Router Plane/plough Plane Imagination

Good day to you all. I'm new to the instructables experience so you'll need to bear with me for this one... it's short. I don't consider myself a teacher or anyone wanting to be something they're not, just putting this out there for people to use.

So my wife's birthday is coming soon and I've never liked buying clothes or fancy jewellery etc. Always preferred to make things for gifts... this year I decided to make her a magnetic kitchen knife holder - she's been talking about a spot to put her blades... something that beats the usual place in the drawer - I decided to take a challenge head on.

Step 1: To the Bits

I had acquired some wood - that I think is sapele - from next to a dustbin outside someones house... I was on an evening stroll with my wife. The wood was an old garden table someone had chucked out. This all happened about a month ago.
So I finally got into the garage, cut a piece off of the table, planed down my now rough sawn timber with a no.5 stanley jointing plane and started to get things rolling on the knife holder.

Step 2: The Trouble

I marked out the spot for my magnets to sit and started to chisel out the excess with a 6mm and 22mm chisel I own (I have no electricity in the garage and own no power tools) which doesn't phase me... I got to the point where I had a rabet (correction is needed if I'm wrong) along my work piece but the depth was slightly different along the surface. I remembered watching a paul sellers YouTube tutorial on how to make a "poor man's router" and though it would be perfect for me... only exception being, I don't own a bit for my brace that's the same size as a chisel I own. So I got a bit creative...

Step 3: Solution

Scratching my head for a bit, I had a "brain fart"... I had some beech wood scraps - from a sofa I took apart to make my wife a step/stool to reach things on the top shelf - that I decided to use along with my 6mm chisel and two 3" G clampls I had gotten from a salvation army shop in Eastbourne and decided to make a plan... I took 2 pieces of the beech wood (roughly 2" long) and decided to clamp them onto either side of my chisel. The pictures will hopefully be more helpful than my writing, but it really works well...

It's a bit of a trick to set the depth and make sure it's true and level to your work piece, but if you're like me and don't have much, it'll definitely put a smile on your dial :) I think it would make anyone happy, and it works amazingly well.

Comments

[MoparDude]

WOW what a BF you had. I really loved your Instructable.

[Chrystalkay]

People with ideas are my kind of people! I know you are new to this sharing method, so I would like to share a tip or two. You have a good picture of the failed try before you made your jig. You have 4 pictures of the tool in the clamped wood. Now you need a picture of the jig working. With the tool on the working surface and what the after effect is.... the finished cut. Also, tips on how many passes it might take for a sample depth, or if it takes just one depth pass and maybe one finishing pass to do this. How to figure out the depth/length of the sticking out part of the tool and if you need any other kind of bracing for the work piece and how to work it so the bracing doesn't get in the way of the cutting. In other words, pretend that your audience does not have a peep hole into your work space and need to see what you are doing and why. I hope your wife appreciates you! You sound like a super - handy - man!

[J-Moloney]

Thanks for the tips Chrystalkay, I'm not too sure how to redo/edit what I've done already... what I did was clamp a thin piece of scrap wood across my workmate to act as a bench dog/brace, I used the side of my work piece to get the chisel to ride 2mm from the end and also removed most of the waste without the plane, it was just the finishing off that the plane came in handy lol. This is a far from perfect tool as well and takes a lot of messing around with to get good results, but it was perfect in my time of need... only have one other picture of the finished product as well, I need to take more pics but hardly have my phone on me. I really appreciate the feedback, when I post another - if I post another - I'll definitely take your words to heart.

[seamster]

This looks like good, simple way to do this. Thank you for sharing the idea . . and welcome to instructables!!

[J-Moloney]

Thanks seamster, really appreciate it! Looks like you've made heap loads of awesome things. -respect-

[J-Moloney]

Try it on a test piece first