Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Plow Plane



I made this plow plane a few years ago it’s proven to be a very useful tool. Besides using it for cutting groves like in a door panels it can be used in conjunction with hollow and rounds for making moldings. Check out the Blog “Musings from Big Pink” located on my blog links. The site has wonderful tutorials on the subject. 

The plane itself is made of yellow birch. I wanted to keep the character of an eighteenth century plane so I used rivets instead of screws to attach the skate to the plane body. I also made rivets for the arm of the fence. The rivets work real well. I have an eighteenth century plow plane that was made using rivets and after all these years they still hold the skate tight to the body.


I recommend making one! I feel this plane was easier than some of the molding planes I’ve made. Obviously buy a set of blades before you start then build the plane around the blades. I also suggest using wooden screws for the adjustment on the fence. I bought my threading kit from Woodcraft and have gotten a lot of use out of it on other projects. The alternative for holding the fence is using wedges but I find them a bit harder to adjust.    

4 comments:

Jamie Bacon said...

Very nice! I really like all the stuff you've posted on your blog and I hope you'll post more in the future. I've really gotten into tool making lately and am enjoying that just as much as woodworking.

Frontier Carpenter said...

Thanks baconj. I like your blog to and I added it to my list.

Rob said...

That loks like a facinating project. do you have a sketchup model of it? or a few dimensions? Any particular lessons learned in the fabrication besides get the blades first?

Frontier Carpenter said...

Rob,
I seldom draw plans for anything I do. I am more of a seat of the pants kind of guy, but I did have an original to go off of. The only thing I can say besides get the blades first is that beech is much easier than yellow birch to work with.