From the Workshop

Spiers Style Shoulder plane -4

Apologies for the 4 week gap in postings for those of you who have been following my blog.  I have been a bit busy with visitors (though always welcome it does tend to put me behind a bit), and the new project (transitional plane) keeps on snapping at me;  it is coming along quite well if a bit piecemeal.

 As I mentioned in the last posting that I had mislaid some pictures so here I am going to replace them with some from an A7 Norris type shoulder plane as they are very close in construction.

The front infill of an adjustable shoulder plane is probably the most complex infill of all my planes; especially as they are part of the adjuster design.  This infill is integral with the bridge and the clamping screw bush.  The clamping screw bush (which is illustrated in a previous posting) is screwed through the bridge. It also has a shoulder which secures the front part of the infill by clamping down on to a counterbore recess in the wood. This arrangement eliminates the need for a rivet here.  

All the boring, counterboring and tapping is done in a set sequence whilst everything is in situ.  After this process the whole plane is disassembled for further work.  This includes the fixing of the infill to the bridge with the brass bush.  With the fixing secure and complete the brass bush on the underside of the bridge can then be flushed off.  By offering the filling back into position in the plane I can scribe the contour lines from the plane sides for reference for the shaping of the horn detail around the brass bush.  

Here the rear end of the shoulder plane is polished before the blade bed is fitted, otherwise it would be inaccessible.  This is typical of the importance of getting the sequence right throughout the whole project.

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