BMW....Ops...VBM 7 Serie

I use to utilize, with ample rotation, all my planes, many of which kept ready to use and sharp.
Today was the Sargent VBM 714 (I restored several years ago) workshift. 
VBM stands for Very Best Made

 The 7 serie has the particular feature of having the chipbreaker incorporated into the lever cap and adjustable by a screw, without to have to remove any component.

Moreover, its position remains unchanged, in the case the blade was removed for sharpening. 
Vintage Sargent planes (VBM planes were made in the second decade of XX century) haven't nothing to envy to the best Stanley planes of that period.


Unlike the Stanley ones, the frog is not adjustable, but this don't create particular discomfort in the use of a 714 (n° 5 equivalent). So, in the smoothing planes of the serie (707, 708, 710), the anti-tearout role is provided only by chipbraker and maybe is this the reason for which the mouth is kept rather abundant (at least in the 714 I have; would be interesting to know if this is true for smoothing models too).
Below all models of 7 serie are listed (with approx. lenght):

707, 7"
708, 8"
710, 10"
711, 11"
714, 14"
718, 18"
722, 22"

Tenon plane

Hand planes are main protagonist in all works I realize, few indeed, but satisfiing pleintfull my passion for classic woodworking.
Is the case of a little table I realized recently for a friend of mine.

Other than piece preparation by my wooden faithful bench planes, I had to face up to some traditional working, as tenon making, performed taking advantage from precision and efficiency of a well tuned plane.

The classic method for table building requires mortice and tenon assembly between legs and rails. Frequently, these tenons are quite large, not exactly easy to make by an handsaw.  
The uniform dimensions in thickness and lenght allow me to adopt an alternative method to the handsaw cut: I used a rebate plane (a moving fillister plane I made). The job success depends by accurate piece squaring and their uniform thickness.


Aligned pieces are cut on both sides. The plane depth stop ensures a mirror cut and the tenon appears uniform, neat and with square shoulders. Morever, the process is faster than cutting each piece by handsaws.

Moving Fillister: My interpretation

Being been inspired by the original Moving Fillister plane I own (image above), I tried to build this rebate plane with adjustable fence, capable of very good work along the grain as well as across the grain. 
Its skewed blade (20°) eases the cut, while a nicker, situated just before the main blade, has the purpose of pre-cutting wood fibers and obtaining a clean result across the grain too.

I used walnut wood for the plane body and wedge, while the sole, the parallel fence and the depth stop are of hornbeam, a wood particulary resistent to the wear and which creates an attractive chromatic effect when coupled to a darker wood as the walnut. A hornbeam piece is inserted at the top of the plane, too.

The parallel fence moves on the sole through two elongated holes and is kept in place by two M6 bolts which are screwed in the correspondent nuts inserted into the sole.

Scrub plane II

Here it is another scrub plane just terminated: beech body and wild olive sole (unfortunately this wood is ending......I'll have to ask again Michele (who lives in Puglia) for supplying me with another little amount of it. 

This time I tried to add a beading moulding to plane sides and I have to say I am satisfied. I cut them with a Stanley 50, equipped with its narrower beading cutter.

The front handle is inserted by a sliding dovetail joint, coupled with a round tenon in its bottom
A mortice and tenon joint has been used for fixing the rear handle, behind the blade. In both cases I used drawbored dowels for reinforcing the joint.
  


The building tecnique is based on cutting and gluing the plane body, so is easier to obtain the throat and cut into the sides for accomodating the wedge and blade.  
 

 






You can see a little hole on the front. Our woodworm friend (died!) loves wild olive, providing to the plane a vintage look. 

Drawbored mortice and tenon

It is a joint easy to realize as well as very strong and traction-resistant; it permits of making joints without glue, too. The secret are offset bores through mortice and tenon: when the pin is inserted, it forces the tenon in the mortice and keeps it strongly in place.

I utilized this tecnique for inserting a Jack plane wooden handle in its mortice. 
Normally, I use to glue the handle in place and secure it by a screw, driven through the handle foot, but the drawbored mortice and tenon seems to me a good alternative, utilized in the past for this purpose.

In this case I have had to utilize an handle with the grain oriented perpendicular in respect to the body grain (I thank Paul Bouchard for his very good advices) and with little lateral projection (the horn is just outlined for avoid its breakage)

First, we can drill through the mortice one or more bores. 
In this case I utilized 6 mm pins for a tenon (the handle foot) 25 mm thick and ca 30 mm long. 
After the bores have been done, the tenon is well inserted in the mortice and the position of bores is marked by the 6 mm drill bit. 
Then, the tenon is extracted and the bores are marked again, this time slightly further back, 
1 mm ca offset and no more in order to avoid troubles with pin insertion.

We can round and lubricate the pin tips by a little bit of candle wax.
 

 

From last images you can see the plane having an offset handle, an old practice, today no more in use and that seems to give a better ergonomicity to the plane, although the precise reason is unknown. The offset is on the left but normally is on the rigth (of course I am left handled).




 

Ciao
Giuliano