A tool I like

[Clancy]

Had to cut some truss rod channels last night, so I thought I'd share how I go about it.
I know a router will cut a lovely clean, straight & square channel time after time but........I hate routers!
They're noisy, messy and, to be honest, they scare the sh*t out of me.

This little plough ('plow' for you yanks) plane is one of my all time favourite tools.
I only wish I had more opportunity to get it out!
Their are a few brands of this type of thing. This one's a Record.
It comes with 3 blades, of which I use the 1/4" for truss rods & the 1/8" for CF rods.

So it's slower than a router. Fair enough. It's much slower.
You also have to complete the last few inches of the channel's "dead end" with a chisel. Can't argue with you. It's a fact.
But...
It's quiet.
It's accurate.
It feels good.
It makes me want to do more woodwork dammit!

Is it better than a router? Probably not.
Depends how you look at it though

[Nick]

So it's slower than a router. Fair enough. It's much slower.
You also have to complete the last few inches of the channel's "dead end" with a chisel. Can't argue with you. It's a fact.
But...
It's quiet.
It's accurate.
It feels good.
It makes me want to do more woodwork dammit!

Is it better than a router? Probably not.
Depends how you look at it though

Good enough reason right there Craig, if it floats your boat then I say go for it. Sometimes it's just nice to pick up a hand tool & feel it under your hand as it cuts cleanly through a piece of wood. I was saying earlier this morning to Kim & Allen that I still prefer to bend sides on an iron as opposed to a blanket & form, just the feeling of the wood give then curve around the iron...it's quite therapeutic & organic to me. But may have to eventually go to a blanket for the type of wood I want to bend.

[matthew]

Yeah nice. I have access to a combination plane that would do that, but its a complicated bugger. that one looks nice and simple.

I guess it wouldn't be too hard to make one out of wood, either - but you'd need some spare time

[Clancy]

I know what you mean Nick.
I still bend sides on an iron, although I did 'relent' and recently by a heating blanket - but only because the dollar is too good & I knew that it'd be back down to US65c if I find I 'need' it in the future.

Ah Matthew, I know what you mean.
But I seem to have lived my life Rich in Time but Poor in Pocket, or Poor in Time and Rich in Pocket.
Then I had kids & am poor in both
(A wooden version would be a nice little project though)

By the way, the plough plane cost me $40 inc postage on ebay, but I had to battle for & loose a few before I snuck in & got this.

[Kim]

Beautiful piece and nice pics to Craig, I really like the early Record planes, all top shelf as far as I am concerned.

Cheers

Kim

[bernm]

Very nice. Thanks for posting this. It prompted me to grab my Carba-Tec catalogue and now I'm wondering about something. Does anyone know the major difference between a plough plane and a router plane? I read an article on router planes recently and was similarly intrigued. I'm wondering what would be the advantages of one plane over the other.

Here's the Veritas router plane:
http://www.veritas.ca/Products/Page.aspx?p=112. There's an optional fence as well.

And the Veritas plough/plow plane:
http://www.veritas.ca/Products/Page.aspx?p=424

Bern

[Kim]

Bern,

Router or Hag Tooth planes are mainly used to excavate from a flat horizontal surface much like a modern router does, you can even use the smaller version (721?) to excavate inlay and rosettes etc. Yes you 'can' fit a fence to the larger model and rout a rebate using a squared vertical edge to shoot from as Craig has shown, but really, the plough plane is the tool made for this job as it is far more stable for longer strokes.

Cheers

Kim

[DarwinStrings]

This just jolted my memory, I have a Stanley combination plough somewhere in a box I think. At a guess it has around 45 blades for doing stuff like ogee, ovolo and straight cuts. The blades may be a bit rusty and I haven't looked at it for 25 years or so, only used it a few dozen times. If anyone is interested I could see if I can find it and you could have it for chips if you are interested in using that sort of thing, doubt I will ever use it again. Would be better off with someone who might use it.

Jim

Edit. It ain't as pretty as that Record or I would keep it in a cabinet (the one I am going to make one days for a few old tools)

[Puff]

I'd be in Jim but not offended if it goes else where.

[DarwinStrings]

I will see if I can find it and see what sort of condition it is in Puff.

Jim

[Puff]

Condition is immaterial - concept is illuminating.
Cheers

[DarwinStrings]

I have sent a PM Puff, now that I have dug it out of the depths of the past I would like to find it a useful home.

Jim

[pat foster]

That's a really nice example, Clancy. I too like using hand tools. While you can't dispute the speed and accuracy of a lot of power tools, they don't give the satisfaction of a well-tuned hand tool, for me anyway. Watching a spray of dust come off a sander just doesn't compare to a paper-thin shaving quietly curling up out of the throat of an old plane.

Pat

[charangohabsburg]

But...
It's quiet.
It's accurate.
It feels good.
It makes me want to do more woodwork dammit!

This little plough ('plow' for you yanks) plane is one of my all time favourite tools.

Dammit! You made me want one too!!!
Thank you Craig for showing us this one!

And now I already have one! Not that nice as yours, but it's ok.
I will like and use it for the reasons you already have listed, and it because it doesn't produce as much dust as a router.

The same day you opened this thread I started searching...

Their are a few brands of this type of thing. This one's a Record.

Yes, there is also the Veritas plough plane, but my bank account said that I'd better buy a used Record and spend the price difference on some more wood...

So I went hunting on eBay.
Today (oh well... actually yesterday...) I received my parcel. There is only a bit of rust on the knurled knobs (don't know yet how to get rid of it, but that's a minor issue), and there was a bit rust on the blades too (I could nearly wipe it off, oh well some assistance of 360 grit sandpaper was needed). The plane is nearly unused, two of the blades had still the protecting varnish layer on. Honing the mirror side of the used blade was a breeze, the new blades cost me some more work (no flat mirror side on new blades).

I think I also will make a wooden fence, a bridge blank will do it.

So I am pretty happy with this new tool. Maybe I'll use it mostly for routing channels in MDF when making tools and jigs. I don't like it a lot to work with MDF (has some virtues though), but I think not having to touch it with spinning router bit is a great enhancement regarding dust production.

Here come two low quality nighttime pictures (bad light):

2011_D70_2579-1.jpg (96.47 KiB) Viewed 18082 times

2011_D70_2583-1.jpg (131.61 KiB) Viewed 18082 times

Thanks again, Craig!

[TKAY]

I noticed a comment on not knowing about how to remove rust from a plane. A VERY gentle way is to use dilute molasses, that black(actually dark brown)sugary stuff like treacle. A very strong solution of sugar would probably do the trick though. I have used it on some chisels and plane blades with success TKAY[

[charangohabsburg]

I noticed a comment on not knowing about how to remove rust from a plane. A VERY gentle way is to use dilute molasses,

Hi TKAY, thanks for the hint.
There's only a "problem" with the knobs (the knurled part of them). Indeed, putting some sticky stuff on them, let it dry and pull it off together with the loose rust particles sounds pretty reasonable. I'll give it a try.

[Clancy]

Nice one Markus.
You will need to put a wooden fence on it, they are designed for this (I shaped up a scrap piece of burdekin plum).
The fence adjustment on these planes was made for the rods to stick out to the left. Unfortunately this gets in the way of the fence handle.
Using a tip from Derek Cohen, I place the rods out to the right and use the locking srews to set adjustment rather than the knurled knobs on the fence.
Have look at this....

http://www.onlinetoolreviews.com/review ... wplane.htm

I wish you many hours of enjoyment with your new tool.

Cheers
Craig

[charangohabsburg]

Thank you Craig for your kind words, your hints and for the link to the review site too.

I have some cherry bridge blanks laying around but i don't think of making bridges out of cherry. It's local wood I cut some years ago, and part of the rests it just had the dimensions of bridge blanks ...or plough plane fences

The fence adjustment on these planes was made for the rods to stick out to the left. Unfortunately this gets in the way of the fence handle.
Using a tip from Derek Cohen, I place the rods out to the right and use the locking srews to set adjustment rather than the knurled knobs on the fence.

Yes, I already noted it and then also saw in your pictures how you handle the handle/rod problem. Probably I'll do gross adjustment with the locking screws and allow up to 10-12 millimeters of protruding when making fine adjustment with the knobs.

Edit: finally, here is my wooden fence.

Cheers,