Shopsmith Forums

Has anyone made the finger plane from the last edition of Sawdust Sessions?

I'm looking to buy the raw materials to make a few as gifts. Nick suggests "cut-off" stock for the blade, and I'm not exactly sure what it is I should be looking for. I also don't know where I'd buy 1/4 brass plate locally, so hopefully there is a place I could buy both the tool steel and brass.

Hi,

I started piling up materials for a finger-plane, too!

For the metal-lathe cutoff tool, there are a lot of cheap used ones on eBay, such as:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lathe-Parting-Tool- ... 53df2865f7
I got one such tool (HSS steel) and I haven't yet got around to 'flattening' it nor 'squaring' it, prior to adding a sharp bevel. One of these days.... Anyway in the meantime I've made 1 jack-plane (wooden, last summer) and I'm working on a heavy shop-made Infill smoother plane right now. These have been very rewarding and educational experiences.

I have not seen the sawdust session, McMaster Carr has just about everything including cut-off tools and brass material. The Lansing area should have a metal retailer around town, a scrap of stainless will hold an edge for awhile if you don't want to pay shipping.

Another related question - in the video Nick uses some sort of spring-loaded center punch. What is it, and what is the advantage?

paulrussell wrote:Another related question - in the video Nick uses some sort of spring-loaded center punch. What is it, and what is the advantage?

Hate to keep referring to HF, but the 'items' are there!

http://www.harborfreight.com/spring-loaded-center-punch-621.html

One hand! locate, rock to vertical, push, done!

JPG40504 wrote:Hate to keep referring to HF, but the 'items' are there!

http://www.harborfreight.com/spring-loaded-center-punch-621.html

One hand! locate, rock to vertical, push, done!

Awesome! Thanks.

As far as Harbor Freight -- some things they have are absolute winners. I ordered one of their 4x8 folding trailers about five years ago and I couldn't be happier.

I don't think I'd buy anything with a motor from them unless I was going to consider it a single-use throw-away.

I just knocked these out this week; doing small stuff until I decide on some other winter projects such as a medicine cabinet.

All the side woods were cut from 3 Bocote pen-blanks glued together. The inner structural wood is 100+ yr-old beech from an antique plane. The retaining wedges are Zebrawood. There is a 3/16" brass rod in each, along with a Krenov-style wooden pivot-piece that faces the wedges for nice retention.

The blades were both cut from that same 100-yr-old bigger plane-blade. A hacksaw did not do. A Dremel cutoff wheel did only a little better. I finally used a carbide-grit-cord type of blade in the hacksaw frame -- that was good!

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Automatic center punches are easier to operate and just the ticket if you are trapped in a submerged automobile but are not necessarily more accurate than the standard punch. For accurately locating holes I like the optical center punch:

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=45502&cat=1,180,42311

Troy

Troy - I think I will stick with my Springtool brand center punch. It would be my luck that I would forget to remove the site glass and hit it with my hammer. Here is a link to the one I have.

http://www.springtools.com/gShop/GroupV ... 566773b9f3

Very nice little planes, Chris. Here is one I made just after the plane making video was posted. In case anyone wants to build one, I got all the metal parts (brass plates, rods and blade steel) from McMaster-Carr.

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Here are the directions and plans I downloaded from Nick Englers Workshop Companion web site...

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