N°1 Spiers Dovetail Plane

This post has written by Vittorio




Thinking of metal planes I often think to Stewart Spiers

I like much the side profile and handles, so I searched for a model; I found it on the Handplane Central website, so I adapted the draw for a 2 inches blade and tried to building the plane.

I used Fe 430 steel bars (5x70mm) for sole and sides, joined the two sides in three points by countersunk screws (in this way the screws do not interfere while the pieces are clamped in the vice) and cut the tails.

  The mouth is opened by boring it with a 3 mm tip, hack saw blade and a 2,5 mm file. I obtained two angles, one of 47° (seat angle) and the other of 45° (wear angle).

The blade support (47°) is fixed by 3 iron rivets (dia. 6,5 mm)

The sole is prepared for jointing and the classical Spiers profile is cut. Beautiful but a little bit laborious.

Sanding by 80 grit abrasive paper (sides are screwed to a piece of wood)

During the tail peening, if joints are precise, 2 mm of extra length are enough, otherwise 3 mm are necessary for closing all gaps. 

Lever cap: I could not imitate the original because had not a model; however the job was acceptable for me.

The chipbreaker showed some rusted areas, so I sanded it (80 and 120 grit) and created the profile for a good adherence to blade at cutting edge.

The Sorby blade is 2" wide parallel iron (from e-bay); 25° bevel, 30° microbevel.

The cap iron screw (M8, 16 mm head) was built by welding together a rectangular nut with a screwed rod. 

Bun and handle are ash wood, stained and treated with shellac.
The M6 threaded spacers are inserted.  

I decided to fix all by screwing and rebating; unfortunately some trace remains after the sanding job too.

The sole is flat, the mouth is tight

I tried the plane on fir and beech, along the grain as well as across the grain. The results are very good and the plane does not get clogged.

Finally, I have got a Spiers

length 345 mm
Width 65 mm
Weight 3,366 Kg

Vittorio