Shopsmith Forums

Yet another little distraction from my big projects which never get done....

Having used a square-blade old wooden Rabbet Plane on a recent frame&panel job, I got the itch for a Skew-blade rabbeting plane. Ended up dumping some cash on a used Lie Nielsen No. 140 which is a gadget-lover's dream made of heavy bronze, and including a Fence. But it was in pretty rough shape. I spent 2 hours getting the blade reground and sharpened to my satisfaction. Next big problem was the front Knob being all beat-up and ugly.

I used the following 'jig' in my repair. This lathe faceplate is used on 90% of my turning jobs; I love having a solid glue mount most of the time. But this time I put in a fairly sloppy center screw, with the intention of being able to turn a deliberate eccentric:

[ATTACH]25435[/ATTACH]



I reused the original Cherry knob from the plane. I glued on a new bottom to get a fresh edge there, and then I mounted the knob a little bit eccentric on my faceplate. After light turning and sanding, I had a lopsided knob just right for my challenge. Here, you can see the asymmetrical knob is situated to add more clearance to the 2 frequently-used screws that caused the dinging of the knob to begin with....

[ATTACH]25434[/ATTACH]



When one removes some of those screws and messes with the gadgetry, one can have a Rabbeting plane by virtue of the side of the plane being removed:

[ATTACH]25437[/ATTACH]



Finally, with a very sharp blade and almost everything done, a test cut is the neatest rabbet you ever saw!

[ATTACH]25436[/ATTACH]

Chris, I think YOU'RE the one that's eccentric, and a little skewed, too.

(Really, more eccentric than a full-race cam.)(Sorry, had to go there!):eek:

Seriously, good work, and a good fix for a design flaw.

THANKS for posting this, I'm impressed.

steve

Nice... I Love hand planes

Well it doesn't say Stanley buy the knob so I guess it's not a Stanley 140.
I have a Millers Falls 07 it doesn't quite look like that.
What plane is it?


EDIT DUHH I went back and read
now I like it even better

Very nice job Chris ...
You did not take the before picture so we could've appreciated more your work.
Thanks for posting, I have to do a knob for my Stanley #2 but still have not found the right piece of wood yet.

Thanks for your good-humored support!

I had neglected to document my work before, but by searching a certain "flea-market bay" website, I found a picture....

[ATTACH]25452[/ATTACH]

The knob was nicked in several places, both top and bottom. I ended up shaving and replacing the bottom 1/8" of the knob with my overarm router. The upper part of the knob, I concentrated on (eccentric) wood removal and finishing.

All I have to do now is come up with a better-looking screw for the cap-holder (replacing that black-oxide one that a prior owner put in).

I like your Sheffield screwdriver!

After a bit I located a nice oval-head screw for the lever-cap. I also contemplated the Bronze being not quite as shiny as I'd hoped. Plain old Brasso and elbow-grease only went so far.

Using my Dremel buffer-tip and compound showed a lot of promise for shine-level, but it was leaving small vibration marks, like a bad router cut in wood. So, not ready to spring for a $70-plus BEALL system, I just picked up one buffer wheel and re-used my Dremel polishing compound:

[ATTACH]25522[/ATTACH]


The bigger wheel-radius did make a more uniform shine; I like it! I'll have to see about putting more buffing into my methods of work from now on:

[ATTACH]25521[/ATTACH]

As an aside, I have several times replaced cracked/missing portions of wood knobs and re-turned them. Here is shown a crude "sled" which lets me mount knobs upside-down. Then I run them under the Overarm Router, milling off the cracked parts of their bases.

This kind of milling operation lets me glue in some replacement wood that glues to 2 different faces (vertical and horizontal) for strength. Then I can later remove excess wood and re-turn the parts for a "save."

[ATTACH]25594[/ATTACH]

Continuing on....

It may seem like a lot of trouble, but on jobs like this, a concentric center-hole and counterbored holes for nuts are hard to pull off. So salvaging a knob is a little bit easier than making a new one.


After some hand-sawing, the strip sander takes off most of the excess "patch" wood:

[ATTACH]25649[/ATTACH]


Then it's round enough to work on the lathe; here I've added a brass tube inside this knob so I can treat it like a Pen blank on my pen-turning mandrel:

[ATTACH]25648[/ATTACH]



Finally, I get a repair-job done. This is a Stanley No. 98 side rabbet plane. It's the Roy-Underhill tool for the "Dusty"-type of job of increasing a dado-width by thousandths of inches at a time (anal work):

[ATTACH]25647[/ATTACH]