Making a Plane Adjusting Hammer

After I started using my new fillister plane, I decided I needed a real plane adjusting hammer. This is what I came up with, not exactly a groundbreaking new design, but easy to make and works well. The head is made of 1/2" brass rod, with a 1/2" long ebony facing on one side. The ebony is attached by a machine screw that is tapped into the brass and the ebony. This is where a bottoming tap comes in handy. Unlike a normal tap, which doesn't have complete threads towards the front end of the tool so that the tool can be started easily, the bottoming tap has threads that go all the way. It is used after the normal tap has threads established. This allows threads to be cut all the way to the bottom of the blind holes, thus making it the strongest possible. The two pieces are joined with the addition of epoxy. The I drilled the hole for the hammer's tenon. This is tricky because the hole must be drilled into the curved side of the brass. So I took a piece of scrap pine, drilled a 1/2" hole in it, and a perpendicular 3/8" hole that intersects the 1/2" hole. This guides the drill bit and prevents wandering. I aligned the hammer head up with hole and drilled it out. After letting the epoxy set, I trimmed down the ebony, using the brass rod to reference my chisels off of. I domed each face of the hammer with a file. The head gets polished to 600 grit.The handle is black and white ebony, made into an octagon. When making an octagonal handle, it's best to rough it out with something like a block plane, and go back later with a smooth plane and clean up any tearout. Use a very thin cut, and a sharp blade. the handle is about 7" long. I formed the tenon that goes into the hammer head, and planed a taper into the top to make it look better. Then the hammer head is epoxied on, and the whole thing got three coats of shellac.

What I've Been Doing

I have been woodworking since my last post, I just neglected to post anything. I've been working on a sawbench, it is modeled on Christopher Schwarz's saw bench, and also on my normal bench. Instead of the legs that slant outwards, mine go straight down, as not to interfere with the saw. The top will be 32" long, and 20" tall.

I also have been working on my sawhandle. It's getting along.

And finally, I won a much needed fillister plane off ebay. It has some problems with the blade however, and I will most likely have to make a new blade. The current one works, but not as well as it could.

Shop Made Grooving Planes

Got an email from FWW yesterday with this in it.

Shop made grooving planes

Workbench-Finished!

I apologize for not posting earlier, the workbench has been done for at least a week. So here it is. Note where the bench is. This weekend I plan on moving it to the far side of the room, and adding better lighting back there. I will post more pictures soon.Now what's this, pills in the shop? No, it's a jojoba oil applicator made from an old pill jar and a old t-shirt. Works great, but may raise some interesting questions...

Leg Vise

For my workbench's front vise, I went for a leg vise. This is simple and cheap to make. Mine has a 2" thick hickory chop and a old vise screw I got for $8. I made the slot for the parallel guide bar, but some how it ended being way too big, and the bar was too loose. To fix this I clamped it to a large square block of wood, and then put a bunch of slow-setting epoxy in, and some wooden wedges. Ater it dried, I pegged it. It doesn't look great, but it is stout. Since my wooden screw is so beat-up, I decided to use a system first shown on Jameel Abraham's Blog where the guide bar slides on two small wheels, thereby taking the load off of the screw. (He later turned this into one of his products at Benchcrafted, the Glide Leg Vise.) I used small caster wheels that I cut from swiveling casters. The first one I installed was the one behind the leg, it is not adjustable. Since my side stretcher is so low , the wheel is mortised directly into the leg. The front wheel is in a wooden bracket which allowed to adjust it up and down to achieve optimal results.

In this photo, the back wheel is not visible, because it only sticks out about a 1/16" from the stretcher. The location is marked by the protruding nut.

To drill the 2 1/4" clearance hole for the screw I used a hole saw. I had never used one before, and discovered that it works much faster if there is little pressure. The chop could be drilled all the way through, but the leg was drilled from both sides. The garter, the piece that locks the screw in so that when it is released, the chop will travel backwards, is made from 1/8" thick aluminum (it's blue from layout liquid). Since the garter slot is not flush with the shoulder of the screw head, I had to mortise it in. The extra space to the top of the garter is essential. This allows it to be installed and uninstalled.

The nut for the vise screw is lag bolted in. The location is very simple to mark, just tighten the whole thing down, and mark.
I left the chop a little long so I could trim it flush with my bench top. At first I used my LN low-angle block plane, then my Stanley #4, both with poor results. Then I used my Stanley #6, which worked perfectly. It is a very solid tool, and I think that the weight helped give it good momentum to push through the cut.

Sliding Deadman

The sliding deadman's job is to support long boards on edge by either resting the board on a peg or a hold fast. To make mine, I flattened a pine 2" x 8", and rabbeted the top, 5/8" from the front. There is a matching groove in the bottom of the benchtop that is 5/8" from the edge, and 5/8" wide. It is also 1/2" deep, which is the deepest my plow plane goes. This poses a slight problem, as most plans I've seen have the deadman come out by deepening the groove, and having it slide up and then over the bottom. This is why I made the tongue removable, by two screws, I didn't want the tongue to be less than 1/2" long. The bottom track is shaped like a 'v', if I had made a groove, it is likely that sawdust and shavings would have collected in the corners, and not allow the deadman to slide. The bottom 'v' groove was very hard to make, I chopped it out with a chisel, and other tools.

Wagon Vise

For my end vise I decided on an wagon vise. I think I could have gotten away with out one, but I thought it might be nice to have. Benchcrafted sells a very nice version of a wagon vise, but I just don't have that kind of money. The screw I used is sold through Lee Valley as a veneer press screw. It is pretty simple, the screw pushes a dog block which has a runner that slides in two slots under the bench. This screw was tricky. The flange, the part that was supposed to mount onto the dog block, has no holes or anything that allows it to be attached easily. So I made an oak piece that slips over the flange and is screwed to the dog block. Now I need to head over to the kennel for some dogs...