Stainless steel bolts for the No 985. 250 of them. All handmade. Never want to see one again. I would be embarrassed to say how long they took. It is important that they were made to a high precision, but will be hidden when the work is finished.
There are only a small number of these planes unsold
Still plodding along.
The first picture is to try and give you some idea of the work that goes into these planes. The picture should be self explanatory. It shows some of the metal (stainless) work and handles. From this you can see it includes spines that are threaded and keyed ready for cementing with epoxy into the handles. This gives the kind of strength and rigidity which would surpass what is normally found on a closed handle.
It is this kind of work that makes me one of life’s misfits.
Now I am on to the handle shaping which is basic hand work. My CNC machine doesn’t seem to have a button for this job. I find pleasure in the wood taking shape and interesting contrasts come to life.
Here the chosen wood is a Honduras Rosewood – Dalbergia stevensonii – still lots of work to be done. The price of the plane goes up and up with the pain of the work.
Slipping behind on postings as I have been so busy.
As a follow on from last posting on upper blade bed, the design is similar to the one used in my No 982. I didn’t want to go this far but I can’t think of anything better. It is certainly solid if nothing else. You just have to bite the bullet and get the work done.
This picture shows the tooling required for the last part of the operation after much preparation. As you can see this kind of tooling doesn’t come cheap. I always keep plenty of backup – if I get a tool failure I want to be able to change it immediately.
Powered by WordPress