Kerfing plane or rebate saw plane

[JoethePro]

Tom Fidgen had a nice presentation at WIA on resawing by hand. I was the camera guy so I got a good view. Needless to say, I've been very curious since then.

Tom uses a plane that he calls a Kerfing plane. I've also seen a blade and a future kit that our own Isaac of Blackburn tools is producing.

Anyway I thought I'd put my idea of here and see if anyone has any feedback. I think many people own one of Lee Valley's planes that have an adjustable fence - what about taking a saw blade and drilling holes in it, and mounting it between the plane and the fence, like this mockup:




You can unscrew the arms and use them to hold the blade to the side of the fence. I think you could even get a stiffener on the outside of the blade if it was thin. Then you just set the fence to a little over the thickness of your resawing, and kerf a track around the outside of the board. Finally you rip away and it should track in the kerf. I think the skew rebate plane would offer much better balance, but it don't have one of those yet.

Thoughts?

[blackhat]

A rip filed stair saw with two threaded inserts spaced to use whatever fence you have available would work too.

[blackhat]

Or use the trick Fr Peter got published. Stretch a length of bandsaw blade across your bench top with 2 appropriately thick spacers under it.

[bgeva]

I actually like the idea. We might even talk Rob Lee into making of an attachment for the LV small plow to be used as kerfing plane.

BG

[JimBelair]

Neat idea. It might be tough to balance the weight of the plane hanging over the non-fence side of the blade. It's hard enough to keep a plough or rabbet plane tracking square to the work. The fence would normally be a lot closer to the body than shown in your photo. You could clamp a piece of sawblade to the plane body to see how it works.

[Derek Cohen]

Why bother with the plane? It is the adjustable fence that is just needed.

Kerf a block of wood, drop the saw blade into that, and then drill the block for the fence rods. Add the fence, and you are ready to go.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[JoethePro]

Well...you see I have this plane that I don't use all that much, and it has a handle on it already and a fence

Pretty good idea Derek. I partially got the idea when I saw your review that mentions adding a side on it for shooting. I keep thinking about how I want to add on to this tool to make it a little more used.

EDIT: I think I see a pack of EZLoks in my future (link)

[Mark Allen]

I'm on my 5th version of this plane concept, using Blackburn tools blades. I think you're going to have a very hard time with balance and maintaining correct force direction if you try to convert that plane

I found that the handle or whatever you push on should be in the same geometric plane as the blade. Also, I found the more aggressive the teeth on your blade, the less downward force you will want to apply to the plane. It looks like a plane, but it works like a saw.

On my latest design, I've moved completely away from the 'plane' style and I have a moulding plane body because I want almost no downward force and couldn't achieve that easily with a plane handle of any sort.

I think if there is a candidate LV item for conversion, I would be one of the carcase saws with a wood 'body' bolted through the plate so a fence could be attached. That's a more correct geometry I think. It's rather deceiving.

Also, if you can't make a PERFECT kerf for the blade, consider a rabbet (assuming you can make one as perfectly square as possible) and sandwich your blade with another block of wood.

[GWSpringer]

Bridge City Toolworks has a 1/16" dado blade for their HP-6v2 plane that and the fence for the plane would work as well.

[Anji12305]

I've turned this approach sideways.

I have an old flush cut saw made by a master carpenter.
The rip blade is mounted flush to the bottom of long section of railing.

I score the board to be resawn deeply, with a Japanese Kebicki.
On softer stock, I score two parallel lines all the way around.

Place the board to be kerfed flat on your bench and secure it.

Place spacer stock (I like Baltic birch plywood) flat next to the board
to be kerfed and rest the flush cut saw on the spacer.

Work your way around.

I find that attempting to kerf a board vertically results in drift.