Stuff I liked lately on wkfinetools.com

[C. in Indy]

I like reading www.wkfinetools.com.    Every week there is something new.

Some things I enjoyed in recent weeks:


(An) Answer to the question, were Stanley Bailey planes ever surface-ground back in the day?

http://otools1.wkfinetools.com/planes/x_...Age-01.asp



A pointer to a wood I found and admired so much, now identified most likely as Holm Oak:

The article:

http://contrib2.wkfinetools.com/hendrick...ane-01.asp

And my own vintage find last year:
<img src="http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d38/C66RUPPEL/She_Oak_1st_cuts_zps7rrvejwl.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo She_Oak_1st_cuts_zps7rrvejwl.jpg"/>


Also there have been some saw-making historical articles mentioned "saw tensioning", but that subject has already been "beaten", if you will.  



Chris

[Daniel S]

I haven't visited there for a while, but there are a lot of good articles. Thanks for the reminder.

[hbmcc]

Likewise, a while for me. Looks like a face-lift has been made, also. Thanks Chris.

[EricU]

Hopefully, nobody minds a spoiler about the grinding of Stanley planes.  They used to use a planer. I had to go look up what the difference between a shaper and a planer was.  On a shaper, the cutter moves, whereas on a planer, the workplace moves.  I think I have seen people use the word shaper to describe a planer.  One person was quoted as saying "you can make anything with a shaper except money"

Anyone ever seen a hand scraped plane?  Seems impossible to believe that nobody has ever done it.

[Gregory of Sherwood Forest]

Wiktor does a great job with that site. I'm in several groups with him and he's always digging for more info and methods to add.

[C. in Indy]

Hopefully, nobody minds a spoiler about the grinding of Stanley planes.  They used to use a planer. I had to go look up what the difference between a shaper and a planer was.  On a shaper, the cutter moves, whereas on a planer, the workplace moves.  I think I have seen people use the word shaper to describe a planer.  One person was quoted as saying "you can make anything with a shaper except money"

Anyone ever seen a hand scraped plane?  Seems impossible to believe that nobody has ever done it.

I've seen a couple accounts of hand-scraped plane soles.

Here is one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvZFOyo63Ks

Also, one of the Home Shop Machinist magazines had a 3- or 4-part series on scraping a few years ago.  The author scraped just about every 2-dimensional iron thing in his vicinity.   He did say he'd done a couple of planes and they were fabulous.

Not yet on my to-do list, but fun to think about!

Chris

[EricU]

we went to IMTS this year (large machine tool show, ok, not just large, huge)  In the back corner, there was a person that teaches scraping classes.  I would love to take a class in it.

[Bill Lyman]

I haven't seen that site before. Thank you for posting.

[Axehandle]

I love the explanation for corrugated planes.

[Mike Brady]

I found the "machining' process described to be quite informative.  I don't believe what is described would be termed as machining (surface grinding) today.  Back then they had a process known as "linishing", which is kind of a more robust belt sander that we use today.  When I look at the couple of NOS planes I have from Stanley, they look like they have been sanded, as opposed to ground.  The marks are not consistent with a precision truing of a surface and look as if the casting might have be held by hand during the process.  Either I am close to correct on this or the castings distorted with age, because most planes are far from flat and true when found today.  It's hard to believe that wear causes this, particularly when the rest of the tool shows no signs of wear.