The Veritas Combination Plane
Part two – groovin’ baby
I had several emails requesting details of the box I built for the Combination Plane in the first article. I did take photos during construction, since I thought that these would illustrate some of the ways in which one can quickly knock together boxes for tools. No plan – it really is a simple exercise to work this out, and it is a good exercise to learn to do so (I have never built anything from a plan). I do have some dimensions later on.
Below: detail of the double bead …
The joinery here is really quite basic, essentially all of it is a groove. Even the bead is really just another form of a groove …. I plan to leave the beading to another time, and concentrate on the grooving for now.
We start with the four sides and two sections for the base and top. These need to be sized and squared. This box is built from ¼” thick Hard Maple scraps left over from a kitchen build (the panel inserts were ¼” thick). I would otherwise have preferred 3/8” – ½” thick sides. In the end the mitred construction works well as the box is really small: 12” long x 6” wide and 9” high. The mitres are simply glued together. There is no reinforcement. No butterfly keys. You can do this to beef up the construction, but I have made many of these boxes and not found it lacking in strength.
The first step is to plane the grooves for the base and the sliding lid.
The groove is ¼” wide.
Below, the two end pieces are ganged together …
This is what we are after …
Setting up the plane to plough a groove
Grooves are typically planed with the grain. Try and arrange for this. The nicker is retracted out of the way as it is not needed.
Set the depth stop. For this box, with its ¼” thick sides, I have chosen to go down half of this, that is, 1/8”.
It is also a good idea to wax the fence. A slippery fence makes the plane feel lighter and move more freely. Add a little wax if you feel the blade becoming dull and you only have one or two passes to make. It is like the blade was sharpened.
When planing, my non-dominant hand is pushing the plane against the fence. This will keep the plane locked in.
Sometimes it is inevitable that you will plane against the grain, as I had to do here. To prevent the groove spelching (breaking its sides), use a cutting gauge to knife the groove’s sidelines …
… and then begin with a light cut .. fine shavings … until the groove is established. At that point you can take deeper passes …
The plane will stop cutting when the depth stop bottoms out. Keep an eye on how this is progressing. Do not push down hard on the depth stop. While the Combination Depth stop is really solid and will not move position, hard pressure can mark the work piece. All that are needed are light strokes until you feel it touching.
Mitres
Were you aware that the Combination plane shapes mitres? That would indeed surprise the designers of this plane!
Obviously, you need to shoot these after the grooves are made …
This is a ramped shooting board with a low angle strike block plane …
When planing mitred sides, the accuracy of the mitres is obviously important. Check the mitres for square as well as accurate 45-degree corners.
The integrity and accuracy of the corners are affected also by fit. It is vital that all opposing sides are exactly equal in length. Place the boards back-to-back and ensure that they are a match …
Once all sides are done, lay the pieces in sequential order and use blue tape to connect them. I add a little stretch when applying the tape, so that the parts are pulled together …
Size up the bottom board. Allow for expansion in the groove …
Before this is glued, saw away an end section where the lid will slide in. More on the construction shortly.
The box sides may now be glued up.
The lid
The wood for the lid is ¼” thick Jarrah (mine was slightly over and, rather than plane it all down, I added slight rebates (rabbets) to the edges with the blade already in the Combination Plane). The lid runs on grooves and has a pull that is mitred and melds with the box.
Below the grooves, which we planes earlier (at the same time as the grooves for the bottom) …
The lid slides out …
To connect the lid to the outer edge, a groove was ploughed in a matching piece of Hard Maple …
This was sawn away and planed to the same thickness as the box.
The groove offers more surface area for glue …
The edge is cut to length to fit the box, and the two sections are glued together …
And the box is done …
This build is best done with music from the Young Rascals :)
Regards from Perth
Derek
March 2018