It seems appropriate to start this blog whilst I have a picture of these planes on my website home page here.

I don’t see myself making any more shoulder planes for some time. This style of plane is the only Spiers plane that appeals to me; in fact it is probably my favourite shoulder plane. The construction with its components is very much like the Norris A7 but has the shape I prefer. In the making of the Spiers I have had to make a lot of new tooling – for just six planes. As you follow this blog you will see some of my hidden work.

The following pictures show my familiar dovetailing of the bottoms being milled in pairs back to back so that I can form a compound dovetail. Please note that all the bottom blanks have been cut and precisionally ground all round in one piece (not separated at the mouth) at this stage.

Below shows one of the bottoms being shouldered/rebated at the dovetails. This system has always been used in my shoulder planes and is now being introduced into my other infill planes. This has an advantage of providing a positive support between the dovetails should the plane be bumped or knocked in the side. It also provides a light stop.

The bottoms ready for cutting in two and working the throat and bed area.

Planing down the naval brass sides to the required thickness.

When the plane is finished the sides will be 5/32” thick as with most infills of this type, including the jointers. The problem is that you cannot buy these bronze alloys at this thickness. The choice is usually 3mm or 6mm. One too thin, the other too thick. Most of the modern infill planes that I have seen made up with brass sides look insubstantial as they have had to manage with the 3mm, and this is before the plane sides have been flushed. The only way is for me to buy the nearest oversized material (i.e. 6mm) and plane to the required thickness on both sides.

In the hay days of infill planes most sides were cut from standard gauges which came in a better selection of thicknesses. However, I don’t think there were many brass sided planes around then.

After thicknessing, the material is cut up for the sides and then the rivet holes are CNC drilled into the sides, with a slight taper. These rivet holes are also used for the work holding for all the shaping.

Grinding a work holding plate for the routing of the plane sides. As with most of my tooling everything is precisionally ground.

Setting up the work holding plate for drilling and tapping. Then it is ready for screwing down the plane sides for profiling and chamfering.

These are contour tests in wax, after programming the shape of the sides. These pictures show the contours with the chamfers and with the throat cut out.

After all the adjustments to the side contours have been made, I make a tracing on the work holding jig before actually cutting.

The plane sides have been secured with purpose made screws using a matching 60 deg taper predrilled for the rivet holes in the sides. Once the cutting commences things are quite fast and easy because of the detail preparation work. The accuracy and detail is only the result of all this work.

The plane sides have been dowelled together ready for dovetailing.

Dovetailing now complete.

There are 24 handle risers being ground true. Made in pairs joined end to end for ease of working.

The handle riser having been parted from its partner is now having its step milled into it.

With the step now formed ready for the radiuses

The radiuses being rough cut

The radiuses now with the finishing cut (three radiuses in total).

Handle riser now complete.

Showing pre-worked handle risers with one on its machining carrier and one rosewood handle just about showing its riser recess.

Blanks being turned for riser fixing screws.

After threading the screws the bun riser is fixed to the bottom (on the underside in this picture, you can only see the three screws). Note the small machine vice, this is to hold the front bottom section for cutting off the screw heads – as is shown in the next picture.

With the components secured in the small machine vice it is clamped on to the sawing table for trimming the screw heads.

Going

Gone. I hope I remembered the locking compound !

The protruding screws heads for the rear handle riser being milled away.

Now cutting the bottoms to separate the back end from the front – otherwise I will have the tightest mouth in the world. Actually the whole sole is made in one piece for the ease of matching.

Milling the blade bed after the separation on the bottom.

Now grinding the blade bed for precision.

The front end of the bottom having a radius form milled in front of the plane mouth for openness and better escape for the shavings – due to the extra thick bottom.

Boring the three fixing holes for the front bun riser (notice that the front bun is set at 15 deg from perpendicular).

Drilling the three holes in the front bun riser for fixing screws. This one is in brass but then I decided to substitute with steel.

Tapping the three holes in the front bun riser.

More jig making. This is a carrier to hold the front riser for milling the 15 deg angle.

The carrier is ready for bolting down.

Setting the carrier up on the swivel vice for its 15 deg cut to the riser face.

As you can see the bun riser is firmly secured from underneath its riser with the three bolts, whilst the 15 deg angle is planed across its face.

The following two pictures would have been better in the last posting:

This is the lever cap bridge in silver steel being tapped after drilling.

The boring is done on the lathe, but this is a temporary set up for tapping.

Lever caps

Tamping down lever cap bar (CZ112) for surfacing the lever caps in the mill before cutting them up individually.

The face cutter in action

Removing some unwanted metal for lever cap shape

Using a bullnose cutter to cut the retention groove

The final shape with a radius cutter

Boring hole for the lever cap screw after cutting the bar up into individual pieces

Tapping for the thumb screw – 7/16” 14tpi square thread as traditional

Milling to form the boss area

Boss now complete

Before any further milling it makes sense to do all the polishing on the top area.

Regardless of a comment there is rather a considerable overhang here but with bronze alloys it works quite well. Trust me Mr D. O, I know what I am doing.

Profile now complete

No 982 lever cap now complete.

Note new logo on all the No 98 series.

Here is the making of the thumb screws.

It is only just a few shots taken at random so there are a lot of steps missed out.

Truing up an extruded gun metal bar on the lathe, for thumb screws and adjuster knobs. i.e. each bar cuts two thumb screws and two adjuster knobs.

These are the gun metal blanks after truing up and adding centres on the ends for work holding. The dividing head and tail stock are ready – set up for knurling the blanks. This is a very costly and complicated way to produce a knurl, but for this knurling there is no way other than to index it on the milling machine.

The blanks are set up on the dividing head showing the driving dog and tail stock. This is to cut the V shape grooves which form the knurl. The dividing head is used to index the spacing to the required divisions.

This computer generated image demonstrates the knurling design for this plane and helps explain why I need to use the above process.

As you can see from this photograph on the milling table, all the indexing work is complete having been returned to the lathe for more turning and thread cutting. The components have also been parted. These are the thumb screws only, showing the carriers which are still to be parted off.

As there have been comments about this dovetailed jointing system I realised that I should show the pictures of the dovetailing in progress.

There are a few who know the dovetail puzzle of using a cube made up of two contrasting woods showing one dovetail on each side. In the case of a square object you cut the angle of 45 deg for the path of the dovetails (two) so that the joint slides into position with this angle, which gives an even sized dovetail on all four sides.

Once you start altering the dimensions and the number of dovetails then it becomes complicated. If it was not for my CNC it would be a nightmare.

The first cut for the dovetailing is done with a plain cutter so that I can reduce the mileage on the dovetail cutter.

With the grooving complete I can then follow through with the dovetail form cutter (tungsten carbide as on all my tools).

The depth of the dovetails has allowed for a final skim over the top to guarantee a uniform depth and also gives a neater finish.

The exciting stage – sliding the dovetails together.

You will notice that some of the bottoms are to be cut to make two bottoms after they have been jointed and glued on both sides.

This is two bottoms waiting to be glued. The gluing is not so much for adhesion but in this application it is mechanical. The only way to undo this joint is by sliding so once the glue has hardened it becomes keyed to the texture of the wood. The dovetailing is a quantum leap from tongue and grooving used by other manufacturers.

For the gluing I have used polyurethane with an open time of at least half an hour – well that is what they say on the tin. In real life the comfort time is less than 5 mins. So preparation and rehearsal is necessary. I use the polyurethane so that I don’t introduce any more moisture into the wood. Also it expands so taking up any voids. I have a loose fit of 8 thou so that the joints are reasonably easy to slide together and still have a small glue line.

It is extremely important that the gluing should be done soon after the dovetailing because wood is unstable and it can fit today and not tomorrow.

For some time I have had a fascination for transitional planes. Since I have made two planes that are mainly made from metal it seems fitting that I should now make a transitional plane.

The designs that have had the greatest influence on me are John Gage’s planes, but of course I feel the need to upgrade on the metal working side. I like the lightweight and low profiles of these planes and believe they could find favour with quite a few people.

I also have some interest in ECE Primus planes but again I don’t like their metal work. I do, however, like the laminated sole very much. I feel I could improve here by dovetailing the hardwood sole instead of grooving. It will be technically superior as the mechanics of this jointing system is not totally dependent on glue.

There are some problems in the making of this dovetailed system but I have overcome them with a considerable amount of thought and work. I will be very dependent on the use of my CNC machine. It could provide quite a challenge for the home constructor.

As you may have noticed from a previous post I have already jointed and glued the bodies and they have been settling in my workshop for the past three months.

The timber that I am using is Quilted Maple, for its beautiful figure and light weight. I have a choice of two different woods for the sole; one is a Cocobolo rosewood (Dalbergia retusa) for its density and oiliness, or the Guatemalan Rosewood (Dalbergia cubiquitzensis) which is also dense and oily.

Though I have had considerable interest in these planes I am not taking orders until I can price them.

The picture shows the plane body being flushed using a face cutter in the milling machine. This is not just the only practical way of planing this very difficult wood because of the character of its grain, but I am also applying a high degree of precision.

I am going to be making nine in rosewood/quilted maple and one all in cocobolo and one in rosewood/boxwood.

Showing the boxwood/rosewood plane – but I don’t suppose anyone is interested in this one

After much deliberation over the design for nearly 12 months the work on the No 982 smoothing plane finally commenced in July 2008.

Most of my planes have been a combination of precision engineering and hand work which I look upon as a considerable upgrade on the original counterparts. In the case of the No 982 plane it would be very difficult to proceed without the precision machining. However, there is always plenty of work which is done by hand and has no substitute.

Those working with wood will know all the raw components need to be squared and straightened up before starting and this is the same with metal work. This is the bottom being ground after milling from a black bar.

With the bottom faces being ground these bottoms will be nice and flat and parallel. At this stage I mill the edges on both sides to ensure that these are also square and parallel to each other, and also uniform.

Here you can see that I round the backs and fronts of the bottoms.

The rounding complete on the bottoms.

Drilling bottoms prior to tapping for the side fixing screws.

This is a different process from my usual dovetailing. It is also different from the rivets which I milled in situ for the No 98 smoothing and panel planes.

With riveting or dovetailing there is some movement and distortion which is very difficult to avoid. After some experimenting I found the screwing or bolting process is more reliable with no detectable movement. The sides and the bottoms remain perpendicular.

Tapping process for the screw holes.

Drilling the fixing holes on the sides to take the new fixing system. The sides having already been prepared by milling and grinding.

Counter boring the holes for fixing. These have a small taper and the holes are milled by CNC with a specially made undersized cutter for a better finish, not bored because boring would chatter and cause flats. The holes will match the tapered head of the screws.

This shows the work holding plate for the sides being tapped after drilling. Then I am able to screw the sides down for routering and bevelling the side profile. The holding screws have been adapted to fit the tapers in the bore.

Screwing the sides to the work holding jig for routering.

Routering out the sides

After routering and bevelling the sides. This leaves the sides ready for hand polishing the edges and bevel. There is also a small blade kicker to be rivetted in place.

For a long time I have procrastinated in writing a blog, and in that time I have kept a library of pictures of plane making throughout my range hoping to document it over time.

With the A13 I have tried to give some idea of the sheer effort that goes into the making. Although I have missed out much of the story, I hope it is enough to provide an overall picture. I have shown the mixture of hand and machine work that is necessary to achieve something of this quality. Also, I hope that I have shown that the machine work is not an economy but a necessity.

I decided to make the A13 because I could see potential in this design and its very appealing aesthetics, and it has turned out to be my best seller. From the blog you will see that a lot of detail has been upgraded. Some of the enhanced contours have been copied by others and referred to as an A13 when in actual fact it is a Holtey designed A13 and not a Norris. The original Norris A13 was cast iron which supported a square bun. However the introduction of dovetailing (mainly brass on steel) and riveting through metal spacers are all my ideas.

With the completion of these few planes, I feel that I want to move on and look for a replacement for this infill design.