Make a Beading Plane

After all the time I spent comparing the three half inch beaders and then refurbishing the Ohio Tool plane, I got to thinking about whether or not I could make my own beading plane.  So I used the information I got from the three beading planes and made a drawing in Sketchup.

Sketchup model

Alternate view

Some critical dimensions of the sole:

Sole dimensions

As with the last post I didn't take any progress pics, so all these are after the fact photos.  I started by making a mock-up of the plane body from a piece of a very old 2x8 with excellent grain.

Pine mock-up

The bed angle is 50° and the breast angle is 62°.  After cutting the rabbet for the handhold, I sawed to the 50° and 62° lines with the help of a square block of wood to guide my saw and removed what waste I could.  I got that technique from an article Salko Safic wrote in Issue 3 of his "Lost Scrolls of Handwork" magazine.

Sawing to the bed and breast lines

For the mortise, I drilled a couple of holes before chiseling out the waste and tuning it with sandpaper paddles.  The sole profile was shaped similarly to the way I reshaped the Ohio Tool plane.  Except I used a grooving plane to remove as much waste as I could, then scraped the profile later.

View from the back end showing layout lines

Closer view of the sole at the heel

This came out so good it made me wish I had made a wedge and iron to see if a pine plane would work.

For the "real" plane I used poplar for the upper 90% of the body and maple for the sole.  It's not boxwood, but the maple is pretty hard and should last a while.  Both woods were in quartersawn configuration.

Rear view showing grain configuration and overall shape

Per my plan, the left side (blind) wall is 3/8" thick.  This helped when chiseling the left wall of the mortise, as I could use a 3/8" setup block to rest the chisel on to ensure I pared right to the line.

Paring the mortise wall with help from setup block

Set of brass setup blocks - these things really come in handy

I smoothed the inside of the mortise using makeshift "floats".

* Not made by Lie-Nielsen

Shaping the sole started with careful layout.

I left the layout lines on the completed plane

This next pic helps show the dimensions of the layout.

1 1/4" total width, 1/4" wide depth stop, 1/16" quirk, 7/16" wide bead, 1/2" thick fence

I first used a grooving plane to get close to the bead lines.  Then used the scraping jig that I showed in the last blog entry to get the final shape.  This needed a LOT of patience and took a while.  I also made a 3/8" thick sanding block with 3/8" diameter round-over on one edge.  The 3/8" thickness plus two thicknesses of sandpaper is still a little shy of the 7/16" bead diameter.  This gave a little wiggle room and helped ensure I didn't sand away parts that I didn't want to sand away.

Sanding block

Block in use smoothing the bead profile

Later, a shoulder plane was used to shape the quirk and depth stop.

I cut the iron from a piece of 1/8" thick O-1 steel and shaped it with files.  I later heat-treated it with a torch, quenched in oil and tempered in the oven.

Hacksawed the iron from bar stock

The wedge was made from a piece of beech and that came out nice.

Body, iron and wedge - how much simpler can it get?

I don't have a "maker's mark", but if I did it might look like this.

The poplar made it easy to stamp this into the body

Well, the proof is in the pudding.  I tested the plane in some scrap poplar and it cuts beautifully!

Test cut

Here's the funny thing about all this.  I have three very old 1/2" side bead planes that I'll probably never use for the furniture work I want to do.  So what do I do?  I make another 1/2" side bead plane!  Not certain why - I just wanted to see if I could do it.  This is a real confidence booster.  I've gotten to a point where I'm confident that if I lay out appropriately, I can saw, chisel and plane to those layout lines.  Just take it slow and I'm sure most of you could do this too, if you haven't already.