Friday, May 16, 2014

Making A Rabbet Plane

When making moulding by hand you will need a method to accurately and efficiently create rabbets. There are many ways to do this. I use a table saw on occassion, but I often just use a rabbet plane.



A rabbet plane is not necessary to create a rabbet. If, however, you use a shoulder plane or rabbet block plane without content you shall not conclude that making this feature by hand is tedious or inaccurate.

On June 7th and 8th I will be teaching a class on making a rabbet plane at Lie-Nielsen. In this class you will learn how to make mortises by hand using floats, how to fit a wedge and how to bed an iron, among many other things. All of these skills are directly relatable to successfully making side escapement planes and others. The tool list is too.

I imagine this class as a perfect supplement to Larry Williams' dvd on making side escapement planes. This class will be a hands on experience using the same tools (i.e. floats) while making a plane that compliments side escapement planes perfectly.

I previously posted in regards to making a rabbet plane. Come to Maine and try it out. The process is time consuming, but straight forward.

As a side note, I made this video back when I first started the blog. It's still relevant.



If you don't like the production quality, you can check out my new dvd.

5 comments:

  1. thanks ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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  2. I'll see you this weekend at the workshop...can't wait!

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  3. Shoulder plane were never meant to shoot rabbet, they were meant to plane shoulders of tenons, that is end grain. they don't work fine along the grain. and why don't you use moving fillisters to shoot the rabbet, they are so pleasing to use and you can have a couple of them set to different sizes. Keep up the wonderfull work.

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    1. Francois,
      I do not think I ever stated that a shoulder plane works "fine" along the grain. I stated that it is possible to make a rabbet with one, which it is (just like a rabbet block: possible). I've listed several reasons why a shoulder plane is not ideal, in fact.

      I don't use moving fillisters because the fence and depth stops are tedious, never as accurate as a gauge line, get in the way when working on small pieces and rendered useless when working on a piece that has multiple rabbets that are either deeper than the thickness of the fillester's fence or wider than the depth stop.

      Thanks for the note,
      Matt

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  4. I guess being french is not an excuse for not getting all the subtletises! And you must be right about the fillisters, my mind is still in shaper work mode, I got to practise more with the rabbet plane!

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