From the Workshop

May 10, 2016

Window to my workshop 103

Filed under: No 984,Window to my workshop — Tags: handplanes, Holtey — admin @ 3:20 pm

It might seem that things have been quiet here but in actual fact it is the opposite. I have been too busy to post and I have had a number of issues, including a small injury, which seem to compound. Old age seems to be catching up on me and I don’t know if I am getting slower or fussier over the work (obviously I favour the latter ).

It had been my intention not to do any more posts until I had a finished plane, but I just wanted to assure you all that I am alive and well. The project is nearing its end.

There used to be a time that I believed simple was easy – wrong. I certainly favour the simple lines. After much deliberation this union between the handle and sole works well. I am not going to show the whole plane until everything is finished.

Here is the simple part….. Components are shown in pairs for viewing purposes.

These parts include handle boss, which has two 8 mm integral rivets which are peined into the sole. The boss body is to be recessed into the handle, drilled and tapped for the handle stem.

This stem is 10 mm in diameter at its base going down to 8 mm separated by the 8 mm hexagon. This is then secured with a wrench so it will always be tight at the base. This stem alone has a lot of rigidity to it which then compounds when compressing the handle.

The handle has a cup for its fixing nut. This fixing nut has a radiused slot milled into it so that it can be driven with a coin. The cup is faceted at the bottom so that it cannot rotate to avoid mismatching contour or come loose from the handle. This gives a very rigid handle which is compounded when the handle is tighten up.

All the components that you can see, including the screw cup, are made from solid stainless steel bar.

The boss and stem fixed in position.

The adjuster – where does one start?

The most visual item is the spindle (still attached to its carrier) and like everything, it comes from a solid bar. It takes a lot of planning in the making. I will let the picture tell the story.

At the very last minute, when I am happy with everything else, the spindle can be parted from the carrier.

All the components are a project on their own.

A whole book compressed into a few lines

Comments (1)

January 22, 2016

window to my workshop 102

Filed under: No 984,Window to my workshop — Tags: precision hand plane, stainless steel — admin @ 4:13 pm

Lever caps assembly now finished

Sorry for the slow progress to those that are waiting, but life is not getting better at the moment. I have my mother’s funeral to go to next week and I also have to make a decision about whether to put down my very poorly dog.

Comments (2)

January 11, 2016

Window to my Workshop 101

Filed under: No 984,Window to my workshop — Tags: Holtey, stainless steel — admin @ 9:25 am

More later ….

Comments (0)

January 1, 2016

Window to my Workshop 100

Filed under: Specials,Window to my workshop — Tags: Karl Holtey Designs — admin @ 11:42 am

About 18 months ago a friend asked me to make a part for his rifle. An end cap for the hand guard on his Lee Enfield. Since it was getting a bit embarrassing I thought I should get it out the way. It was a good time as I have been distracted by family problems.

Never is anything as easy as it first appears. Makes me wonder how the originals were made, especially as this was pre-first world war. I usually make more than one of anything just in case something goes wrong and as you can see I choose to make a pattern in brass.

With this out the way I am now back on the No 984. I still have the lever cap area to finish and new pictures will be posted shortly.

Happy New Year to all my readers and thank you for all your best wishes received.

Comments (0)

November 30, 2015

Window to my workshop No 99

Filed under: No 984 — Tags: Classic, precision, stainless steel — admin @ 10:52 am

LEVER CAP

As with many of my components these are fabricated from solid bar. The three pictures shown below are starting from a raw bar, removing the excess and shaping then the finished product.

This has probably been one of the most labour intensive of all the parts. Now that they are done, with the exception of polishing (which is no mean feat), I am very happy to move on to the thumb wheel and pressure pad.

Update: A modification has been made for ergonomic purposes. An additional chamfer has been added in case there is any contact with fingers or knuckles.

Comments (0)

November 2, 2015

Window to my workshop 98

Filed under: No 984 — Tags: Classic, dovetail, Holtey, precision — admin @ 5:41 pm

The pictures don’t do justice to the time spent on every little operation. Although I have taken many photographs along the way I don’t have time to document every little stage. The effort for every detail can seem a bit over the top, and I make little revisions all the time – the overall design will still be as the posted line drawing.

This is a nail biting moment, once I start cutting there is no going back. I can take hours double checking before I separate the toe from the the rest of the sole.

Here I am milling the blade bed. The rest of this operation hasn’t been photographed as I covered this in the No 983 blog and it is almost identical as are the adjuster recesses. You can see that the work holding vice jaws are purpose made just for this plane. This enables me to get a firm grip.

All my buns start off as a true square block. All drilling, tapping and recessing is carried out on the mill

The bush shown here is to be epoxied into the front bun. You can use some imagination as to how I arrived here. The combined strength of the bush and its bun is considerable. Note there are two flats which make it impossible to remove the bush once the epoxy has cured.

This is the milling operation for the five integral pins/rivets to the bun boss.

This is the finished boss for the front bun. I have chosen this method of fixing for its strength. I wasn’t happy about tapping blind holes. Who cares, it is not about cost It is going to be the only one of its kind.

Illustrating the fitting of the bush to the bun and the threaded nose to fit the finished bun to its boss.

Once this is complete, the bun can be removed and the boss is ready to rivet in place. Note that I used a V joint between the boss and the knob base. The knobs will leave my workshop perfect but the rotary position of the knob can have a tendency to migrate and wood can lose its concentricity over time. Also when the knob is removed and refitted the sharp edges can be bumped, thus losing the desired effect. The V joint will hide any of these unsightly dinks.

Temporarily assembled plane.

A general selection of knobs and parts.

Still a long way to go, sorry to those who have a plane on order.

Thought this was worth a picture and mention. The bushing here had been cemented with epoxy and I had started it with a few threads and then I was distracted ………

I discovered how strong this system is when I came back the next day. I will keep this as a reminder.

Comments (1)

September 16, 2015

Window to my Workshop 97

Filed under: No 984,Window to my workshop — Tags: precision hand plane, stainless steel — admin @ 6:38 pm

Sorry for the long gap, and probably a few photo opportunities missed. Now on to the bottoms of the No 984.

I had to make many visits to the drawing board to finalise the drilling for the handles, as I felt paranoia was setting in and a lot of double checking and tweaking was needed here. As you can see I have five holes to receive the 5 mm integral rivets for the front bun fixture. It may look a little excessive but I have seen what happens if a plane is dropped and lands on the bun. The original No 98 had three rivets. Four wasn’t right but five just seems to be correct. I always work in odd numbers for some reason. Funnily all office chairs have 5 feet.

For the rear tote I shall use 2 x 6 mm rivets, which are integral to its chair. This is one area that I have thought long and hard on, making this fixture as tough as possible. It is very limited by its parameter of being an open handle. This arrangement will be as strong as you will ever need. In the event of any impact the handle will be the first thing to break – so best not drop it – but it is wood after all. The handle can be replaced. With these two holes I am now committed, the rest of the handle will be tweaked a bit before I start.

This is my holding arrangement for the integral rivets on the bottom of the plane. This was my second attempt, as I was not confident with the rigidity of the original arrangement. The setting up is where most of the work takes place.

With all my milling and drilling I always use the very best tools available. These rivets are cut full depth in one go to get the most use out of the cutter. This first cut is taken with a ripper which will cut the rivets slightly oversize and then follow up with a finishing tool, which will size and texture the rivets. It takes a lot of trial and error to get the optimum spindle speed and feed rate. The best instruments for this are my eyes and ears. It has taken me a long time to perfect this and these are the last planes just when everything is coming together.

The last operation with the rivets is applying a very small chamfer which helps to prevent any splits forming whilst peining.

The riveting finished.

Comments (0)

August 14, 2015

Window to my Workshop No 96

Filed under: No 984,Window to my workshop — Tags: classic hand tools, dovetailed, Holtey — admin @ 5:08 pm

It is always tempting to rush off to the next stage, like the bottoms. But once the side profiling is complete there are still quite a number of other operations to be completed and these sides just scream to be finished. The polishing of the sides is a major undertaking and it eats up a lot of my time.

I use four abrading grades and at each stage everything is continually blued which helps me avoid any form corruption.

With a few purpose made spacers I am able to keep the edge polishing true and sharp without any deformation.

It could be embarrassing to mention how much time this operation takes but if perfection is required …..

These sides are now waiting for stamping and another surface grind on the inside faces, for its final texture.

Comments (1)

August 12, 2015

Window to my Workshop 95

Filed under: No 984,Window to my workshop — Tags: precision hand plane, stainless steel — admin @ 6:03 pm

Since the last posting it has been a bit hectic with family visiting. Also I revisited the drawing board a few times as I wasn’t happy with the side profile. I have re-contoured and re-programmed several times until now I am happy with the profile.

These are a few pictures of the current progress.

Next is polishing of the edges, which I love soooo much.

Comments (0)

July 24, 2015

Window to my workshop No 94

Filed under: No 984,Window to my workshop — Tags: classic hand tools, Hand tools, Holtey — admin @ 10:47 am

Drilling the holes in the No 984 plane pre-prepared and surface ground sides which will receive the integral riveting from the bottom.

Once the sides have been drilled they are then ready for profiling. This I do by making a holding plate which is drilled and tapped. In the case of this plane I have chosen six of the fifteen holes which were drilled in the plane sides which is sufficient for work holding purposes

The fixings used here have a 3/16 Whitworth thread to work within the existing holes. I hand cut the threads whilst they are in the milling machine so they are a little small to go through 1/2″ steel. A lot of care and patience is needed here. This means I can only take one or two rotations of cut at a time and then remove the taping tool and blow everything clean, then repeat until I am through.

Now and again I push my luck and this is what happens. This is probably about the worse horror because I have a large piece of the tap seized in the tapping hole with a jagged shard of HSS tap sticking up. If this couldn’t be removed then I would have to spend the best part of a day to grind and drill another holding plate. However, whilst it was in situ I was able to write another programme to mill the broken tap away with a very high quality tungsten carbide end mill. This could have only worked in the CNC as it needed a consistent very slow feed rate. It leaves me on a bit of a high when this works. Not only did I remove the broken tap but the original thread and true axis was maintain. This is extremely important or it would have had to be scrapped.

Sometimes I like to mention this sort of trivia as it is a whole part of the whole process, often unseen. As I have said before, it is not just the tools I make but the tools I make to make them with.

This is the end of the building process for the holding tool, showing the jig screws. Also showing the mirrored side on the left. Mirroring or pair handing is necessary where there is chamfering and countersinking involved.

After use this holding tool will go into my cupboard to join all the others, as each tool is dedicated to its type. It is sad that in the case of this one it will not be coming out again.

Comments (0)

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »