Free Wooden Rabbet Plane Plans

So in the spirit of getting everyone in the shop and cutting up some wood I decided to post up a measured drawing of a 3/4" wooden rabbet plane in the 18th century style.

It is all wood with the exception of the blade which is easily gotten from Lie-Nielsen here. It features a conical escapement and some simple embellishments that a hand plane, chisel, and #7 sweep gouge can handle.

The plans are basic with a few things that can be easily changed if you like. Such as the bed angle is shown at 55˚, for hardwoods, but could be 45˚or 50˚or even 60˚. I show boxing on the plane but it is of course not a must especially if you are using a hard wood like beech in the first place but it will increase the life of the sole for a heavy user if you decide to add it. And of course you can increase or decrease the width.

I only have one request and that is if you want to post these anywhere else online please link back to this page/ post. I offer these as a free download but they are not intended for commercial use. Again please limit the use of this design to your personal use and please don't be silly and try to sell them on Ebay. It is FREE! and it is © copy right protected.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE DOWNLOAD PAGE. (Click on the download button in the upper right corner of the new page to begin download.)

Have fun ya'll!

NOTE: The plans are in PDF format. If you don't have a PDF reader Adobe Acrobat is a free software that will make it viewable and printable. The plans are 11"x17" and any print shop can print this or just print it in two pages on your home computer. Make sure where ever you print it that the "scale" is set to 100% or the measurements won't be accurate on the print.

If I made any errors anywhere in the plans please let me know so I can update them.

UPDATE: 3/25/13

Hey all, I for some reason I noted 1” where it should have been 3” on the drawing for the mouth location along the sole of the plane. The drawing is still correct but the stated length was a typo. I corrected it. The updated version has a title ending in 3/25/13.

That is what I get for editing my own work. Sorry. Download again if you are in doubt otherwise the error should be very obvious and the physical measurement otherwise is correct either way.

Beech Wood for Planemaking

SEE MY UPDATE FOR BEECH WOOD HERE

Could I have bought a bigger log? I think not. When you ask a mill to cut a particular type of tree for you you better specify the size, I guess. You live and learn. Beech is so seldom cut in our forest that I think the feller was just itching to drop a big one. He probably was saving this one for just the day that someone asked for a beech. 

So I never ended up making it home with this one. This is a 18-1/2' log. It measures 31" on smallest end. I didn't get far down the road and decided to give a friend a call to see if I could park it at his place and come back and cut it up later. I had a 2 1/2 hour drive through the mountains of TN so I wasn't feeling comfortable. This log had to of weighed easily more than my truck.

Anyhow this is where I will be getting wood dimensioned properly for solid wood moulding planes. I need it perfectly quarter sawn so I will be riving this up just like windsor chair parts. You can't get any more quartered than that. 

After some time drying I will be up and running. I hope to ease the pain of others that have been looking desperately, like me, for proper wood. I don't have prices yet but I plan to sell moulding plane blanks. I already have some awesome curly hard maple drying for some specialty plane bodies.

If you need beech wood for moulding planes let me know and I will put you on my list. I will have larger plane bodies as well for Smoothing, Jack and Jointer planes.

Just for fun I will post some photos of me splitting this up. :) I need a bigger saw...ugh!