Rehab a Snipes Bill Plane

Last post I asked for help in rehabbing this Wm. Banks snipes bill plane.  I also posted something similar on the Facebook "Unplugged Woodworkers" group and from the comments I developed a plan.

At first I thought I would need to remove the boxing from the plane and someone suggested using vinegar to loosen up the hide glue.  I tried that with no success.  I thought about steaming the whole plane body in a pan over the stove, but was dissuaded by a comment or two.  Eventually I decided to use an iron to heat the boxing side of the plane.

Used an iron and a wet rag to get heat and steam into the plane body

I then clamped the plane tightly to a flat spot on my workbench and waited overnight.  Surprisingly, this flattened the plane and straightened the boxing significantly.  But the gap between the boxing and the sole opened up a little more than it had already been.

I was able to fit a 0.005" feeler gauge about 1/2" deep into the boxing slot,
but only on the sole-side of the boxing - the other side was firmly glued.

So I used that same feeler gauge to force some hot hide glue down into the gap
and then clamped it up overnight

This tightened up the boxing very well and the gap is gone.  The plane body still needed a little flattening, so I took a couple shavings off each side.  I also took a few shavings off the point of the boxing (the quirk) to get it all on the same level.

Right side

Left side

And look how straight the boxing quirk is!

I did a little sanding of the sole to smooth out the profile.  Then I worked on the iron to get it to better match the sole's profile.  It took a LOT of iterations to get that right.  Work on the iron also included filing the side a little bit, as it was sticking out a little too much.  It's supposed to be proud of the side of the boxing by a couple thousandths, but this one was out too much.

I'm happy now with how it is.  After taking the pic below, I put some oil on it for protection and to blend the colors a bit.

Here it is, work completed

I don't know if I'll ever need this plane - I don't currently use a lot of moldings in my work.  But if and when I do, it'll be ready to go.  Regardless, I feel good about bringing a piece of history back into working order.  For $3 and a little time, that's OK by me.

(Hoping to) Rehab a Snipes Bill Plane

I'm asking for some advice in this post.  I picked up this snipes bill plane last year at a tool show.  I don't need or even know much about this type of plane, but it was $3, so I grabbed it.  It's by Wm. Banks and there are no other markings on it at all.  An internet search turned up nothing on Wm. Banks, so maybe that's a user-made plane and Banks is the owner mark.

Right side

Left side - looks like someone once nailed or screwed on a fence

Maker's or owner's mark

Toe-end view of sole profile, showing boxing

The bed is skewed at about 15 deg

The 5/8" wide iron is in decent shape and I think it will sharpen up nicely.  It's a laminated iron, though the lamination seems a bit sloppy.

Flat face - not yet flattened

On one edge, you can just barely see the lamination

On the other edge, the lamination seems to be "smeared" onto the bevel side - weird!

Well, now for the problems that I'd like to fix.  The body is slightly bent, but much more so near the boxing.  This next photo tries to show it, but it's a tough picture to take.

Looking down the sole you can see a bend in the boxing

The boxing seems to be glued well in place.  It's not loose at all, but it is far from straight.  You can see a little deviation from the body on the inside of the boxing where it meets the rest of the sole, especially behind the mouth where it bows out away from the plane body.

Here's the right side of the plane - the boxing looks fine here

On the sole, it looks like it's coming away from the body a little bit

Another view of that area

Aside from that, the wedge is slightly banana shaped.  This is not so much of a problem.  I can still get it into it's mortise to tighten up the iron, but it's a little tight due to the warpage.

I tested the plane by first making a shallow groove with the quirk of a beading plane, then following that groove with the snipes bill.  It will work that way, but clearly not as well as it should.

My dilemma is this.  I'd like to get this plane in better shape.  I believe the curvature on the boxing is severe enough to cause the plane to cut a very ragged quirk.  The body and boxing should be straight.  I'm thinking of steaming the plane and then squeezing it between two flat blocks to straighten it out.  I might have to pull out the boxing to get that straighter too.  If I steam the plane, the boxing should be easy to remove.

Any suggestions out there on how best to proceed?

Sellers Woven Stool

It's been a while since I've done a Paul Sellers project, but this one caught my eye because of the weaving.  I've done a couple projects that involved weaving, but this was a new pattern for me.  It's a simple project: four legs, 8 cylindrical rails and Danish paper cord weaving.

The legs for this stool splay (and rake) 3 degrees.  I bought 7/8" hardware store dowels for the rails.  They were all undersized, so my mortises were 13/16 and I shaved the rails to fit.  Here are some pictures of the build - the captions have relevant info.

Four leg blanks squared up and marked for front/back and left/right

Mortises marked out

Boring the mortises about 3/4" deep.  This 97 deg angle block guides the bit.

After mortises done on two pairs of mating sides, shaped the legs.

Checking one side frame for leg parallelity.  I was careful when gluing
them up to get it right.

The mortises for joining the two side frames were done after the glue had dried.
You can see the perpendicular tenon at the bottom of this mortise.

Due to the shaping of the legs, I had to make an 87 deg guide to bore the lower mortises.

First dry fit.  All the tenons will be fox-wedged into their mortises.

Glue up was not too stressful, but I did need to hammer the joints home
with a bit more vigor than I wanted.  Titebond III was used.  Once dry, 
I gave the frame three coats of shellac, sanding in between coats.

Now for the weaving.  I'm using Danish paper cord.  I bought a
10 pound roll of the stuff a couple years ago.  This'll last me quite a while.
I think I used about 300 feet on this stool.

After the first few wraps: note the H-shaped cord carrier in the picture.
It helps to corral the cord when weaving.  But I couldn't use the carrier
after the hole in the center got too small.

Here's a close-up of one corner after a dozen or more wraps.
Not exactly perfect, but passable.

Making a lot of progress.  I stopped here after 2-3 hours.
Another 2-3 hours the next day and it was done.

Here's the underside and I see that I should have paid more attention to this.
See the two angled cords where my fingers are?  I think this is the reason
that my weave wasn't quite even on top.

At about 2/3rds complete, I stuffed cardboard between the top and bottom.

And here's the top view of the completed stool.

And a glamour shot of the stool.

The underside reveals the places where I tied on new lengths of cord.
It also shows some areas that are not woven evenly.

I like weaving, but it is tough on the hands.  Maybe sooner than later I'll try another simple stool to get more practice with this weave pattern.  I'd like to see if more focus on what's going on with the underside will lead to a more consistent pattern on the top.

Picnic Caddy

Man, I started this project at the end of March!  It's not that it was a hard project, there was some vacation time and then I just couldn't get my mojo working to get out to the shop so it progressed very slowly.  It all started a few months ago when I had lunch with my sister and she liked this caddy they had at a local restaurant.  So I set out to make something like it.

The caddy from a restaurant

The hand planing for this project was done almost entirely using wooden planes.  I'd been wanting to use my woodies more and while that probably slowed me down a bit, it was fun to use them.  I think if I used them more often, I'd be just as quick as if I used my metal planes.

Left to right: homemade extra course scrub, homemade scrub, German smoother, 
homemade coffin smoother, shooting board plane (old jack), jack plane,
homemade try plane

I started with red oak reclaimed from a neighbor's kitchen remodel.  The sides and ends of the caddy were taken down to 1/2" thick; the dividers to 5/16" thick.

Dovetails marked, ready for cutting

Tails done, pins marked from tails

First corner fettled and fitting OK

After fitting all four corners, I dry-fitted the box and leveled the bottom edges so that I could plow the grooves to house the bottom from a common reference.

Ready to plow using my Ohio Tool screw-arm plow plane and a sticking board

Sides and ends plowed 3/16" wide and 3/16" deep, 3/16" from bottom edge

My plow plane depth adjustment starts at minimum depth of 1/4" - too deep for what I wanted - so I had to check often to ensure that I wasn't going past 3/16".

Having leveled the bottom edges before plowing guarantees a good mating groove

Dadoes cut into ends to house the long divider

Long divider fitted

With long divider in place, marking for the short divider

After chopping and routing the dadoes, here's the first fitting of the short divider

The long and short dividers were then half-lapped

With box dry-clamped, making sure I can slide the dividers in their dadoes

For each of the dividers, I planed the ends slightly out-of-square so that the bottom edge was slightly shorter than the upper edge.  With the box assembled, this helped them slide into their respective dadoes more easily.

Added another, smaller divider

The handle will be housed in these arms and attached with screws

Like this.  There are Nylon washers between the arms and box ends.
The handle is held to the arms with wood screws.
The arms are held to the box using machine screws - holes in the long divider are tapped.

I pre-finished all interior surfaces before gluing up

After the glue dried, I filled the holes left in the pin boards from the grooving operation.
These pieces were glued in, later cut close and flushed with a plane.

And here's the finished product.  It's finished with a couple coats of water-based poly, then paste wax.  I'm happy with how it came out, but it's a bit heavier than I'd hoped.  If my sister thinks it's too heavy to be practical for her, I'll make another from lighter wood or thinner dimensions.

The completed project

And how it will be used

And, just so I'll remember how I made it, here's the parts/cutting list, including some changes I made on the fly.  Now I can finally get to something else.

Parts list