Some time ago, I purchased a roller ball, inserted in a cylinder and having a screw for fixing it into the wood. I tought to a sharpening guide like Record 161, and today, finally, I decided to realize it. Construction is easy and requires little time. Necessary:
Two hardwood pieces cm 12x4 ca., one piece cm 10x4 ca., 1 cm thick. Two M5 or M6 brass coutersunk bolts and their wing nuts and washers. Bore together, onto half line, one 12 cm piece and the 10 cm piece, so to have a 8 cm distance between the holes. Countersink holes in the 12 cm piece.
The bolts are blocked by gluing the third piece.
When the glue is dry, the roller ball is screwed at center, under the guide. That is! This guide can hold skewed blade and, having only one point touching the surface, allows to sharpening cambered blades, like scrub plane blades.
For setting the wished angle it is useful to have a reference board, by which is possible to find the searched value simply laying the front of sharpening guide on the board edge.
Beech body, wengè sole and strike button, ash handle and wedge. 14" long, single iron (Eskiltuna-Sweden), 20° skew angle, 45° seat. This plane was quite common, judging by a good number of exemplars it is possible to find. It is similar to a jack plane but if you pay attention, you can note the skew iron exposed on the right side. This is achieved by rotating the seat on the left. This feature permits to the plane of cutting large and deep rebates. The cut begins by nailing a wood strip to the piece as guide or, as we can see in the below video, by cutting a preliminary groove. On the right side, where the blade is flush with side, the wood thickness decreases to zero and a point of weakness is created as can be see looking at old exemplars.
I preferred to add a brass plate for preventing future damages. The building process follows.
Carefully layout the throat, mark the part to be first morticed and bore with a spade bit, following the seat and wear angles.
Discard the waste by a big mortice chisel (1")
Trace a hole series a couple of cms deep, by a 3 mm bit. These define the central mouth part and help us to complete the throat.
Cut the mouth for some mms.
Utilize a wooden block, cut to the same seat angle for define the iron bed.
A steel plate, equipped with 80 grit sand paper, helps us to flatten the seat.
At this point glue a wengè sole about 1cm thick
and re-cut the mouth
For cutting the abutments, I utilize a coping saw. It is time to create the bed rotation in order to permit to the blade of being flush with the side.
A flat milled file is used for obtaining a precise surface, vital for a good planing action.
Mark on the wedged blade a line parallel to the plane sole and grind and hone anew cutting edge.
a planemaker float (thanks to Andrea who built it for me) helps to make some corrections.
Determine the brass plate position and fix it flush with the side.
Cut a recess for blade side protruding. Unfortunately, I did a mistake in positioning the brass plate, so I had to fill the gap with a beech veneer. This does not affect the planing job but is a little bit unpleasant to look at.
Glue an end-grained piece just before the mouth. It increases hardness and permits to setting it right.
Give a first flattening to the plane sole and right side. Ensure they are square.
Lay out the handle (ash wood), bore in the right points and cut by your bandsaw.
Rasps, files and abrasive paper will complete the job.
The handle is joint by a blind slide dovetail. Cut the male with a dedicate plane. The handle position has not tointerfere with hammering, while the blade is setting in.
Cut the mortice sides by a back saw.
Bore where the saw blade cannot cut.
Clean by a router plane.
Both tail and mortice are tapered on one side, so a more solid joint can be obtained.
The strike button comes from hole saw and Dozuki cuts.
The following video shows the plane in action while cutting a 45 mm rebate.
Giovanni, a friend of mine, kindly gave me a Russian plane as gift. I heard some negative opinions about and this models are not so frequent. Unluckily, the blade and cap iron were not original and the plane came equipped with a recent Stanley iron and cap. Iron is 2" wide and the plane is about 10" long, so a smoothing plane. The body is cast iron, well done; the hard wood handles offer a comfortable grip but have curious nuts requiring a dedicate screwdriver.
Not a common future, the knob is inclined forward and I found the grip more comfortable than an ordinary one. More, it helps to provide more pressure on the anterior plane portion when the plane shot has incoming.
I had to add a washer to the rear handle for fixing it better.
The aluminium frog shows a fine surface on which the blade seats well. It can be moved like the Bailey planes. The frog did not seat well on the base, so I had to use a file for slightly trueing the critical points.
The Y lever is malleable iron, too much thin and with a lot of lateral tolerance.
The lateral lever is very short and this does not permit of moving the iron easily. I changed the iron, utilizing a vintage Stanley iron and chipbreaker.
Of course was necessary to do some corrections, such as the lateral lever substitution with another one longer, the thickening of Y lever where it engages the chipbreaker (I used a little bit of soldering material).
I flattened the sole, sharpened the blade and tried the plane.
Despite the defects,I obtained thin shaves on soft woods as well as on harder ones.
Unfortunately I cannot verify the quality and performances of original blade and chipbreaker, but after all this Russian plane (with a good blade) showed capability for a fine job, although the regulation systems were quite weak and could cause troubles with a harder use.
