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Early Access Video: The Easiest Plane You Can Make (Patreon)

Published:
2018-02-15 13:01:01
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Okay, after a LOT of experimentation, I've got a plane design and a blade that both work. This video covers making a REAL iron from quality steel. I also go over the design considerations and construction styles of various wooden planes. No one else sees this video until next week, so enjoy and please leave me whatever feedback you have. 

Files

Previews only

Make the easiest handplane ever! (Pt 1: design and blade)

More videos and exclusive content: http://www.patreon.com/rexkrueger 2 Inch Chisel: http://amzn.to/2Bu5Y6D (Affiliate Link) Making and Mastering Wooden Planes: (Book) Lots of people have trouble finding good handtools. Luckily, many quality tools can be made in the home shop. In this video, I'll start showing you how to make a quality smoothing plane out of readily-available materials. We'll cover the types of wooden plane and which one is best for the home woodworker. We'll also make an excellent, hardened steel blade in about a half hour for less than $20. In my next video, I'll build and shape the body and get the plane cutting.

Comments

George B

Thank you Rex for the kind words! I hope to post more updates soon. I really enjoyed this video. At first I thought it would be hard to properly discuss both the blade and the body in the same video, but you did it extremely well. About the tapered thickness of the chisel - I've read somewhere that tapered plane irons actually have an advantage in that they hold better in the plane body and don't slip back easily during use (because the wooden wedge holds better against the tapered shape). I do have a couple of old European irons that are tapered, so I guess there's a reason for that. Japanese plane blades are heavily tapered too. In that case, you wouldn't need a belt grinder to sand off the taper, so that's another plus (=accessible to more people). By the way, you should trademark the "Wooden Pickle". brilliantly funny and catchy too :)

Rex Krueger

George: So glad you liked the video! You deserved mention. That restoration you're doing would make a great video and you should think about making one. People watch stuff like that. As to the blade taper, you're totally right. Old irons are frequently tapered, but they're tapered in the opposite direction so that the thick end is toward the edge. Japanese irons are tapered with the thick end toward the top, but those irons are held mostly by housing dados in the edges of the wooden body. In that case, the iron pretty much serves as its own wedge. For the style of plane I'm making, the original taper would have made it much harder to hold the iron. Or, that's the theory at least. We'll see how things go.

George B
>>10168861

you are totally right, Rex. I was wrong - the taper in that chisel is indeed "the other way around" from how a plane iron should be like. Thanks for correcting me. and that brings another idea - grinding a new edge/bevel on the thick part of the chisel taper (towards the handle) :) Anyway, take care and I'm really sorry about your injury! get well soon

Rex Krueger
>>10168861

Thanks for your well wishes. I might grind the bevel on the thick side, but since there's already a nice bevel on the thin side, I'm just too lazy!

James Jolly

Sorry if I'm kinda late to the party, but I discovered this video on youtube (then went down the rabbit hole that are plane making videos...) a couple days ago and decided, well why not try it. Lumber is pretty expensive where I currently live so I dug through the firewood pile, found a nice strait piece of rock maple and began the slow process of tuning it into what is my first wooden plane. And to your video's credit, the process was quite easy and the plane works surprisingly well. For the iron, i used a cheap chisel from the hardware store. Unlike your video, i didn't spend the time making both faces parallel. So far I haven't really seen any issues with the iron slipping through use, even when used on some hardwood scraps I had laying around.

Rex Krueger

James. That's great to hear! I'm glad this series was helpful. I honestly don't love this build and I think I can do better. I plan to do better this summer. I'm also delighted to hear that you didn't need to spend all that time grinding the iron parallel. That took a long time. Let's hear it for experimentation!

James Jolly
>>20840954

What don't you like about it? I'd like to hear your thoughts as my goal is to eventually build a #7 sized one (the one vintage Stanley #4 I've found where I am was being sold for 100$ at an estate sale so that's our of the question). The current one ended up a about the size of my #4 but I've kept it quite square in shape so I've found it somewhat easy to push using my palm on the rear and generally hold.

Joseph Lorentzen

Hey Rex, Have you seen Johnny Blackwell's Poor Man's Catalog? It is an unusual mix of DIY projects, but he has a light duty mini plane on page 145 made using a razor blade. It is not a smoothing plane , but just for taking off edges and things like that. Sounds like it is short lived, but with the cost of the blades being about $.08 each if you get them from the office supply like store by the hundred, it might be a handy piece of kit to have - or just a dust collector on the shelf.

Jacob Hussey

That was pretty hardcore the way you did that chisel Rex. Thanks for all that you do.