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Need help making this cutting tool for the planer.

swatkins

Titanium
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Location
Navasota / Whitehall Texas
A couple of years ago I had a mishap and snapped the neck on a really great planer tool. I have kept an eye out for a new one for years but none have crossed my path.

I suspect, but don't know for sure, that the tool has been forged to shape and I have been thinking about making a few more before the February scraping class. Problem is I have no idea on where to really start. I would think it's a piece of tool steel that is heated and beat into shape.

I still have the pieces of the tool but I think welding it back together would be futile.

Anyone know how these were made?

Here is a short video of the tool working in the planer.

 
That´s a more unusual one but I´d say it works in the same way as most goose/swan neck tools does. Under pressure the cutting edge lifts Out of the material reducing DOC rather than dig in to it due to having its "hinging point" in front of the cutting edge.
Post #158 in this thread gives has a good sketch illustrating the concept to be scouting for, or making.
Shaper owners
 
Do you know anyone who is a blacksmith? That is a blacksmithing job. The difficult parts are HSS has a narrow forging range, and decarb. You will have to grind off some amount of material to get below the decarb area to find your cutting tool.

I'm sure some HSS materials are better than others for forging, but I don't believe I've ever seen suggestions.

An alternative would be to recreate the gooseneck portion in a heat treated alloy steel. Then you could make it so it could hold a piece of straight HSS with the proper grind.
 
Carbon tool steel (think W1) will be less of a problem for the Smith

Planers by definition never get up to HSS cutting speeds. To even get to 60 SFM you would have to be able to make it across a 12" length in ONE SECOND

Yes, you will have to pay more attention in grinding the stuff - that is why there were wet wheel grinders

I have a 2" bar (about 2 feet) of W1 for donation if you like

And it is worth mentioning that very nearly ALL the thousands of tons of jobs that went across planer tables before about 1900 were done with high carbon tool steel cutting tools
 
Carbon tool steel (think W1) will be less of a problem for the Smith

Planers by definition never get up to HSS cutting speeds. To even get to 60 SFM you would have to be able to make it across a 12" length in ONE SECOND

Yes, you will have to pay more attention in grinding the stuff - that is why there were wet wheel grinders

I have a 2" bar (about 2 feet) of W1 for donation if you like

If you've ever seen a 20 ft table going at 200 ft a minute you wouldn't want to stand too close. I remember some guys working on converting a planer to be able to be used as a plano-mill but still be used as a planer. After the job was finished they were were trying it out with nothing on the table but on the maximum stroke and top speed.

I had to go out of the shop for a few hours, when I came back the table was outside the building and there was a table shaped hole in the corrugated asbestos panelled wall. After that I only ever walked past the end of running planing machines when the table was going away from me.

Regards Tyrone.
 
Steve,

That goose neck tool I gave you there I'm sure was carbon steel when it was made at the turn of the century.
Dad always used a broad nose cemented carbide tool for cleaning up wide surfaces like you were doing with great results. No chatter whatsoever! I see one issue, you're not advancing the tool over enough for each cut. You should be going at least two thirds the width of the too over for each cut. That means, having to hand feed it. I don't remember how far the tool moves on one revolution of the crank handle, may have to give the crank two turns per pass to get a much broader cut. You're playing at .200" per pass!!! :D Ken
 
Steve,

That goose neck tool I gave you there I'm sure was carbon steel when it was made at the turn of the century.
Dad always used a broad nose cemented carbide tool for cleaning up wide surfaces like you were doing with great results. No chatter whatsoever! I see one issue, you're not advancing the tool over enough for each cut. You should be going at least two thirds the width of the too over for each cut. That means, having to hand feed it. I don't remember how far the tool moves on one revolution of the crank handle, may have to give the crank two turns per pass to get a much broader cut. You're playing at .200" per pass!!! :D Ken

Give me a break.. It was the very first time the planer had ever run!

Like you've never made a mistake MR. I park on Grass. :D
 
SWatkins:

It is great to watch your youtube of the planer taking a cut. The tool you were using looked like a smaller version of the "swan necked" tool. Many years ago, the swan necked tools were forged from much larger high carbon tool steel bar stock. No tool holders were used. The tool in your youtube is obviously a lot smaller.

The answer as to where to get another tool like the one that broke was stated by gbent. In the days when planers were in common use, most machine shops had a forge and anvil and maybe a power hammer to forge tools and hold-down hardware. Machinists were taught to forge and temper high carbon steel cutting tools when they were apprentices. In later years, shops often kept a gas fired forge around for this sort of work instead of the coal fired forge hearths.

Getting hold of some steel to make another cutting tool is going to be difficult in today's world. Finding W-1 (water hardening) bar stock, aside from John Oder's kind offer, is not so easy nowadays. If you have access to at least an anvil and a rosebud (and don't mind using a LOT of oxygen and acetylene), you can forge a new tool.

My own suggestion is to get a scrapped cutting edge from a road grader or highway snow plow truck. Those cutting edges are usually something like a 1060 steel. That steel will "take hardness" but not be up to the job that the high carbon tool steel is. What I'd do is "combine the best of both worlds": forge the shank and "swan neck" out of the 1060 steel, and if you want to play around with it, you can go so far as to harden (oil quench) and temper to maybe a brown color or on the edge of a blue color. This will leave some hardness and allow the tool shank to spring. I'd forge the business end of the tool out to a flat-topped section, and file it off nice and flat. I'd then braze a cemented carbide insert to that portion of the tool. I've got a box of rather large plain carbide inserts, probably from some large face mill cutter. They are square, about 5/8" or 3/4" on a side x maybe 1/8" thick. I got them in a load of other tooling, and while I do not own the cutter that would take them, let alone a mill big enough to run it, I do use those inserts by brazing them onto my own shanks. With a diamond wheel, I then dress the carbide to what I need.

This approach would give you a cemented carbide tool, could be ground to a broad-nose, and you'd have your swan-neck for some spring in the tool shank. Put the tool shank/swan neck in a can of damp sand to try to limit the spread of heat from the brazing so as not to draw the temper in the swan neck.

Years ago, the blacksmiths who forged cutting tools did forge weld high carbon tool steel for cutting edges to mild or medium carbon steel shanks or tool-bodies.
I would not try welding the swan necked tool that you had.
 
I'm a blacksmith who hangs around here a bit. I haven't been posting a lot lately. Most of my old industrial forging books have a section on making lathe tools.

Copying that tool looks relatively simple. Let me root around and see if I still have that piece of W-1. I'll make a test tool for my shaper, if I get the heat treat right we can talk about your tool.
 
If you could forge the appropriate shape from an alloy steel I don't know if heat treating would benefit. You could silver braze HSS to make the cutting edge. I have used parting blades when I needed a large piece of HSS. You could also send me a gooseneck and I could weld on the cutting edge with HSS welding rod.

Do you still have the broken tool? Pictures would be great. Is the entire time tool hardened or just the cutting edge?
 
Yup, it would be simple to silver braze on a HSS edge if necessary, which would mess up the heat treat.

I wouldn't worry about forge welding on a steel edge. That was technique used primarily to conserve scarce and precious steel. We have more, better quality, cheaper steel available, so steeling an edge is mostly an unnecessary expense.
 
HSS can be silver brazed with little loss of hardness. But for harder cutting tools after brazing I use cast cobalt based tools such as Stellite "j".
 
Here are some planer tool links that I may have posted in another thread before
International Library of Technology: A Series of Textbooks for Persons Engaged in the ... : International Textbook Company : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
This one shows the under hung tool.
International Library of Technology: A Series of Textbooks for Persons Engaged in the ... : International Textbook Company : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Some more from another book.
Planing and milling; a treatise on the use of planers, shapers, ... - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library
Large Carbide inserts with a hole in them could be used on a tool shown at B in this link .
Planing and milling; a treatise on the use of planers, shapers, ... - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library

You could probably use square inserts as well but you would need to have a locating face as part of the shank to keep the insert in position and possibly a plate or washer on the back side large enough to distribute the stress on the carbide .
Larger pieces of H.S.S. could also be drilled to attach then to a shank using a carbide drill for hardened materials .
I have modified some masonry carbide tipped drills sometimes called cement drills to do this where the hole diameter doesn’t need to be precise .
You need to grind the ends to a 4 facet point and clean and equalize the carbide flute face .
I drilled through the scrap piece of H.S.S. Corrugated knife stock that is about 60 Rc. or close to the same hardness as most M2 H.S.S. tool bits with the 1/4” dia. masonry drill I sharpened on Christen drill grinder but could also be done on a tool and cutter grinder with a diamond wheel .
You might get by hand grinding the drill on a bench grinder with a green grit silicon carbide wheel as well but diamond wheels work much better.
If you need a more precise hole size you would have to grind the O,D, of the carbide tip in another cylindrical grinding operation on a cutter or cylindrical grinder again with a diamond wheel .
Regards,
Jim
 

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I'm ''pretty sure'' that at one time you could get ''gooseneck'' tool holders that took an inserted HSS blank - just like a lathe toolholder for a lantern toolpost.

Even if there was no such beast - it would be an easy enough machining job ...……..the only exception being the square socket which I believe can be bought ''off the shelf'' as a broached sq hole in a piece of round - and brazed / silver soldered in place.

On Edit I found this pic as a guide - conversion to shaper / planer shouldn't be a problem.

Vintage lathe cutting tool, 7" long x 5/8" thick - The Tool Exchange
 
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This 52 size Armstrong has an interesting feature of the adjustable "strut" screw to limit how much "give" the goose neck has.

An added plus are three detents for controlling toolbit angle

This size takes a 5/16" toolbit
 

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HSS can be silver brazed with little loss of hardness. But for harder cutting tools after brazing I use cast cobalt based tools such as Stellite "j".

I meant any heat treat I might do on the forged tool. 🙂 I was having an internal dialog about whether to put a spring temper on the neck and I only typed my conclusion.
 
When I make a HSS cutoff or slotting lathe tool, I use a cutoff wheel in a side grinder to notch out the HSS blank. I ALWAYS save that little chunk of HSS and stash it in my toolbox. You can silver solder or just braze it onto any piece of keystock to make a wild variety of specialty cutters for the lathe, shaper/planer or even flycutter. I think I'd look at making something that's kind of a cross between the original tool and the Armstrong JO posted. Instead of forging, you could rough it out of plain old mild steel plate with a torch and then clean it up. Make the gooseneck, but put a bolt in the bend to limit travel. Braze a hunk of HSS on for a cutting edge.
 
That looks like a flashing or flushing tool, I had a holder I made that took inserts i made out of cut up files. I'd make one if i were you, they make life really easy.

FYI that's a finishing tool, I wouldnt take more than a couple thou with that. We usually used those for finish surfacing. Wide steps, at .0015 or so and you've got a darn flat pretty table top, or whatever.

If you want I may have some planer pushers laying around that might fit those holes if you want to eschew the vise.
 








 
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