Router Plane - #4 Machining the Body

Cutting the bevels is next and it starts with tilting the table saw blade to 71 degrees.  That gives me my 19-degree bevel.  I used the electronic level below but, in the past, have used a protractor and bevel gauge.

To hold the body blank in position and keep my fingers away from the blade I used my tenoning jig.  The cut is set about half a saw blade’s width shy so if there is any burning or problems when the cut’s made I have some wiggle room.

In the photo below I have made the first cut and flipped the body so the saw is ready to make the second cut.  You can see a couple of things here.  At the top of the body where the first cut was made it’s pretty well had the crap burned out of it.  That’s because the cut was made with my combination blade rather than a rip blade which has been changed and will be used to make the next cut.

Here is after the cut on the second bevel.  Hardly any burn and a much better cut.  Once the second body has been cut all that’s left to do is adjust the tenoning jig and make the final cut.

After the final cut the bevels still need some sanding.  To keep a flat face, I clamp the sandpaper to a flat surface in this case the table saw extension and start making passes being sure not to rock the piece and keep the bevel in constant contact with the sandpaper.  Since the bevel is in pretty good shape, I started with 120 grit and worked up to 320 grit paper.

Next is to cut the curve in the top of the body.  That’s done on the bandsaw.  The large block to the right of the body is my 90-degree guide.  It keeps the body square with the bandsaw’s table.  The blue clamp is what I use to guide the cut which keeps my hand at a distance from the blade.  If I were to slip when making the cut the clamp would get destroyed rather than my finger.

The rough bandsaw cut is smoothed out using the oscillating drum sander.  First sleeve is 60 grit and final grit is 120.  That’s not fine enough but that’s the finest grit I have for the drum so it’s on to hand sanding.  The same block used when making the bandsaw cut is used here to assure the body is square with the table.

While the table saw was set up to cut the bevels, I cut a couple of pieces off a scrap 2x4 and glued them together to make a wedge.  That will be used a little later as a jig when holes are drilled in the bevel for handles.

Using the template, the final shape is laid out on the body and the mortise for the steel tube is fitted using the same small files that were used to fit the router blade inside the tube.  The tube was a few thousands of an inch oversize and a smidge out of square but it was pretty easy to get to a snug fit.

Next the top of the steel tube is filed to match the curve in the body or at least very close.  To do that the tube is set in its final location and the high spots are marked with a marker.  The tube is removed that area filed, the tube reinstalled then checked and high points are again marked.  The process is repeated until the fit is really close.  Final blending of the two items will be done after the tube is epoxied in place.

Gluing the tubes in with epoxy is next.  Because I want some time to make sure the tube is located properly and have time for cleanup a separate batch is made for the installation of each tube.  That gives about 5 minutes of work time.  To make cleanup easier blue tape is applied to the bottom of the body where the tube comes through and a hole is cut to match the mortise size.

After letting the epoxy cure overnight here is what the top side looks like.  As you can see, I left a little extra epoxy around the tube’s edge.  That’s from when I packed the joint between the tube and the wood a little proud.  It’s so when the final shaping is done the gap at the corners between the tube and the wood will be filled.  The small gap is because the tube has slightly rounded corners and the mortise corners are square.

Now it’s time to blend the tube’s edges in with the arc cut in the top of the body.  That’s done using the drum sander, files and a fair amount of hand sanding.  When done this is what it looks like.  

Drilling the holes where the handles will be mounted comes next.  This is where the beveled scrap 2x4 jig is used.  Here the jig is set on the drill press table with the plane body set on top.  The digital level reads 0.00 degrees or that the top of the bevel is parallel to the table allowing me to drill holes at 90 degrees to the face of the bevel.

Here is how the bevel jig is used.  Clamps hold the jig and a stop in place while the tape on the bit gives me a visual on the depth of the hole.

After drilling the hole, the bit is removed and the threaded insert can be installed.  The insert has wood screw threads on the outside and machine screw threads on the inside.  Here you can see where the insert has been screwed onto a 5/16”- 18 partially threaded rod which is chucked up in the drill press.   As an aside 5/16”- 18 means the rod is 5/16” in diameter with 18 threads per inch.    Anyway, now everything is ready for the insert to be run into the hole.  That’s done by lowering the chuck using the drill’s handle and turning the chuck by hand.  Don’t turn the drill press on to install the insert or things will get really exciting in hurry and not in a good way.

Using the drill press to install the insert most of the way makes sure it is square with the bevel.  After running it in as far as I can by hand the chuck is loosened and raised up as shown here.

Once the body is unclamped from the drill press an 8mm hex wrench is used to finish the installation so the insert top is just below the face of the bevel.

Next Up – Completing the Body & the First Handle

Router Plane - #3 Fitting the Tube, Shaping the Base, Glue-up & Layout

The process of smoothing out the inside of the tube begins with scribing a line around the tube so a 1” piece can be cut off.

Using a jig saw with a fine-tooth metal cutting blade made quick work of cutting off the needed section.

The rough edges are then smoothed out and squared up using a fine wheel on the grinder.  Note how a pair of pliers are used to hold the tube so I don’t burn my poor little fingers.  A little hand filing rounds the sharp inner and outer edges.  In its final location I think the top edge will have a slight radius to match the top of the tool.  That decision, however, will come later.

To remove the ridge starts with a couple of cold chisels reground to fit inside the tube and angled to shave it off a little at a time.  No power tools here just hand work.  That’s followed by some small files and once the tube fits over the blade the inside is sanded with 320 grit paper for a smooth operation.  Here are the tools used.  The fitting took about two hours of not very enjoyable work per sleeve but they are done and the blade’s post slides through the tube smoothly.

Next is to clamp the jig to the base and mark the centers of the two holes that need to be drilled.  Here is the pattern in place and what the base looks like with the holes center points punched.

Moving to the drill press both holes get drilled.  I used a fence to act as a backup to help keep the base from shifting while being drilled.

Once the holes are drilled a small chamfer is cut on the bottom edges of the two circles.  The photo below shows how the base is set over a 45-degree edging bit.  The upright base shows the finished routed edge.  I will not change the router bit height as I will be using it later on to cut some more chamfers.

After routing a chamfer on the base, I ran the piece through the thickness sander using 220 grit paper to give a nice smooth finish.  That’s followed by relaying out the router shape using the template.  With that done the base is centered on the cherry body.  Screws are then run through the waste areas from the base into the body.  That’s so the two pieces can be taken apart and put back together in perfect registration.  That will come in handy when they are glued together later.

Next is to cut the square hole in the body for the sleeve the router blade will slide in.  Here are a couple of drawings showing how the sleeve goes into the body.  Note that the sleeve is set at 45 degrees and that necessitates a slightly different setup when cutting the hole for it.

The mortise machine will be used to make the square hole.  To do that a ½” mortising chisel set is installed normally except for one thing.  Typically, the chisel set is aligned square with the fence because almost always the mortise is square with the board’s edges.  However, in this case it needs to be set at 45 degrees.  That’s done using a 45-degree steel square.  Below shows the mortiser and a close-up of the angled square and the mortising chisel.

Centering the mortise left to right come next and that’s done by eyeball.  Here the body is clamped in the mortising machine with a spacer below so I don’t drill into the mortiser’s base. 

With the body centered left to right the last step is locating the mortise chisel front to back.  The edge of the sleeve is set just back of the edge of the hole so to locate it the thickness of my steel square is used as a gauge.

All that’s required now is to turn the machine on and pull the handle down to make the mortise.  The top photo shows the finished mortise up close.  The bottom shows a top and bottom view.  As you can see the holes are clean with no torn edges.  This was the operation I had been most concerned about as the hole needs to be square, true and accurately sized.  I had thought it could be a real problem to cut but as it turned out it was really easy.  When I did a test fit of the sleeve it turned out to be a nice snug fit.

Gluing the body and base together is next.  Glue is spread on the body then the base is screwed in place using the previously used screws which makes sure both pieces are in alignment.  A couple more clamps are added and any glue squeeze out on the inside around the mortise is cleaned up.

After letting the glue cure overnight, the clamps are removed along with the registration screws.  The glued-up blanks are then trimmed just a little oversize using the table saw.  Using the sight hole already made in the base for alignment the body is bored through on the drill press.

Here is the body/base assembly looking at the underside with the boring completed I will do a little sanding on the bored hole to smooth the sides out later on.

Laying out the bevel cut where the handles will be located is next.  Here are the dimensions of the cut.

That’s followed by the layout of the curve that gets cut into the top.  Two clamps are set just beyond the edge of the cut, the cut’s depth marked, the center point found and a small headless brad is driven in as shown below. 

An old matboard mask is used to layout the curve with the outside edges against the clamps and the inside face against the brad.  In order to align the curve with the endpoints tiny adjustments are needed to be made in the clamp’s location.

Here is what the finished curve layout line looks like.

Next Up – Machining the Body

Router Plane - #2 Templates, Flattening Blanks & Hardware

Next up is to make a final accurate template for the plane body.  First, using spray adhesive I attach a full-scale printout from SketchUp to a scrap of ¼” plywood.  Second, is to cut it out about 1/16” beyond the final size with the bandsaw.  Third, is using the disk sander clean up the bandsawn edges bringing them right up to the line.  That delicate cleanup is what’s shown here.  Since the disk sander has a pretty coarse grit on it a light touch is required to keep from taking too much off.

Sanding the roughness left by disk sander on the edges smooth is done with a sheet of 220 grit paper clamped down along with a guide block to keep the edges square.

To make sure the template is symmetrical I trace it’s outline onto a sheet of paper then flipped the template end for end and set it back onto the outline.  If the pattern does not line up with the outline then something needs adjustment.  Once any corrections are done the piece is flipped so the template is face down on the outline and the alignment is checked.  Adjustment as necessary are done until the template always aligns with the drawn outline.

Ripping the wear base plate blank in half is next.  This the bandsaw setup after the cut is made with one cut half on the right.

Each of the ripped halves are run through the thickness sander to flatten, smooth the surface and bring it down to the final 3/8” thickness required.  Any problems areas that need to be avoided are marked with a white pencil.  Last the pattern is used to find its best location on the blank and marked along with centerlines.

The base plate blanks are set aside and work on the main body blocks are started.  The piece of cherry I have is left over from when I made the Maloof Rocking Chair about five years ago.  When I laid it down on the chop saw to cut off the needed length did I ever get a surprise as it had twisted quite a bit.  Here you can see how much by looking at right end.

After cutting a section off I set it on the table saw and put a couple of straight edges called winding sticks on the twisted face.  If the piece was parallel, they would align but as you can see the piece is going to require a lot of help to get it flat.

To flatten, I set the piece on a flat surface to find out which corners don’t rock, mark them and then use a hand plane to flatten those high corners.  Here it’s pretty obvious which ones need to be worked on.  Most of the time I use a long plane but in this case the twist was so bad I started out with a power plane and finished with a small block plane.  Here you can see where I have marked the top right and bottom left corners of the second blank with an “X”.  Once this face is flat the blank gets run through the thickness sander to flatten the other side.  The piece is then flipped over and run through the thickness sander removing any inconsistencies in the first side giving me a blank with smooth, flat, parallel faces.  Using a jointer would be faster but I don’t have one.  A quick trim of the edges on the table saw squares the edges to the face.

Here is the flattened blank back on the table saw with the winding sticks set in place showing a flattened surface.

Since I did not have all the hardware for the tool some parts needed to be ordered.  They included some ¼”-20 and 5/16”-18 threaded inserts and rod, a ¼”-20 knurled knob and a length of ½” square tubing.  Below are these pieces. 

Don’t worry if the list does not make sense as I will go through how and where each are used. The first thing I checked was the tubing to make sure the plane blade moved freely inside the ½” tube.  This is a critical test in that any problems here would make the tool unworkable.  Too small and the blade won’t fit in and too big will allow the blade to move around messing up the tool’s accuracy.  Unfortunately, the blade wouldn’t even go into the tube.  Here is the blade lined up with how it’s supposed to slide in the tube.

On closer inspection there is a ridge running the length inside the tube that prevents the blade from fitting.  I sent a note to the supplier of the tube letting them know what the problem was and how I planned on using it asking if this was normal or a flaw in this particular piece.  My hope was that since Woodsmith had listed them along with a part number that there was a problem with this piece.  To their credit they got back to me the next day saying the ridge is where the tube is welded together and is a normal part of the manufacturing process.  This presented a real problem as there is no local source and even on-line finding one without ordering a six-foot section when only two inches is needed is a problem.  Even then there is no guarantee that another piece would not have the ridge.  As you can see in the photo below the ridge is not huge but big enough that it’s a real problem.

Since no good options presented themselves, I decided to try and clean up the inside of the tube and make it work.  I have a feeling this is going to be like building a ship in a bottle, where the bottle is only 3/8” square.

Next Up – Fitting the Tube, Shaping the Base, Glue-up & Layout