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Another Tiny Little Tool?


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I think I have a problem with making little tools, eh?

When you decide to reject a bunch of potential coaming stock, do you throw it away?

I make a little plane to round over edges, particularly SOF stringers.

It's rough, yet. It needs to have the bed and blade interface tuned a bit, and a real wedge as this is just temporary to use as a template.

It do cut, though...

Peace,

Robert

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Thanks, Frank. I like doing goofy, useful stuff like this. I think Judge Judy did fine without me today. Is she still a thing?

I actually started it jokingly because of a conversation on the kudzu forum about rounding stringers. The stupid UPS guy beat me, though, because one of the other guys found a neat little chamfer plane and had it delivered. His isn't made from a broken kayak coaming, though...

Something like this is super easy, because it doesn't need to be too precise, and the sole doesn't have to be flat! :)

I'll post a few more pics of it finished. I'm going to embellish it, through rivet and oil the body, and really hone the blade well.

I think I may actually cut down the body a bit to,make adjusting the blade easier, too. Meh. My indoor "hot time" project for tomorrow...

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I have a handful of these puppies, for different radius and shapes. I often make them a little simpler from metal, so the blade can be nearly flush to the outboard edge and they can get into tight spaces. I have a 1/8" "easing" tool I use a lot and I make edge swipes on about every board I handle with it. It's faster than a router or sanding and catches splinters, before they catch me.

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This stuff is fun, eh, Paul. I showed the dude on the forum how simple they are. The half body picture is the one I showed him for a quick and dirty rabbet plane. Just wedge a chisel in there, and go.

I used to have a real neat shoulder plane I made form some oak off our old farm and a wagon box spring. I'm generous to a fault, though, so someone has it. Hope they use it...

It's been super hot, so this has been my entertainment. Seriously, at 0600 it was 74 already. Projected 107-110, overnight low of 83. Think I'll wait on that big glass job, just keep fairing for a day or two. Next week we should be back to high 60s overnight. Ha!

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I think ours is mostly the high being pushed over us by the tropical storm, because we got wind, too, but it is HOT.

Not unusual, mind, but here. In two or three days we should be back to 60s at night. Then it can be as hot as it wants during the day.

Not too hot to do stuff, mind, but not what you want to be sticking down yards of 60" cloth in, either.

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Ah, shoot, man, just a few minutes with a few round files. Asides, I'm take this one to my special hardwood guy, because he says I never show him nothing I make or fix.

The real reason, though, is I decided to gift it. Got this luthier friend what don't believe a regular old doofus can just make a plane. Ha! I got proof.

Oh, it just looks shiny because the oil is wet. After a good wipe, it sorta looks like it's been handled for a lifetime.

I came in for a water break, but I'm go back out and longboard some more. Second round of filler is done on the frolic, and I think I'm ready to glass. Today supposed to be scorching again, though, so I'll futz on the plane wedge through the afternoon/evening bake off. The teens I balk at...

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Okay. I had to trim the wedge several times to get the throat to stay clear enough, but it's finally starting to work well.

With an uncapped blade, it's probably best to go as thick as possible, but I just used what I had. I made a bunch of little blanks from some old sawzall blades, and this may be one.

Whatever. Remember it ain't gonna work perfect right off the bat, but no plane does. Tune and rune, until you're in tune. Wax your sole, and strop your blade often.

Peace,

Robert

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Thanks for the kind words, Frank.

I'm not really a fancy type guy, but I do like little embellishments. I am an artist, after all. The wedge head actually started because I needed a knob to help center and set the wedge while fiddling with the blade. The knob was an offcut from a little cleat I made (you don't throw stuff away, do you?:)), and my wife said it looked like a bird, so I tried to make it bird like.

Providence dictated it would make the perfect little palm rest.

It wasn't more than a few hours of futzing. I do fiddly stuff like this when I can't sit still, but can't make a racket. It could be done in a weekend of puttering.

Still, anyone with an empty case and $1200 bucks PM me...I'm kidding. But, still... ;)

Peace,

Robert

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You are using it, so you're nothing like the guys I call tool collectors. Nothing wrong with that but it's not what I think of when I think of woodworking.

 

When my dad passed my brothers and I were all horrified by his tools. We never really paid attention to them but always admired his work. He had cheap tools. That's OK, he was a carpenter by trade, but we thought he must have bought the best because of how good his work was. We realized it wasn't the tools he held so much as who held the tools. He had a lot of little put together tools, including a few we don't know how to use. 

 

He did tell me once that his favorite tool was a little Japanese hand plane that used a single edged razor blade. "Japanese" as in cheap stuff when they were the China of cheap tools. I have it and can't do a thing with it. 

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Oh, man, I'm just a dumb old farm boy, what had to figure out the city when the bank decided the farm would be more valuable as a strip mall, and my pop split.

I never had money to burn, but always spent it on good tools. I have a trove a high quality hand tools, but they have been collected over my lifetime. My skills with my tools, and adaptability have allowed me to avoid having many "real" jobs. Most of my time has been my own, and I've been able to say no whenever I felt like. Even in college. ;)

My skills got me that, but skills with the tools. Like your dad, you know, it was kind of both. His skills, combined with that plane, made magic, right?

My favorite plane in the world cost me about 10 bucks when I bought it. It's a cruddy little cast aluminum trimming plane, like a miniature block plane. It's on the second blade, this one some a2 I snagged from a friend, but it is as cheap, crummy, and magical as any tool I've owned. To look at it, you would swear it was a cheap import, but it was made right here in the USofA.

I hope one day my own kids will hold it and think of me...

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