[steve knight]

I am thinking of getting a cdc router to do jobs for others and make products and signs and such anything I can think of to help out my income. I make wood hand planes for a living right now.
here is what I was thinking this is not exactly what I want to do I would be after just a simple v cut out of the center of the block. one angle stays the same the otehr can be 45 to 60 degrees. depth of cut is about 3" max in hard tropical woods. is this even practial to do? I thought of a cnc mill to do it. but I don't think I could make much of a income doing metal work.

[Ken_Shea]

Steve,
With what I am seeing or think I am seeing, this is not going to be readily done on a mill or router.


If first sawing the rough block in half and then machining each half would be acceptable then it looks very CNC doable.
This would add additional steps, the cutting of two blocks for one part and then gluing/screwing/dowel them together before profiling the outside, so this may not be practical.
These steps could also offer opportunity to add some contrast using dark wood plugs to the sides where you cap off the screw or dowel pin counter bore, this may even be a look you would like.

Ken

[Arthur Clampitt]

Looks to me like it's a composite of at least 5 parts bonded together , If so I'd have thought that almost any decent router would make the parts

[Karl_T]

The cuts are just what a shaper does. As you have angled cuts from both the X plane and the Y plane, you need a five axis CNC shaper to do this. Complex machine.

[ger21]

As Arthur said, any router should be able to do the seperate pieces before assembly. Once assemble, though, it would be nearly impossible to cut out the inside, without needing a lot of handwork afterward.

[steve knight]

right now I glue them together. it is not really hard or time consuming. this one does not show the adjustable mouth I now have. I doubt using a cnc would be much faster then I can cut them on my chopsaw. maybe if I did several at once but the setup would take longer.
I know the hold hand planes were carved out by machine in some way. they may have used more of a mortise machine to do it. but the bulk was machine out.
now I would not put the slots in the sides that you see just a v cutout with smooth sides.
I Know I could do it on a mill but it would be pointless to do it manually as it would not save me any time.
this is mroe what the inside would look like

[steve knight]

I should add some info. The plane is 4 separate parts there is a sole glued onto the middle block. Then that is all squared up and then I drill the two holes I cut the angle the plane iron sits on. That can be anywhere from 45 to 60 degrees. I have a Makita scms for the job. Then I cut the second piece at about 60 and also there is a cut on the sole to make a mouth that slides.
Then I drill the holes for the pins in the sides and then I glue it all up.
Then square it all up again then I cut the sides on a bandsaw and sand the sides to shape.
Since these are tropical woods they are hard to route they can blow out and dull bits pretty fast.
If I was doing large amounts I could see doing them all cnc. But I only do 200 to 300 a year.
But if I could mil the inside out and just have to make a body block with a sole it would save quite a bit of time and they would be more accurate.

knight-toolworks you can see more of what I do.

[InspirationTool]

Hi Steve!

I'm a woodworker and have admired your planes for years.

I do believe that it is possible to do the whole plane body, including the square sided internal V in one operation with a 4 axis set up. You'd have to get someone experienced in 4 axis machining to know for sure.

I believe the old planes had the square internal corners cut with floats. You could do these on a 3 axis and then come back with a custom made float (called a broach in the metalworking world) to make the inside corners sharp.

-Jeff