Bevel Up or Down Smoothing Plane Build Process

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This week felt like a long one, despite being only three days of work. As a result, I had a very slow start to the day and, after a walk out for lunch, I finally made it to the workshop at about 2pm. Having finished the lower surface of the brass opening, I could start working on the front of the mouth. As the file doesn't need to lie at the 36° bed angle, I could use a thicker file, which allowed me to use one of my coarser ones:

This bit was quite slow going as I don't want to open the mouth out too much (and have a big gap in front of the blade). The only way I could think to do it was to file a tiny bit, check with the blade, file a tiny bit, check with the blade etc. As soon as the blade protruded out of the bottom I stopped.

At the moment the opening might be a bit on the small side, but I can open it up later if necessary and if I do any more flattening of the bottom it might have an effect so it's better to stop now.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the blade seemed to be poking out too far (when I tested it before fitting the brass base). Unfortunately, the extra base thickness from the brass wasn't enough to deal with the issue. With the blade fitted and flush with the bottom of the plane, this is what the pocket looks like:

As you can see, the hole for the threaded rod is slightly under the blade. This is what the CAD model looks like in the same position (and with the cap iron fitted):

It looks like I've somehow drilled the hole for the mounting screw about 5 mm further forward than I should have. The CAD model went through quite a lot of changes (moving things back and forward by, not entirely coincidentally, about 5 mm) as I was in the process of making the plane body. I suspect I made the plane body templates from an older version of the model and the blade and cap iron from the newer version.

With the blade pulled all the way back against a bit of 10 mm threaded rod in that hole, it'd extend much too far for a sensible cut depth, so I need to do something about it. The cap iron isn't too much of a problem as I can easily extend the slot a bit lower. The blades are more of an issue and I've really only got two options:

1. Stick them back in the heat treatment oven to anneal them, then extend the slot, then harden, temper and flatten them again.
2. Grind more off the tip to shorten the blade.

To make the problem slightly smaller than it was, I grabbed an off-cut of 303 stainless steel out of the drawer and turned a custom bit of threaded rod:

That's got an M8 thread on the left-hand end, then a 6 mm smooth shank and finally an M6 thread. It screws into the M8 pocket in the body like this:

That allows me to use an M6 knurled nut instead of the M8 one I'd initially planned and allows the blade to move 1 mm further up into the body. It's still not quite enough to withdraw the blade fully, but it's enough that it could be usable as a smoothing plane. I'll regrind the tips of all the blades to bring the cutting edge back a bit further and that should allow the blade to (just) be fully retracted. At least with the 6 mm shank I haven't got very much to grind off. Somewhat annoying but not the end of the world.

I am a hobbyist metalworker and woodworker. I work as an electronic design engineer and spend most of my working days in front of a computer so I enjoy having the opportunity to use my hands and make things in my spare time. I particularly enjoy making tools as I can then use them on other projects. This website showcases some of the things I've made.

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