I had been having trouble getting this plane to work properly. The front of the frog does not make contact with the plane's main casting; it is essentially cantilevered over the casting forward of where its seat mates with the casting's frog receiver.
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| With frog bolted down, can fit cardboard under the toe of the frog |
And this caused the plane to shudder as it tries to glide over a workpiece.
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| You can see the waviness of the cut |
I thought if I filled the gap under the frog, the cantilever would be eliminated and maybe the plane would be more stable and cut better. First, I stuffed a few layers of business card under there to see what the gap measured. Turned out to be about 0.052". I planed some maple to 0.056" thick - no small feat - and stuck another block to it to fill not only the space under the frog's toe, but also the space under the frog just forward of the casting's frog receiver.
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| The block and a piece of thin maple |
My intent was that the top of the block would be in line with the top of the frog receiver, the slanted part would match the roughly 45 degree angle on the underside of the frog, and the thin base would support the frog's toe. This turned out to be a major pain in the ass, as I had to fit the piece, bolt on the frog, test it out, take it apart, make minor adjustments and repeat - many times.
In the end I would have needed to whittle away most of the slanted part of the block to allow the frog to be far back enough to bolt it down. So I tried something much simpler - just go with a thin piece of maple, 0.056" thick, under the toe of the frog. In the following picture, you can see the piece of wood in place.
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| Looking at the sole from toe end - the white is the maple piece |
Well, time will tell if this fix works for the long haul, but for now, the plane seems to be working fine. I planed some pine with no juddering, then some red alder (a relatively soft hardwood) and some pretty hard red oak, all with a nice smooth surface finish.
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| Planing some fine shavings of red oak |
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| Nice smooth surface! |
Could it really be as easy as that? Maybe I'll keep this plane after all. But if there is anybody out there who collects Dunlap planes and would like this one (for free), please contact me and I'll be happy to let it go.
