dramas

[Clancy]

What a waste of time.
I mean, seriously, all that time and effort taking an old novelty piece from the junk pile of life and turning it into a beautiful and useful demonstration of history!
And you even roped somebody else into assisting you with your pointless aspirations!!
Geeez.
Honestly mate, what were you thinking????

[simso]

In future if you need a blade sharpened send it to me if you want, will look after you.

I have a machine just for this purpose. My chisels are like razors, make my own screwdrivers etc

[Puff]

You do wakizashi and tanto blades?

[charangohabsburg]

That turned out perfect!
I mean, it's too beautiful to use, you should donate it to a museum, under the condition that it must not be used ever again!

[simso]

You do wakizashi and tanto blades?

The machine that does the chisels etc is attached below, to do the blades your talking about I have another machine that can do it, but its simply a wet stone grinder and really your doing it more by hand than by precision

[Lillian]

Huzzah!

Well done Kim. Well done. It is an absolute joy to see in action.

Rob, good on you too!

[Joe Sustaire]

Dam Kim, what a great job, I'm blown away!
And the "force" is cooperating with you nicely as evident by your new set of chisels.

Way to go,
Joe