The Technique of FURNITURE MAKING

Planes for curved surfaces

Shaped edges which are convex can be worked with a smoothing - or block-plane provided the curve is not too acute, but for quick curves and concave edges a metal compass-plane is obtainable whose flexible spring steel face can be adjusted to any arc. This is an expensive tool proportionate to the amount of use which could be found for it, and given a true eye most curved edges can be worked equally well—but rather more slowly—with spokeshaves which have either a flat face for convex work or a round face for concave work. The screw-adjustable type illustrated is easier to handle than the cheaper version in which the cutter is secured with a thumb-screw and which must be set by hand. A chamfer version with two adjustable fences set at a true angle of 45° was manufactured until recently and is probably still available. For difficult woods there is much to be said for the wooden spokeshave illustrated in Figure 54A, in which the iron is flat to the wood, cutting bevel uppermost, and the writer has always preferred this type, although it is probably only a matter of individual preference. For rough and rapid shaping the carpenter's drawknife (54B) will dispose of a great deal of timber in the shortest possible time, but it must be razor sharp. In the hands of an expert it can be made to work to precision limits. It can be used bevel down for either light cutting or convex shapes, or bevel up for heavy cutting or concave shapes.

In all spokeshaving operations a slight shear­ing or diagonal direction to the cut will minimize any tendency to clatter or form ridges which may be difficult to eradicate.

Moulding-planes

Some types are still available although they have been almost entirely superseded by the spindle moulder/shaper and high-speed router; moreover the traditional flutes, reeds, ovolo and ogee mouldings are less used in modern work. When such work was done by hand

European pattern worked upright, the English pattern worked at an angle which was always marked on the end of the plane.

These planes are always worth acquiring whenever possible—the writer bought a full half set (18) of rounding-planes and some dozens of moulding-planes for pennies each in a junkshop just before the Second World War—for although the machine might be regarded as indispensable there will always be the time when only an odd length of a particular moulding is required. Given the necessary tool it will be much quicker to work the length by hand rather than spend an hour or more grinding a special cutter and setting up a machine. Figure 436 shows a cocktail cabinet with a fluted drawer front worked entirely with a round moulding-plane.

exclusively it was usual for the cabinet-maker to have a half set of rounding-planes (Figure 55:1) for working hollows, etc., and perhaps a few hollow-planes for working rounds (55:2) together with several beading-, ovolo - and ogee moulding-planes, some of which he would make for himself out of short ends of red park beech always set aside for tool-making. A typical ovolo-plane is shown in 55:3 and, while the

Scratch stocks

Without a suitable moulding-plane small mouldings were often worked with this simple tool; moreover it is still extremely useful for cutting narrow grooves for inlays, strings, bandings, etc. It is simply made from a solid block (or two pieces of suitable hardwood screwed together) with a saw cut through the arm to take a piece of old saw - or scraper-blade ground and filed to the shape required (56B), and held in the correct position by a pinch-grip with suitably placed screws (56A). The cutter can be filed, square-edged and burred/burled over as for a scraper, in which case the scratch stock is worked backwards and forwards with a rocking movement, or it can be bevel ground and burred over as for a scraper-plane iron.

Scrapers

One of the most useful of hand-tools is the steel cabinet-scraper, which is merely a blank of steel about 12 gauge in thickness, 21/2 in (63 mm) wide and from 4 in (101 mm) to 6 in (152 mm) long (the 5 in [127 mm] size is most popular). The long edges must be filed flat and truly square with a mill-saw or similar file, the side burrs taken off on the oilstone and the edges honed to a mirror finish. These edges are then burred over with a ticketter (burnisher), which is nothing more than a short length of silver steel suitably hardened, and the scraper is either held upright at the edge of the bench or laid flat. A few heavy strokes of the burnisher (some workers lick the steel to give it an extra bite) at an angle of about 85° should be sufficient to raise an effective cutting burr/burl which can be restored several times without refiling simply by wiping the burr back on the flat faces and then re-forming at a slightly lower angle. The scraper is held in both hands, thumbs in the centre, with sufficient pressure to bed the steel in a slight arc, and pushed forward at an angle of about 120° to the body; the angle can be reversed and drawn towards the body if preferred.

Properly sharpened and held correctly the scraper should be capable of taking long shavings of tissue thinness from even the most

difficult of woods, and it is therefore invaluable for the last fine finishing, especially of veneered work. However, in scraping out torn grain or other imperfection on surfaces which will be gloss polished great care must be taken not to localize the strokes, but to spread them over a fairly wide area, otherwise hollows will be created which will eventually show rather like a bumpy road under a car's headlights. A sound rule to follow is one stroke over the bad patch, one ahead, one behind and one each on either side. For scraping difficult surfaces, especially when they are impregnated with resin glue, the floor-finisher's trick of dampening the surface with water can be adopted, while for curved work and simple mouldings the standard scraper-blade can be ground and filed to conform to any sweep.

A good scraper in first-class condition can become hot enough to blister the thumbs and some workers pad the thumb-tips with surgical tape. Others prefer the scraper-plane in which a steel blank is set at an angle of about 10° from the vertical in a suitable handled holder, with the blade bevel-ground like a plane-iron, and the bevel burred over at an angle of about 15° from the grinding bevel. A thumb-screw in the centre bows the iron so that it cuts in the centre as in the hand-scraper, and the plane is pushed away from the body with the cutter leaning forwards.