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Showing posts from October, 2014

Salvaging a molding plane blade set

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The  ginnan-mentori-kanna  that I wanted to use for a 6mm diameter corner bead was sitting in pieces for months in that essential workshop container - a plastic beer mug.  The former kanna owner had lost the blade geometry and shattered the chipbreaker blade tip, so the blade set had to be reshaped and fitted. The dai needed minor truing. Just like any western molding planes, the sharpening can be challenging. Here is where I started:

Ari shakuri kanna (dovetail plane) - dai rebuild

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Ari shakuri (jyakuri) kanna  - dai rebuild: Knowing that I had many sliding dovetails to make,  I looked on eBay for a solid, undamaged, and relatively unused kanna that would suffice as a plane for sliding dovetails. I found this:  I expect old kanna dai to warp over time and this one was no exception, but at least the blades were better than expected.  You will notice this is a fixed (no adjustable fences), single purpose, skewed rabbet plane (cuts 90 degrees), not an ari-shakuri-kanna. However, I originally thought I would alter the dai and main blade to deliver 77 degrees. Once I saw the kink in the dai and the otherwise nice condition of it, I opted to just create a derivative of it and leave the original alone.