Asquith
Diamond
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2005
- Location
- Somerset, UK
A number of us on this forum have small hand-operated benchtop planers. Almost irresistible if you see one for sale, and chances are that all the original scraping marks are still visible on the ways! They certainly make you think. I usually think ‘Shouldn’t I be doing something other than standing here slowly whittling thous away when I could be milling?’
It did come into its own recently when I had to skim the joint faces of the big ends of a Tangye steam engine. I’d tried milling, but the bronze material kept trying to draw the cutter into itself.
You may have read and enjoyed Tony Griffiths description of small Tom Senior hand planers, which were available as kits in the 1930s:-
http://www.lathes.co.uk/seniorshaperplaner/page2.html
Yesterday I came across a reprint of part of an article in Model Engineer, July 1899, about building your own hand planing machine. Illustrations show that it is very similar to the ones on Tony’s website, except for the lack of an automatic feed. The author/designer stated that ‘I do not propose to describe how to make the patterns, as the castings may be obtained very cheaply; but if anyone desires to make the machine throughout, I shall be happy to afford him all the information that lies in my power. It will be necessary for those who have no planing machine to get them ready planed, or have them planed up by some friend, unless he cares to undertake to get them up by hand and ‘hard graft’. The castings may be got up this way as only a small amount is allowed for planing, only just sufficient to clean them up.’ And why not?
The vertical guides for the cross slide had V-shaped slots, as presumably did the ones in Tony’s pictures. A tricky challenge for the plucky builder with only chisels, files, and scrapers.
Perhaps the idea doesn’t appeal at the moment, but bear it in mind. When the world runs out of electricity, you’ll be wishing you’d invested in hand-powered planers and treadle-operated lathes, instead of those fancy motorised tape measures and adjustable wrenches. I’m sure Rick Rowlands will still be able to supply the castings, having had the foresight to establish his own independent generating plant.
Incidentally, the article was reproduced in a Model Engineer centennial edition in 1999. This also included a small item about the ‘Ideal’ planing machine made by Macmillan & Co of Alloa, Scotland. This was about the size of the larger Senior machine, but it was powered, and an interesting feature was the drive to the table. This was operated by a connecting rod and crank arrangement, the radius of the crank being adjustable. The crankshaft was driven by a worm and wheel, the axis of the wheel and crankshaft being vertical.
It did come into its own recently when I had to skim the joint faces of the big ends of a Tangye steam engine. I’d tried milling, but the bronze material kept trying to draw the cutter into itself.
You may have read and enjoyed Tony Griffiths description of small Tom Senior hand planers, which were available as kits in the 1930s:-
http://www.lathes.co.uk/seniorshaperplaner/page2.html
Yesterday I came across a reprint of part of an article in Model Engineer, July 1899, about building your own hand planing machine. Illustrations show that it is very similar to the ones on Tony’s website, except for the lack of an automatic feed. The author/designer stated that ‘I do not propose to describe how to make the patterns, as the castings may be obtained very cheaply; but if anyone desires to make the machine throughout, I shall be happy to afford him all the information that lies in my power. It will be necessary for those who have no planing machine to get them ready planed, or have them planed up by some friend, unless he cares to undertake to get them up by hand and ‘hard graft’. The castings may be got up this way as only a small amount is allowed for planing, only just sufficient to clean them up.’ And why not?
The vertical guides for the cross slide had V-shaped slots, as presumably did the ones in Tony’s pictures. A tricky challenge for the plucky builder with only chisels, files, and scrapers.
Perhaps the idea doesn’t appeal at the moment, but bear it in mind. When the world runs out of electricity, you’ll be wishing you’d invested in hand-powered planers and treadle-operated lathes, instead of those fancy motorised tape measures and adjustable wrenches. I’m sure Rick Rowlands will still be able to supply the castings, having had the foresight to establish his own independent generating plant.
Incidentally, the article was reproduced in a Model Engineer centennial edition in 1999. This also included a small item about the ‘Ideal’ planing machine made by Macmillan & Co of Alloa, Scotland. This was about the size of the larger Senior machine, but it was powered, and an interesting feature was the drive to the table. This was operated by a connecting rod and crank arrangement, the radius of the crank being adjustable. The crankshaft was driven by a worm and wheel, the axis of the wheel and crankshaft being vertical.