minding the gap - introducing the K8

There has been a gap in the K-series line-up for some time. A friend and customer pointed it out last May at HandWorks, and with a wry grin, asked where it was. Yup - gauntlet down.

After the shorter and higher bed angle K9, I had new insights into developing a K8, and it seemed like the logical time to do it. The K8 has an 8" sole footprint and a 1-7/8" wide blade. Not a standard width, but this is about as wide as is practical for anyone with small to medium sized hands. The wider the plane gets, the more open your hand is (on the rear infill). When your hand is too open, it can fatigue quite quickly.

There were a few subtle design changes to developing this plane, but the language has already been established, and I am very familiar and comfortable with it now.

This is the K8 prototype, and is one of only two that I have parted with. When Joe and I started Sauer & Steiner toolworks in 2001, one of the founding principals was we were always going to be ‘making our own planes’. We started making planes because these are what we wanted to use - and that is as true for me now as it was then. But I have quite a few planes. Well... (almost) too many planes. I have 40 prototypes -8 of which are unhandled smoothers. It was time to let one of them go. I may live to regret it, but it is going to a good home, and will be well cared for and used more than I will likely be able to use it. And I make these planes to be used. I love seeing photos of them years later when they are full of dust, patina and even the odd ding or dent.

I cleaned up the french polish that inevitably runs over the steel sidewalls, and took a few photos to send to the customer and for my own records. Here they are.

 

Oh, the infill is Desert Ironwood.

finishing the badger plane

It is a good thing I never throw anything away - especially jigs or fixtures. I do not recall how long it took me to come up with the above fixture the first time, but boy, was I ever grateful I could just grab it off the shelf this time! 

This set-up may strike terror in most machinists. It is a furniture makers approach, using furniture makers tools. Sometimes, it is a real advantage to not have any formal training. I had taken extensive photos of building the first badger plane, and used those images to double check my set-up for the second one. I was pleased that they looked almost identical when I compared them on the laptop.

The cross pin fit perfectly, but I was not out of the woods yet. Just as I was sliding the pin in, I realized I had to pien it. Now normally, piening a cross pin is pretty easy - the pin is perpendicular to the anvil. When you strike the end of the exposed pin, the other end is on the anvil, allowing the struck end to deform and fill the chamfered hole. Not so much with this plane. The pin is at a pretty severe, compound angle, so the force of piening does not transfer the same way. I modified how I piened it and it ‘felt’ and ‘looked’ like it should... but I wouldn’t really find out until the lapping was done.

The cross pin for the lever cap piened.

Needless to say, I lapped this plane as soon as I possibly could. I had to know if the lever cap pin was done correctly. Thankfully, everything came out as expected.

Even positioning the plane to file the mouth felt odd. It looked pretty weird, and I had to be very aware of the tapered shape of the inside of the front bun. I covered it in blue tape just in case. 

The finished mouth.

I am really pleased with how this plane has turned out, but my absolute favourite part is using it. Similar to a spill plane, it creates beautiful tightly coiled shavings. They spill out over the low dip in the sidewall... almost like it was made for it.

(Walnut, Rosewood and Holly)