I quite like this little palm plane and I thought it would be
nice to have another one like that for my other shop.
So, I figure I'll try making one out of some
really hard Lignum Vitae,
trying to make it roughly this size.
Now, the knife in this one is at about
this angle, here.
And it comes out, right about here.
So, I need to make a cut-out in here
roughly, like this.
So, I wanna cut this slot on the table saw,
something like this, but I need to jig that up somehow.
Now I need to get the rest of this out,
hopefully without destroying what I've made so far.
Now, we've got a pin here, for clamping down the knife, and
since I'm trying to copy this geometry as much as possible,
I'll just mark roughly where that goes, right about here.
Now, I need the hole in exactly the same position
on the other side. So, I'm just gonna jig it up,
like this, to get that hole in there.
Now to glue this back together, I'm just gonna use
some epoxy. And, I also wiped it down
with a little bit of paint thinner,
so hopefully I won't have any oil on the surface
and I hope that will stick well enough.
For the pin that goes across here, I just
cut off a nail, and that fits through here.
And, let's just try this out with the parts
from the other plane, to see if this plane's actually gonna work
Setting the knife is a little bit tricky on this one,
'cause I don't have it sticking out very far in the back.
I mostly use this just for round-overs and edges
and it works fine for that.
Well, that's not too bad.
Now, I quite like this handle part on the back
for holding it, so I'm gonna add something like that
to this one.
So, this is gonna form the handle
like this. And, this part here,
is gonna be the tenon that fits into this slot, here.
And, the best way to cut this tenon, at this point,
is with my tenon jig.
And I just forgot to push record while I band-sawed that out,
but I've got a bit more cutting to do
to make that a bit round.
Now, before I glue this on, I'll just trim the rest of
this plane to be a little bit more comfortable to hold.
So, I ended up tapering it on the back, quite a bit,
because the way I hold this one is usually
like this, so I want to hold this one
I need a bit of space for my fingers to go, right here.
While I wait for the glue to dry, I need to make one of
these parts, and I'll cut that out of this piece of bar stock.
I was just puzzling over how to make a thumb screw, like this
maybe just take a regular screw and weld something to it,
or maybe just use one with a big head.
But, then I looked through my screw collection
and I found this one, which is just perfect.
I got a left-over piece of saw blade that's just barely
big enough to cut the blade for my plane, out of.
First thing I'll do is heat it up to get rid of the coating
and soften it.
When the steel is hot enough, it loses the ability to
attract a magnet, so I'm checking it with
a magnetic screwdriver while it's still hot.
I heated it up with a blow torch
and then dipped it in used motor oil to quench it and harden it.