Monday Again! - Kerfing Plane Pt. 2

Keep calm and pretend it's not Monday.

Folks, it is Monday morning again. Another weekend is over and my vacations too. How sad is this?

Anyway. Some news about the Kerfing Plane prototype I'm building.

Interested? Then have a look....

In the last post I've reported about some basic considerations and the founding tasks for building the plane.

The Blade

I've marked the needed length to the blade with a sharpy. Then the blade was clamped into a vise and sawn to length with a hack saw. With a bit of patience such a cut will go well.

Sawn blade

After cutting it to length the end were filed smooth with a standard file for metal work.

Finally the holes for the fixing screws have to be drilled. I've done it pretty pragmatically. Marked the positions of the holes, grabbed my cordless drill driver, inserted a 7 mm HSS drill bit for metal work and drilled the hole.

You just have to watch the bending of the blade. To avoid to much bending I've drilled the holes from both sides of the blade.

The result is fine enough I think.

Blade with hole for fixing screws

Before I've finally mounted the blade into the plane body I've done a quick sharpening. Two strokes with a standard saw file for each tooth. Additionally I've eased the edge a bit with a diamond file. And the blade is pretty sharp now.

The Body

After the blade was done some additional body work was necessary.

First I've bored the holes for the fixing screws and then countersunk them.

Boring the screw holes

Countersinking

All that done it was just mounting the blade into the body fixing the screws and here we are :-)

Fixing screws

At this time the body just has got a rough outline. Some additional body modification is necessary.

But before I started that work I wanted to know if the tool is working and doing what my plane was supposed for (making small wood strips).

Kerfing Plane before shaping

Body Shaping

The shaping of the body should have been done with a good balance of effort. Keep in mind, for me that is a prototype.

I have started with rounding the tote.

First round over

The most of the shaping was done with a standard rasp and file which were handy.

Started with the rasp,

Rasping

Then switched to the file.

Filing

And finally I grabbed some sandpaper starting with grid 80 and going to 180.

This is the result so far. I haven't done any finishing now because I had nothing handy.
I have to by some oil for the lantern project and I guess I will use it for the plane too.

Finalized Kerfing Plane

Conclusion

I'm lucky about how my Kerfing Plane prototype came out.

Remember, the goal was to find out how to build one without having access to the original hardware.

Additionally, if the tool make sense for my working process. And finally to cut the wooden strips for the Garden Lantern I'm actually building.

All in all I've spend maybe 15 Euros (which is about 10 Pound or 17 Dollars) and a weekend of work.

I'm pretty satisfied with the result.

For my purpose it is really working well. The cutting speed is good and now I can imagine, that it will be helpful for the resawing process with hand saws.

What's next?

The next time I will be at the wood dealer, I will buy some appropriate Beech for building a nicer one.

I'm still quite unsure if I will build one with a movable fence or to build two with fixed widths. Of course, a movable fence will be more flexible. But to be honest in most cases you will need resawn material in 6 or 12 mm (1/4" or 1/2").

What do you think? Any questions about it? Please let me know.

Keep on making!

Stefan