RE: Closing up the mouth on a wooden plane

D

David Conley

Well-known member
Time for another good discussion for the New Year!!

For Christmas I received some old wooden hand planes.  The one I am most interested in is a 1 inch Bullnose plane made by Sandusky Tool Co.  I tuned it up and started using it. 

After about 3, maybe 4 passes, the throat jams with wood shavings.  It appears to me that a previous owner had problems with the plane and tried to fix it by opened up the mouth.  The problem is the narrowest place in the throat is now about a half an inch into the body and away from the mouth.  As you would expect, the chips jam in the narrowest part of the throat.  I need to repair this plane by gluing in a wedge (thickest part towards the mouth) to reestablish the throat’s straight lines.  I plan to reshape the mouth with plane floats.

My questions to the group for discussions are:  1) How would you prepare the throat for a repair?  2) What type of wood would you use, beech, boxwood, or a harder wood?  3) What type of glue wood you use.

Thanks and Happy New Year!
David

 
David:

Todd Herrli fixed one of my planes (in his class) that I had opened the mouth too much.  He took a 3/32 thick piece of the same material the plane was made of (beech). Spread regular Titebond on both surfaces and clamped it for about 1 1/2 hours. When dry, he floated it to the proper thickness for the blade extension.

David Turner
Plymouth, MI.
 
David,  Thanks for responding!!

From previous work with molding planes, white/yellow glue don’t bond well on wood that has been treated with Boiled Linseed Oil.  So, I used hot hide glue and it worked really well.

I repaired the mouth opening.    See attached photo.
 
However, the cheek was also messed up, so I repaired it as well.  As you can see from the shaving in the mouth, this plane is now working just fine.

Also, I did not use my floats.  I used an 1/8" bench chisel.
 
David,

At our Spring Chapter meeting, Tod Herrli adjusted my repair to make it work better.  What Tod said was that the shavings at the sides of the plane do not go straight up the throat of the plane like a bench plane.  Instead, they curl towards the side of the plane (90 degrees from the cut).  The plane is now working even better!!!  (Thanks Tod!!)

David
 
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