Thread Index of: "Raining Castings and Dogs "

Thread author: "KEMPINSKI, ROBERT M. (JSC-OS)"

Reply 1 by David Hunkins

Reply 2 by Bob Brode

Reply 3 by Steven Torrens

Reply 4 by Rob Stevens

Reply 5 by Michael D Sohn

Reply 6 by David Hegedusich

Reply 7 by eoh@kodak.com (Esther Heller)

Reply 8 by "KEMPINSKI, ROBERT M. (JSC-OS)"

Reply 9 by ironmger@intool.com

Reply 10 by Tom Walley

Reply 11 by Patrick Leach

Reply 12 by "KEMPINSKI, ROBERT M. (JSC-OS)"

Reply 13 by BlueGolfer@aol.com

These messages were originally posted to the oldtools¹ listserver in 1998. At least a few of the email addresses shown are now invalid. I was able to update the foundry page link below. The link as posted stopped working. (¹ The oldtools archive can be found at http://swingleydev.com/archive/index.php where this thread begins with message 29895)

Short version - I've been making planes from my own castings.

Long version follows:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I knew the air was bad in Houston, but lately it's been raining castings. 

Having made the St. James Bay smoother and block plane, and then Russ
Allen's Stanley 51 replica, I figured it was time to make my own planes from
my own castings.

Never one to start small and build up, I decided to go for it and for my
first pattern, make a replica of the Stanley 52 shooting board. (To match
Russ Allen's 51 plane.)  After studying Kingshott's description of the 51
project, and  comparing it to a drawing of an actual one, I decided
Kingshott's replica wasn't accurate enough.  Some snooping found a collector
in Dallas with a mint one (still had the original decal.) He was gracious
enough to let me measure it for my pattern.

With a good drawing, and some shrink rules, I set to work making the
patterns.  I had some black walnut lying around.  Since pattern makers liked
to use mahogany, I figured black walnut would work just as well.  I started
with the quadrant and the hold down.  These were pretty easy, although I
choose not to emboss Stanley into the quadrant out of respect for the
company and to deter any claims of forgery.  The bosses for the lock pin
looked wimpy to me, so I decided to beef them up.  I think this will be an
improvement for a small run.  For mass production, you could save money by
making this section smaller.   It took a few tricks to hog out the
semicircular cut out for the pivot pin in the quadrant.  Being a wood
worker, I probably lavished more time on the patterns than needed, but hey,
I was having fun.  To make the fillets in the pattern corners I used a very
ungalootish material - bondo.  

After making the quadrant and hold down, I paid a visit to the foundry to
get their opinion.  (A nice thing about Houston is with all the heavy
industry around, there are lots of shops that cater to this sort of
affliction. As long as you are casting less than 1,500 lb., they can
accommodate your needs.  - Wow, it just occurred to me, a 1,500 lb. hand
plane.  That would make a no. 8 bedrock look like a toy for Ken, Barbie's
boy friend. 1,500 lb. of smoother would snort at curly grain.  Scoff at
cocobolla.  Of course, you'd have to be Arnold Schwatzenager to pick it up.
Oh well, never mind.)  The foundry foreman was great.  He seemed almost
amazed that someone would even be interested and somewhat knowledgeable
about this stuff.  Then he showed me some of the galoot type tools they had
scattered around the foundry.  Next, I got the $5 tour of the joint.  As a
mechanical engineer, I ate this up.  Then came the critical examination of
the patterns.  They passed with only one tweak needed - add more draft to
one corner of the quadrant. 

Some of his observations:
   - you can never have enough draft, particularly for a tall part.
  - no sharp internal corners.
  - make a simple tool from a piece of steel to shape the fillet radii
  - use pattern boards, it makes the process less expensive.

The shooting board pattern would have to be cast loose, and hence be more
expensive.  Gray iron would work, be stable and stay flat.  It is a little
brittle, so don't drop it.

Charged with this encouragement, I went home.  After slaving hours over the
shooting board, I had a pattern that was a pretty darn good replica of the
Stanley version.  Even carved "No. 52" into a recess, just like the boys
from Connecticut.  Then the casting storm hit.  Me thinks - if I can make
the 52, how about a chisel plane.  And what about that  adjustable mouthed
infill I'd been thinking about.  Sure enough, chips flew, shavings
fluttered, and bonded stunk. Before SWMBO could even complain,  I had
another pattern board with a chisel plane and an infill of my own design.

Off to the foundry I go.  By now, I had been developed a good relationship
with the foreman, the kind that comes from mutual respect for and
appreciation of making things with your hands.  Something that appears to be
on the decline in America... Oops, sorry, I digress.  When I delivered the
patterns, the foreman seemed impressed.  He actually offered me a job as a
pattern maker.  That was a hoot.  Hmmm, I wonder what it pays?

Anyway, after wearing a path in the carpet at home, pacing back and forth
like an expectant father, waiting for the castings, the call arrived.  They
were ready.  Now a lot of parents wax poetically about the moment of their
child's birth.  How it is such a thrill and joy. A sublime experience. I'm
here to say this was not quite like that, but it was fun to see the result
of all that work.  To see how the iron, molten and mean, had raced through
the molds, and left as it's imprint, a shape conjured by man.  (Whoa, get
the boots on.)

Anyway, the castings came out great, with the exception of one of the infill
castings.  It looks like the mold for that one had a partial collapse.  I
may have stretched the draft angle a little too far.  The shooting board is
dead flat, with great surface detail. It should require only a little
grinding and smoothing.  The quadrant and hold down look like Stanely made
'em. My little chisel plane, modified from the Stanley 97 by shortening and
angling the knob, should make a cute tool.   On the other hand, the infill
casting looks like a job to machine, but it should work.

Anyway, that's it for adventures in pattern making.  Don't forget to join
our host for the next exciting episode - metal working in a wood working
shop. (If I can find my way past the metal chips.)

Rob Kempinski
Lurking, but working in Houston





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Private replies: <robert.m.kempinski1@jsc.nasa.gov>

At 11:03 AM 11/4/97 -0600, KEMPINSKI, ROBERT M. (JSC-OS) wrote:

<snip Wonderful Adventures of ... Bob's Your Patternmaker>

So Robert ... how much will those Chute Boards cost, and when will they be
ready?

David
*who's only half serious, but now is wondering "Why not?"

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Private replies: <drhunk@cruzio.com>

<Rob Kempinski's interesting account...>

Some of this patternmaker-speak was over my head, so I'd like to ask a few
probably very naive questions:

>...Some of his observations:
>   - you can never have enough draft, particularly for a tall part.

Would you mind explaining "draft"?

>  - no sharp internal corners.

How do you manage this?   (Bondo and a popsicle stick? :^)

>  - make a simple tool from a piece of steel to shape the fillet radii

I'm confused as to what this refers to - is the radius convex or concave on
the pattern?

>  - use pattern boards, it makes the process less expensive.

What's a pattern board?

>The shooting board pattern would have to be cast loose

What does "loose" mean in this context?

Bob Brode



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Private replies: <bob2@psrv.com>

Wow this sounds like great stuff.  Robert seems to know his stuff.  I have
been dreaming of making some tools but I am only familiar with lost wax
casting.  Sand casting with patterns is a mystery to me.  Maybe if asked by
a few more enquiring minds Robert could expand his posting into a lesson on
casting and patterns.

REgards Steve,  Wonder if the Klingshot book was an inspiration?



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Private replies: <torrenss@claven.fanshawec.on.ca>

Steve Torrens wrote;
> Wow this sounds like great stuff.  Robert seems to know his stuff. 
> I have been dreaming of making some tools but I am only familiar with 
> lost wax casting.  Sand casting with patterns is a mystery to me.
> Maybe if asked by a few more enquiring minds Robert could expand his 
> posting into a lesson on casting and patterns.

Ditto! And the timing was great! I'll be going into Toronto to visit a
few blacksmith/wrought iron businesses with a friend (Robert Young) who
I mentioned in a previous post is green sand casting of ornamental fence
parts. So far he's using aluminum (recycled pop cans), but wanted to try
bronze.

"Bronze?", says I. Well, then we should do a few plane bodies too.
Another blacksmith cum toolmaker chimed in, "It should be manganese
bronze so's it's not too soft or brittle". So, does anyone know about
what and how much goes into a manganese bronze melt suitable for plane
bodies?

Enquiring minds want to know,
Rob

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Private replies: <rstevens@fhs.csu.mcmaster.ca>

Rob, great posts.  A couple of questions to you or other knowledgeable folks:

(1) Can you recommend a book describing the process?  I doubt I will
cast but it sure sounds interesting.

(2) If you wouldn't mind, can you tell us the approximate costs for the
casting.  General estimates would be find.  Just curious what these
things costs.

Mike. 

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Private replies: <msda+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Rob sez:

> Short version - I've been making planes from my own castings.
> 
> Long version follows:

<great story severely edited, as the FAQ suggests>

You know, it's a rare occasion (lately) when Rob posts, but when he
does, WOW!  Great post, Rob, thanks for sharing your story with us.

David
Who's hoping Paddy will consider putting Rob's post on the GOTW page.

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Private replies: <dhege@emtek.com>

Mike asks,

> Rob, great posts.  A couple of questions to you or other knowledgeable folks:
> 
> (1) Can you recommend a book describing the process?  I doubt I will
> cast but it sure sounds interesting.
> 
> (2) If you wouldn't mind, can you tell us the approximate costs for the
> casting.  General estimates would be find.  Just curious what these
> things costs.
> 
> Mike. 
> 
Warning, I have not done this, but I have seen it done.  From here it 
looks like a slight tuck while sliding down the smithing cliff, you
have been duely warned!

1.  A book that I don't own yet but that keeps coming up is by Tom McCreight.
If his general metalworking/jewelry book is any sample it ought to be 
good.  Some obvious title like Casting.  

2. It all depends, mostly on what kind of scrounger you are.  I saw a 
casting demo at my first Pennsic, 2 people could carry all the stuff.
One DYI variation on a propane forge with the funny white insulating 
lining stuff, running off a 20# tank, a small (couple quart) crucible,
(see recent suggestions on the list or go buy one), a mold made out of 
3' of T&G flooring, some special sand, baby powder for parting compound,
and some dead plumbing parts to make bronze (I think they added some 
extra tin from don't know what).  A couple old butter knives to carve
the sprues in the sand and a block of wood to tamp the sand down, and
a reworked slipjoint pliers to handle the crucible.

The smith I met at the same event pointed out that you don't need the 
fancy heater, you can easily heat the crucible on a blacksmith's forge..
So if you have a forge and blower all you need are a crucible and it's
tongs, and the rest can be made from scrap.  I warned you it's slippery
here!

For one guy's story, check out:

http://reality.sgi.com/kurts_engr/foundry.page.html

I found it through the Electrik Anvil someone posted a while back.

Esther eoh@kodak.com

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Private replies: eoh@kodak.com

> Bob Brode asked a few questions about pattern making. I'll try to answer
> them.
> 
>>...Some of his observations:
>>   - you can never have enough draft, particularly for a tall
part.
>
>Would you mind explaining "draft"?
In making a sand casting, the mold has top and bottom pieces (called
a cope and a drag).  These are four sided frames with no top or bottom.
Assuming the part has one flat surface, the mold maker takes the pattern and
places it on a flat surface.  He  (I'll use a male pronoun as I've never met
a female mold maker)  puts the drag around it and fills the drag with sand.
After packing the sand around the part, he flips over the drag. He now puts
the cope frame on top and fills it with sand.  This has effectively trapped
the part in among two sand cakes.  After compacting the sand, the mold maker
separates the cope and the drag.  Here's where draft comes in.  The mold
maker has to get the part out of the mold so there is a cavity to fill with
molten metal.  Getting the part out of the mold without ruining the mold is
the tricky part.  The plane separating the parts is called the parting line.
All surfaces perpendicular to the parting line must slope away from vertical
to allow the part to be removed from the sand.  The amount these parts slope
is called the draft (or draft angle).  The angle must be built into the
pattern.  Careful part design can incorporate the draft angle into the
finished part, but lots of times, the angle gets machined away in the
finishing process.  

Next time you are looking at your tools, see if you can figure out
where the parting line was and then look for the draft.  On a regular bench
plane, it's pretty simple, but how about on a Stanley 95, Edge plane? I just
got one from Patrick L Nino  (gloat) and seeing it in real life proves how
clever those guys at Stanley were.  Lee Valley offers a remake of the 95 but
they are using investment casting.  There is no need for a parting line
there, but investment casting is more expensive than sand casting.  I wonder
if Lee Valley is doing that because their pattern maker didn't want to mess
with a parting line or if it's because they wanted that fancy Veritas
lettering.  Anyway, that's the subject of another missive. 

BTW, this casting work has really give me an appreciation for the
casting skills of the Stanley factory.  The detail they were able to include
in their tools, particularly the earlier ones speaks well for their pattern
making and casting expertise.

>>  - no sharp internal corners.
>
>How do you manage this?   (Bondo and a popsicle stick? :^)
Yep.  Actually, I try to carve the draft and a fillet in as best as possible
with wood working tools.  Then a skim coat of bondo followed by a popsicle
shaped metal scraper does the trick.

>>  - make a simple tool from a piece of steel to shape the fillet
radii
>
>I'm confused as to what this refers to - is the radius convex or
concave on
>the pattern?

If there is an edge protruding into the mold cavity, the molten metal may
erode that edge as it fills the cavity.  To avoid this, the pattern must
have fillets in each internal corner.  For an example, think about a part
shaped like a capital letter L.  The inside corner of the L would be a sharp
edge in the cavity (You have to think in terms of negative space here.)   A
pattern maker would have to fill in this corner to reduce the sharp edge.
The radii for the fillet depends primarily on the mold material.  I used a
radius of about 1/4 in, but this could vary depending on the sand, if any
binders are used, and perhaps the material being poured.
 
>>  - use pattern boards, it makes the process less expensive.
>
>What's a pattern board?
>
>>The shooting board pattern would have to be cast loose
>
>What does "loose" mean in this context?


Loose casting means the actual pattern is handled  by the foundry.  The mold
maker has to create sprues, risers, gates, filters, and runners for that
part.   This is labor intensive.  

A pattern board combines the patterns, sprues, risers, filter, etc. onto a
board, a sheet of 3/4 in plywood (could be metal  if you were making a lot
of parts).  The pattern maker grabs the board and follows the mold making
steps descried above.  The pattern board is the parting line.  But by
handling only one board, they don't spend as much time making the mold. So
its quicker and cheaper, especially for produciton runs.  

Regards,

Rob Kempinski
Phewston Texas  

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Private replies: <robert.m.kempinski1@jsc.nasa.gov>

Rob writes:

>Next time you are looking at your tools, see if you can figure out
>where the parting line was and then look for the draft.  On a regular bench
>plane, it's pretty simple, but how about on a Stanley 95, Edge plane? I just
>got one from Patrick L Nino  (gloat) and seeing it in real life proves how
>clever those guys at Stanley were.  Lee Valley offers a remake of the 95 but
>they are using investment casting.  There is no need for a parting line
>there, but investment casting is more expensive than sand casting.  I wonder
>if Lee Valley is doing that because their pattern maker didn't want to mess
>with a parting line or if it's because they wanted that fancy Veritas
>lettering.  Anyway, that's the subject of another missive.

Actually, while not having to worry about a parting line in investment
casting is correct with respect to the sand, the pattern still has to have
some draft.

An investment cast part starts as a wax replica of the part to be made.
The wax is made by injecting molten wax at very high pressure into an
aluminum filled epoxy mold.  After a few seconds to allow the wax to cool,
the mold is opened on its parting line.  If you don't have draft built into
your part, and place your parting line exactly, you'll never be able to get
it out of the mold, or get the mold apart for that matter.  In fact, it's
even more critical since the sand has a certain amount of give, but the
epoxy sure doesn't.

And while I'm at it, since we have a commercial foundry at MapleLeaf
Hardwoods, and I've poured more than a few pounds of metal...

Be very careful if you plan to start casting your own parts.  It is really
quite easy if you go the sand route, but remember, you're dealing with
temperatures in the 1850-2200 F range for bronze.  *NEVER* use a crucible
that you don't know the history of.  *NEVER* use a crucible that you buy at
a flea market, etc.  It may look OK, and it may be OK, but the time to find
out isn't when you have 15 pounds of molten metal in it and it breaks when
you lift it up.  Always buy a new crucible from a casting supply house.
They are made of graphite and ceramic binder, and aren't too expensive.

Pete Taran

Just say, casting is cool, but can be treacherous for the uninitiated, etc.

___________________________________________________________________________

Pete Taran
29951 State Route 26
Theresa, NY  13691

Proprietor of Independence Tool, maker of high quality dovetail saws.
Check out our webpage at http://www.intool.com

Visit us at the AWW show at Fort Washington, PA on 7,8,9 November.
___________________________________________________________________________




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Private replies: ironmger@intool.com

Pete Taran writes >>>
> 
> Be very careful if you plan to start casting your own parts.  It is really
> quite easy if you go the sand route, but remember, you're dealing with
> temperatures in the 1850-2200 F range for bronze.  *NEVER* use a crucible
> that you don't know the history of.  *NEVER* use a crucible that you buy at
> a flea market, etc.  It may look OK, and it may be OK, but the time to find
> out isn't when you have 15 pounds of molten metal in it and it breaks when
> you lift it up.  Always buy a new crucible from a casting supply house.
> They are made of graphite and ceramic binder, and aren't too expensive.
> 
> Pete Taran
> 
> Just say, casting is cool, but can be treacherous for the uninitiated, etc.
> 
I have to agree with you here.  I worked for a summer on the labor gang
in a small cast iron foundry in Spring City, Pa.  Actually it was a very
small place; 3 or 4 molders and I was the whole labor gang.  Anyway, I've
seen what happens when you get a few drops of molten iron down your shoe
and what happens when the molder forget to put risers and vents in a very
large casting.

Tom Walley

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Private replies: <tmw@hpfitmw.fc.hp.com>

<robert.m.kempinski1@jsc.nasa.gov> writes:

  <snip>

>He (I'll use a male pronoun as I've never met a female mold maker)

  One of the foundries doing my castings is run by a woman (widow
of the original owner) and she has several female employees. Kinda
neat seeing sweating dames with dirt under their fingernails, ya
know?

>BTW, this casting work has really give me an appreciation for the
>casting skills of the Stanley factory.  The detail they were able to include
>in their tools, particularly the earlier ones speaks well for their pattern
>making and casting expertise.

  A lot of Stanley's stuff, perhaps all of it, was cast at the many
foundries situated around New Britain. If you look at the castings,
you'll note the common dot, "S", and "B" marks on the parts of most
of the tools. It's believed that the "S" mark stands for the Sessions
Foundry. Furthermore, some of the plane castings have "S.R.L.Co."
shallowly cast into the receiver for the tote. This offers some proof
that the foundry needed identifying marks to make sure that the 
patterns, and resulting castings, got back to the proper place of
order.

>The detail they were able to include in their tools, particularly the
>earlier ones speaks well for their patternmaking and casting expertise.

  It also speaks to the materials at their disposal. They used a much
finer sand and they used techniques that are no longer legal to use
under today's enviro-friendly guidelines. For example, trying to cast
a Davis Level would be very tough today without the use of phosphorous
in the iron, which allows it to run quicker and smoother, both of 
which are mandatory for the fine details. Couple that with extra fine
founder's sand, which nearly has the consistancy of flour and is to-
day scarce and expensive, one can see that the golden age of casting
would be costly to resurrect.


>A pattern maker would have to fill in this corner to reduce the sharp 
>edge.

  In the old days, leather strips, called fillets where used to 
accomplish this. You can find little planes designed to make these
fillets; the planes are often cast by the patternmakers themselves.
The fillets are glued into the pattern and then are shaped with 
tools that resemble elongated small dumbbells, where the ends of
the tools are spheres of different diameters. Today, most pattern-
makers use bondo and epoxies.

>The mold maker has to create sprues, risers, gates, filters, and
>runners for that part.   This is labor intensive.  

  And paramount for successful castings, as I'm finding out. The
placement of risers, which, for those who don't know, are like
little chimneys that allow the molten metal to fill their voids.
This allows more metal to be situated in a critical area of the
casting, where a too rapid cooling can cause the casting to crack
or warp. The extra metal at these areas naturally slows down the
cooling time. Normally, foundries cut these risers off and then
recycle the metal.

  What most people would be amazed by is how much extra meat must
be accounted in the pattern to allow the successful machining of
the castings. Further, imagine the surprise of finding Uncle 
Miltie's Ant Farm within the casting as it's machined - in other
words, the casting is porous, but looks cool on the exterior.
There are remedies to the porousity, as long as they don't riddle
the casting, in which case it's usually time to get on the horn
and chew out the foundry.

  Having two very good pals that are practicing patternmakers,
and being deeply involved in getting castings made and machined,
the trade has been a real eye-opener for yours truly. It certainly
is a neat discipline, but it's not what I sense some here (not Rob
or Russ) are 'romanticizing' it to be.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick Leach
Just say Cores, the real art of patternmaking, are a topic for
         another day.
etc.
-------------------------------------------------------------------



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Private replies: <leach@supertool.com>

> ----------
> From: ironmger@intool.com
> Sent: Wednesday, November 5, 1997 10:47 AM
> To: oldtools@listserv.law.cornell.edu
> Subject: Parting Lines
> 
Pete in clarifying my comment on investment casting offered nicely

> An investment cast part starts as a wax replica of the part to be made.
>The wax is made by injecting molten wax at very high pressure into an
>aluminum filled epoxy mold.  After a few seconds to allow the wax to cool,
>the mold is opened on its parting line.  If you don't have draft built into
>your part, and place your parting line exactly, you'll never be able to get
>it out of the mold, or get the mold apart for that matter.  In fact, it's
>even more critical since the sand has a certain amount of give, but the
>epoxy sure doesn't.

Very true if you are using a rigid mold material to make the wax pattern.
However, there are many ways to do investment casting and using RTV silicone
molds is a very common technique in the jewelry and art casting fields.
With the rubber molds, draft is not an issue.  You can even make a pattern
that has an undercut - something practically  impossible in sand casting and
in rigid wax casting.  I might add that RTV-type of investment casting is
well within the realm of the do-it-your-selfer.  I haven't even posted about
making lever caps that proudly say "KEMPINSKI."  After all why give Stanley
all the advertising.

If my memory is correct, the term investment casting comes from the ceramic
slurry placed around the wax pattern. That is called the investment, even
though making an epoxy or aluminum or steel or rubber mold might seem like
an investment of dollars.  Weird choice of terms.

>Be very careful if you plan to start casting your own parts.  

other safety text  melted away.

I concur with the safety warning.  Casting and metal working poses
it's own set of hazards.  Make sure you know what you are doing before doing
it or you are liable to get hurt.

Rob Kempinski
Houston Texas



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Private replies: <robert.m.kempinski1@jsc.nasa.gov>

Short version - Stanley 51 replica is up and running.  The 52 needs a little
more work and a few parts.  My chisel plane turned out pretty sweet.  The
adjustable mouthed infill is coming along nicely.

Long version follows
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Plane making madness continues in Houston.   

For those of you who sloughed through the previous posts, here's a
Thanksgiving missive for your reading enjoyment. Or what happens with 4
straight days off.  

I'll start with the chisel plane because I finished it first and because it
was pretty easy to make.  The plane is basically a wedge with recess at the
rear for an angled knob. Using files, a 4.5 inch angle grinder and my home
made engineer's scraper it took less than a day to smooth the bottom, true up
the sides and then carefully make the angled ramp.  I went with 18 degrees
bed angle.  

A few things I have noticed - the cast iron machines surprisingly well with
files and the grinder.  The dust makes a mess - I'll have to do a major shop
cleaning after all this is done.  The cast iron is brittle, so it doesn't do
to drop the casting, particularly on the pointed edge. I added a 20 thousands
flat to the front of the chisel plane to strengthen up the edge.  If you are
going to do this type of work, get some machinist layout dye.  It makes
marking and measuring much easier.

After getting the body ready, I started cleaning up the lever cap.  For this
one, I used an iron casting.  Eventually, as I get into investment casting, I
hope to make some bronze lever caps with personalized lettering.  Again,
filing the lever cap was not that hard.  Drilling the key shaped hole was a
little tricky. Here's how I did it.  First I drilled the small hole and then
the bigger hole downstream of it.   With a small cold chisel I carefully
knocked out the web remaining between the holes.  Then using a thin file, I
cleaned up the area until the straight sections of the opening were tangent
to the smaller hole.  It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to drill the two
holes one bit undersize and file/ream to final dimension.  The iron polished
pretty well, but for S&Gs I decided to japan the lever cap using Bill
Gustavson's formula.  It worked great - but make sure you bake it like the
instructions say.

I had a small piece of rosewood that I turned (literally)  into a nice knob.
 I dipped it in Behlens brushing lacquer a few times, then wet sanded it up
to 1000 grit and followed that with rubbing compound and carnauba wax (those
skills I learned restoring my Sunbeam Tiger came in handy there).

The blade was not as easy.  O1 (oil quenching) tool steel is a bear. We are
talking hard stuff.  If cast iron is beer, this stuff is grain alcohol.  It
seemed to take forever to cut the blade blank with a hack saw, but I made it,
ending up with a bigger bicep at that.  I marked and ground a pleasing radius
on one end and ground a 25 degree bevel angle on the other.  Next I had to
line drill a slot in the center of the blade.  A sharp drill bit, lots of Tap
Magic cutting oil, and patience, led to a series of drilled holes.  Then came
an hour or so of filling.   Tempering the smallish blade for the chisel plane
was a piece of cake due to the acquisition this past summer of a gunsmith's
tempering oven.  ( Only $5 at a swap meet - gloat.)  I took it to 1500
degrees F, quenched it in vegetable oil, then tempered it at 325 degrees F.
 Seems to be nice and hard. 

After drilling and tapping a few holes, assembling it, and making a test cut,
the plane was done.  A great addition to the block plane shelf in my plane
cabinet.

The neat thing about the chisel plane is there is no mouth to cut so it's
pretty easy to make. The bad thing about the chisel plane is no mouth means
poor planing.  But it has found a use in my shop cleaning out corners of
panels.

Speaking of good planing - there's the Stanley 51.  Russ Allen, Mike
Lindgren, and myself have been making the Stanley 51/52 project as a sort of
mini-galoot project. Russ Allen made a great pattern for the 51, and I made
the patterns for the 52.  

The 51 is a shooting board plane that upon first inspection looks something
like a train rail.  It's a heavy beast.  Using the same process mentioned
above, I got the bottom flat, one side at 90 degrees, and the trailing edge
parallel to the bottom - all necessary for good shooting board work.  

Cutting the frog bed and smoothing the inner base of the mouth just looked
too hard by hand, so I broke down and took the casting to a machinist.  The
guy seemed pretty agreeable.  He even took me to the back of his shop where
he showed me his grandfather's tool chest - loaded with wooden planes and one
Stanley transitional, all in pretty decent shape.  I left the shop with high
hopes.  I returned a week or so later.  The guy says, "I did the job but it
took  twice as long as I thought (at twice the estimate) and the drawing (a
Xerox of Kingshott's book) wasn't correct, so I cut the mouth where it should
really be."  Alarms should have gone off in my head at this point, but I was
so excited at seeing the mouth that I paid him and went home -  fat, dumb,
and happy (well I'm not that fat).   Now I try to fit the Stanley number 6
frog (oh yeah, due to the skew angle of the blade, you have to trim the
corner off the port side of the frog) into the opening.  EEEK, the mouth is
in the wrong spot.  It's too far back - by about a 1/8-inch.  Hours of work
flash by my eyes.  After issuing a stream of invectives that would have made
Nixon blush, I go into the kitchen for a brew.  

After a chug -a - lug, I take the plane, frog, micrometer, caliper, and
drawing  into the kitchen. I stare at everything. I  measure everything.  I
think.  I stare again. I measure again.   The mouth hasn't moved.  I think
some more.   Then, by some process psychological researchers might understand
in the future, a plan appears from the axons in my head.  The frog has to
move back.  OK, how to do that?  Make the frog a little thinner?  That will
give me about 1/32-inch (don't want the frog too thin.)  Chamfer the frog bed
to match the angle of the frog rear?  That's the ticket.   This will move the
frog bed back. It's a good plan, but from experience I learn this sort of
thing needs time to ruminate .  I put the plane away and go on a business
trip. 

Back in the shop after a few weeks and some travel, the plan hasn't changed.
 It must be a good plan.  Slop some layout dye and mark up the line to file
the chamfer to.  File away and sure enough it seems to be working.  The frog
is moving rearward.  And from disaster comes a design improvement.  Since the
chamfer matches the frog rear angle, the frog will be even more solidly
bedded. As a shooting board plane, there is no need to have an adjustable
frog.   

I get the frog in place, drill and tap two holes for the frog adjustment
screws, and clean up the mouth.  I fasten the frog, lay in a Hock No. 6
blade, screw in the beautiful mesquite handle (from a $2 piece of firewood at
a BarBQue place - the same log from which I sent a piece to John G.) and
plane away.  Wow, it's not even in the shooting board yet and it can do
serious work.  

Boy, is this fun.

For those who have stuck it out,  the next installment will cover the 52
shooting board machining effort.

I might even find a home page somewhere to post some photographs.

Signing out from the remote Thanksgiving weekend post.

Rob Kempinski
Houston Texas  

Normally at Robert.M.Kempinski1@jsc.nasa.gov  
 but always lurking at 
Bluegolfer@aol.com


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