I've recently been working on my old woodie plow plane and it got me thinking about the Veritas plow. When I bought it, I got a 1/4" and a 3/8" iron with it. But it seems most of the grooves I make these days are small. I absolutely love using the wooden plow, but the irons are a little funky. None of them are the nominal size - they're typically off by a bit (some more than others). For example, the 1/8" iron (0.125") measures 0.157". That's almost 22% over nominal. But the 1/4" iron for the Veritas is spot on.
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| Here's the Veritas plow plane |
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| And here's its 1/4" iron |
Anyway, I thought I'd make a new 3/16" iron for the Veritas, and maybe later I'll make a 1/8" iron. Their irons are 1/8" thick and, as luck would have it, I have some 1/8" O-1 tool steel. So I got out the old hack saw and cut a blank to just over 1/4" wide and just over 3" long.
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| Sawed it out to just over 1/4" wide |
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| The blank filed to 1/4" wide next to the factory 1/4" iron |
Next was to file away 1/16" of metal in the lower 3/4" to 1" of the iron. I probably should have hacksawn this because filing it took a while. But I got a fairly precise 3/16" wide iron.
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| Iron clamped sideways in a vise |
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| Filed the width, and also sawed and filed the notch for iron depth adjustment |
I also filed the sidewalls so that the bevel side of the iron is a little thinner than the flat side, giving clearance for the iron in a cut. The next pic shows the iron test fit into the plane. I made the body of the iron 1/4" wide so that the iron clamping screw would act similarly to the way it does for the stock 1/4" iron. You can also see where the lever cap meets the iron - that's why I didn't go higher on the iron with the 3/16" width.
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| First test fit into the plane |
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| The notch fit nicely with the depth adjusting nut |
Just a note here. The metal that was filed away to make the business end 3/16" wide, was filed on the outer side of the iron. You can't tell in these photos, but the plane's skate sits below the inner side of the iron. So for the skate to properly support the iron, the metal had to be removed from the outer side.
I heat-treated the iron with a torch until cherry red and nonmagnetic, then plunged into oil. Then because I didn't want to use our kitchen oven to temper the iron (it was 96° that day and we have no A/C), I tried for the first time to temper it using the colors that advance to the cutting edge as I heated the iron about midway along its length. When the golden straw color reached the bevel, I plunged in oil.
I didn't get any pictures of that, but it seems to have worked well. When I sharpened the iron, I thought I might have done the tempering wrong because it seemed I couldn't get a good cutting edge. But after I removed a bit of material, I sharpened again and got a great cutting edge. I'm guessing that the initial hardening treatment left the thin cutting edge area a bit brittle and it just needed to be ground back a bit.
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| Here's the iron sharp and ready to go |
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| First 3/16" groove cut in some soft wood |
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| And a 3/16" groove cut in some fairly hard oak |
I'm happy to report that the new iron performed very well. It locks into the plane nicely, is easy to adjust and cuts a relatively precise 3/16" groove. Now I've just got to decide whether or not to make a 1/8" iron.
UPDATE: I ended up making a 1/8" iron and it also works very well. There's something very satisfying about making your own tools.
