More Storage for Small Plow Plane Blades: A Router Plane Exercise

[Paul-in-Plymouth]

I went out to my shop last week after being absent for the past 6 months due to some health issues.  I sorted through the stuff that had accumulated on my bench and set about finding  places for it.  One item in the pile was the set of three beading blades for the Veritas Small Plow Plane.  

I store the five original blades for the small plow in a little keeper on a wall rack for the plane.  The sharp end of each blade is hidden in a recess at the top of a narrow groove; the blunt end rotates down and slips into a shallow receptacle at the bottom of a wide dado that gives finger access.  The idea is that the blades are easily accessible with the plane, but the sharp ends are hidden and protected.  Here’s a photo of the blade-keep as I made it in 2010. 



The grooves for the original five blades are 3/16” wide and spaced 3/4” on centers.  It seemed the simplest way to add space for four additional blades (three new beading blades plus an extra 1/4” regular blade), would be to cut four new grooves interleaved between the original five.  

The small plow plane itself makes grooves, but not short, stopped grooves like these.  However, they’re duck soup for a router plane with a fence and the right-sized blade.  I have a Veritas Large Router Plane, and, time and again, I am delighted at how well it works and how much fun it is.  It’s a thoroughly excellent tool.  http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.as...41192&ap=1

To make these grooves, I first bored some holes to define the ends: single 3/16” holes from the front to define the tops and tangent pairs of stopped 3/16” holes from the backside, with waists chiseled out, for the bottoms.  

 

Next, I cut the four grooves using a 3/16” blade in the large router plane.  I knifed the shoulders, then planed from the dado end.  Once a track was established, it was easy to finish with cuts of 15 to 20 mil (= 1/2-turn or a little more on the 32-tpi adjuster).   Cuts more than about 20 mil required too much force for good control in the red oak. 





The grooves are 9/16” deep and 1-1/4” long.  Each groove took 30-40 passes to reach full depth.  It was just a few minutes’ work to cut all four.  (For quick reference, 36 passes at 1/64” per pass makes 9/16”.) 



A little DO on the fresh surfaces, and quickly back on the wall.  The narrower spacing, 3/8” on centers, works fine for access, but I wouldn’t want them more closely spaced. 

This may seem like much ado about a tiny little project, but I wanted to note my continuing pleasure with the Veritas Large Router Plane.  It worked like a champ for this, as always: versatile, precise and fun to use, with a good fence, fine adjustment and several blade-widths.  

Thanks if you’re still with me after all this.  Now I need to get busy with the new beading blades in the small plow.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Clever storage. It keeps the bits handy, yet protected. Good job.

[Hank Knight]

Paul,

I like your attractive wall-mount for the LV Plow plane and the clever storage solution for the blades. If I had the space I would copy it, but I don't. Instead, I built a small stand for mine and store it on a shelf with my other planes. I found that the blades fit nicely in a plastic M&Ms container. Drilled a shallow hole in the base of my stand to fit the M&Ms container. Now it all gets stored together on my plane shelf.

<img src="/ssl_proxy.php?url=http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f343/hankknight/Woodworking/image_zps1638e51a.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo image_zps1638e51a.jpg"/>

<img src="/ssl_proxy.php?url=http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f343/hankknight/Woodworking/image_zps10b767ef.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo image_zps10b767ef.jpg"/>

[Paul-in-Plymouth]

Hank,
Thanks for your comments and for the pictures.  I like the repurposed M&M container for blades, especially that it allows use of the original rust-control bags.  I also like the stand for your plane.  If I stored my plane on a shelf, I would probably make something much like that for it.  I have more wall space than shelves, plus I like to store things within reach on the wall behind me at the bench, hence the wall storage.  

For the wall rack to accept the plane with any fence setting (my design requirement), I chose to suspend the plane by hooking the fence on the peg and to keep it vertical by capturing the bottom of the fence, not the skate, in a groove.  This makes it less well-balanced than your stand, but it is very stable and secure on the wall.   

Paul

---

Jim - Thank you for your comment.  Paul

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

M&M container is just right for those blades. I used a deodorant case for my extra mortise plane blades. It is easy to find many handy containers if you just look around.

[cputnam]

Cute. Well done. Effective

[Paul-in-Plymouth]

Sorry, I organized my Photobucket yesterday and moved the 5 photos in this post by mistake.  When I realized what I'd done, I put them back where they were.  But they no longer display in the post unless you click on them for Photos 2-5.  Photo 1 is there too, but I can't get to display.

I don't know how to fix this.

My apologies.

[Hank Knight]

Paul, turn on your private messages. I tried to reply to a message you sent me and got a pop-up message saying I couldn't PM you because your messaging feature was turned off.

[Paul-in-Plymouth]

Hank - I thought PM was turned on.  Thanks for the heads-up.  I'm working on it.  Paul