Well, I'm incorrigible, and there can be no doubt
Imagine a spokeshave shaped body with a full plane blade in it.
Many years ago I came across a tool base. Never saw another like it. I
am pretty sure it was a one-off invention someone had. Probably a cooper
of course haahaha
My guess is, it was conceived to be a swift....
or downright, plucker, cooper's shave
If it ever worked it was missing parts when I met it.
And truly, just between you 'n me, I suspect it never worked.
So I tossed it into the corner and totally forgot about it for years.
Not that you ever did anything like that I'm sure, lol
One day on a wild hair I decided to make it work.
I quickly found out why it had been hard to get going originally.
I decided to mount an old Stanley plane frog to it, to hold the blade
and provide adjustments. Only it didn't want to go, at all! I had to
alter the frog pretty seriously and make a block to get it to mount
securely, at the proper angle.
Then of course, no normal chipbreaker would work. A regular wouldn't
reach and a transitional was too long.
So I "moved the slot" on a regular chipbreaker.
With the thick aftermarket blade the adjuster wasn't catching well
anyway, so I made my added lug thicker.
I silver soldered (brazed) the lug in place and cleaned it up.
For a lever cap I chose a transitional cap and cut it down a bit.
With a quick blade sharpen and a trial, it was working!!
Now, to get a bit of lipstick on the girl.
I have nothing against good ol black. But this is a tool nobody ever
made before, so I totally got to choose.
I do love a good polished candy apple red!
Transitional lever caps were originally painted black. nothing wrong
with that. But this was a special.
So I lightly sandblasted it clean, filed and polished the edges and
smoothed up the little bow in the leading edge. Then I cold blued it.
Its hard to see in the pic but cold blue doesn't work on cast iron the
same as steel or copper or brass. It gives a dark color but its also
iridescent sort of like color case hardening. I hope you can see it
because I really love the way it looks.
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/oldtools/swift3.jpg
Here's how I "moved the slot"
I filed it open and made a lug to fill the space
Due to the thick blade there was a lot of slop in the adjuster so I made
the lug overlap the chipbreaker, and also much thicker to grip the adjuster
Its silver soldered on (brazed)
front
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/oldtools/swift6.jpg
back
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/oldtools/swift5.jpg
Bye bye
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/oldtools/swift7.jpg
yours scott
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*******************************
Scott Grandstaff
Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca 96039
scottg@s...
http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/
http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html
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