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(12-27-2024, 11:06 AM)AHill Wrote: Osage has a lot of silica in the wood, since it tends to grow in sandy soils. It's very hard on tools, that's for sure. But he's only making one plane out of it, so probably won't be catastrophic. Just means more sharpening.
Indeed, to make the plane I don't mind sharpening often. That I do anyway because Black Locust is also similar, abrading the tool edge fast. And that is the one I use most of the time. If I used pine more, I wouldn't even change from the beech sole plane.
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Osage Orange would not be my first pick for a plane, but it sure make a great choice for a mallet. The longer it sets around the harder it gets.
Tom
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Years ago, Kari Hultman made this little plane from osage orange.
https://villagecarpenter.blogspot.com/20...plane.html
If you are just having sole wear, the traditional route has been to apply a sole of harder wood to your plane. A lot of the European planes use hornbeam as a sole. Osage orange would make a very good sole.
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(05-20-2025, 02:31 PM)RogerNixon Wrote: Years ago, Kari Hultman made this little plane from osage orange. https://villagecarpenter.blogspot.com/20...plane.html
If you are just having sole wear, the traditional route has been to apply a sole of harder wood to your plane. A lot of the European planes use hornbeam as a sole. Osage orange would make a very good sole.
That is a good option as well, but making a separate thin sole and glue it on is a more complicated technology for me than carving a plane completely from 1 single osage block. I mostly have handtools, and just a bunch of simple powertools besides.
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(12-18-2024, 05:17 PM)Bencuri Wrote: I want to make my next wooden handplane. I made the last one from beech, I like it, but I work with it on woods harder than it all the time, and wearing is a problem to some extent. I work with black locust most of the time. The options I have is to use black locust for the plane, or I also have osage, that is about 15% denser as I remember. I wonder if it would be a good choice though? Besides being denser, I also read shrinkage or movements are not a really big issue with that wood. But when I cut the osage tree out, the bark released some kind of gluey sap. Like the fruit. It is very heavy stuff, very sticky. I wonder if that is in the wood too, and if it makes it difficult to work with the wood itself? Or because of the sap can it irritate my skin?
You can always glue on a hard wood bottom to anything to make it last longer.
As of this time I am not teaching vets to turn. Also please do not send any items to me without prior notification. Thank You Everyone.
It is always the right time, to do the right thing.
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(05-24-2025, 09:22 PM)Arlin Eastman Wrote: You can always glue on a hard wood bottom to anything to make it last longer.
That is true though. I could glue it to an existing plane. But I need this hardwood plane to have 60 degree bed angle, those planes I get when I make it for myself.
