I decided to make my 3rd and 4th PMQ, but I hate planing a little, measuring a little and repeating 100 times. I decided to try making a planing form. It is a 0.5 inch wide flat steel strip contained between two stacks of hardwood strips. Bolts are welded to the bottom of the steel every 5 inches. The bolts stick through holes in brackets in the very bottom of the forms. I threaded a hole in the bottom bracket to stick a screw up to touch the bottom of the steel strip. It is basically a push-pull from the bottom. I attached one photo of the finished product. I can't start planing till next week, but am interested in any feedback if you have used something like this. Any pitfalls, advice, etc. Hopefully, this was not a complete waste of time! Thanks.

Good idea. I've brainstormed this a few times, but couldn't come up with anything solid. Nothing that would be any easier than building hex forms, anyway.

I wonder if you might have trouble with the strips sliding around (or worse, rolling) in the 1/2" space.

If you could get that solid, you could really hog off some cane without worrying about over planing.

Not a bad idea, but how are you going to hold the strip in place? Hex forms depend on the taper to do that....

My strips tend to roll even when doing a strip the regular way. How do you guys prevent it? It seems just the weight of the plane causes my tips to roll, sometimes to the point of being unusable. Any tips or ideas?

I built one last year, and I ended up clamping the strips down flat. It still took lots of measuring to keep the strip square. You could put some sort of clamping system on that form, maybe even some push screws coming in from the side to clamp the strip in place.

I've never had much trouble with rolling. Maybe it's my regimen.

After filing and flattening the nodes, I start planing on the pith side. The first passes I just take off the inside radius, so it' flat across. I then try to square up the sides to the pith side. Once that is done, I lay the strip on the pith side, and using a cabinet scrapper, take off the enamel. With the enamel is gone, I do a couple more passes with the scrapper (we're talking .001" or less, per pass) keeping it as square and as level as possible to create a bit of flatness on the enamel side that will resist rocking.

I then go back to the pith side, and take it down to rough plane dimensions, taking a pass or two on the sides, from time to time, to keep the strip from being too wide. Remember that the finished strip will be 2:1 width to thickness, so while working the strips, I try to keep them between 3:1 and 4:1. Any wider is asking for trouble when you do your final sizing after glue up.

Having a good flat surface to work on is critical. What I have been using is a 2"x6"x6' yellow pine board as my planing bench. It's not the best choice, being a soft wood, but it's cost effective.

I like that approach. I do the pith first and some of the sides, but leave the enamel scraping until I am within 0.002 or so, so that I end near the final dimension. Your approach is better and will help rolling, especially at the fine tip. I look forward to trying it on my next rod.

As for the form, I set the depths today and, as feared, the depth at each station is very exact and easy to set, but the steel strip is not flat enough (or level enough side to side). It varies by 0.002 or 0.003 in some spots. I am going to raise the steel bar enough so that it is slightly above the wood in all spots and then draw file it to get it flat side-to-side and between stations. Elbow grease, but no more money!

Planing the strips to thickness is not too bad... After gluing the two strips together, I use a machinist vise to keep the enamel (scraped, of course) side perpendicular to the side I'm cutting. I can work about a 4" section at a time. It was the answer to twist, and keeping the blank square as I plane. HTH! --Jaybird

Here's a pic....



--Jaybird