Progress on the Plate 19 Moulders

Yesterday I had a little bit of time in the shop.  Instead of working on these, I spent the time getting my new Stanley Type 10 #3 smoother sharpened and working.  That plane is awesome.  I can't wait to write about it.  It went so well, I rehabbed a few chisels, too.  No time for these moulders.

Skip to today, and I was able to sneak in the shop for about an hour and a half.  I think once I get a couple of these built, it will go a lot faster, as it always takes a bit to learn something new.

Today I spent some time belatedly fitting the wedges and bedding the irons.  It turns out the irons bed a lot easier if the wedges are dead-nuts perfect.  I didn't bother shaping my wedges yet.  I'll probably regret that later.

In this photo you can see where I was in the process when I left off last time.  One wedge is roughly fit, and the other is way out.

You can see from here one wedge is way off.  You can also see my chisel-rehabbing mess from yesterday.

A bit of time fitting the wedges.  This open mortise makes it easy to see everything that is going on with the wedge.  I have no idea if the wedge is square or not, but it fits the mortise.  I then used the dry erase marker to determine where to remove wood on the bed to seat the iron as best as I could (as per Larry Williams).

The pair with fine tuned wedges.

I forgot I had a singleton #12 hollow in my tool chest.  This is the exact size I am making here, so I used it as a mother plane after touching up the blade.  It worked a treat.  If you are going to make planes, it might be beneficial to make friends with someone who has a plane or two the size you need.

I found a mother plane in my tool chest.

For the hollow, I used my plow to set the depth I wanted for this profile, then used 80 grit sandpaper wrapped around my new round body to establish the profile.

Don't tell anyone I used sandpaper!

Here are a couple of pics of the completed profiles.   I like this first photo because it shows a little more clearly that the blade is full width the whole way.

I admire people who keep their shop and bench clean while they work.  I don't

Here's a close-up of the profiles including what the irons look like peeking out of the bottom.  Obviously they aren't shaped yet.

The last thing I did was use some machinist layout fluid and a shop knife to mark out the profiles on the irons.  These are the lines I need to grind to.

I think I need to try a different brand of fluid.  Although it looks like you can see the line well enough.

Unfortunately, My shop isn't set up well for grinding and metal work.  I will go to the Army woodshop to do the grinding.  I then will go to the Army's do-it-yourself Auto Crafts shop.  They have a welding torch that I will use to heat treat these irons.  I figure that's quicker and easier than mucking about with fire bricks and propane torches.  At least, that's what I'm about to find out.

For a bonus, here are a couple photos of what I did yesterday:

Here's my new Stanley smoother.  I planed the wrong way on this walnut board, and there was no tear out.

 I also got a little re-habbing in.  The two smaller chisels are now sharper than they probably ever were, and the big one and the Mora knife are grinding projects in-progress.

I hate lapping, so I'll do it until I get sick of it, and I will come back to it next time.  Sooner or later they will all be done.