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I recently received a #7 Anant Jointing Plane which I intend to use for jointing back and top plates. In the past, I would lap the bottom and sides of my planes on a 1/4" glass plate using varius grades of sandpaper until they uniformly flat and mirror shiny.

This 22" monster presents a problem in that I don't have a flat surface large enough to do this, and more importantly, the task is too labor intensive even for "Bicep Boy".

My questions...Can a machine shop do this for me? And what should I look for in contacting machine shops? Also, what would something like this servise cost?

BTW, as always, the Anant blades are pure crap. The Hock blade that I honed and installed produces almost transparent shavings across its 2 3/8" width. For $75 and a $30 blade I can't imagine a $400 Lie Neilsen model working much better once I get the surfaces flat and square.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

JJ, you should make a simple shooting board to join your edges with. You take two pieces of mdf, 24" long or better (longer is better) and clamp the two together staggered so that the plane can ride on it's side on the lower piece, and plane the edges of the plates clamped to the top piece. I drill small holes at either end of the two plates and into the top piece of the mdf, which locate them back to the same spot once I've planed and taken them off to candle them. I don't have a pic to post, but maybe someone else does.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Due to setup time, I would think that a Machine shop will charge in the neiborhood of $50.00+ to machine grind and polish. The better bet is to find a sharpening service in your town. They are more likely to lap it in by hand on a granite slab as apposed to the machine shop grinding it in on precision grinder that requires that the part be clamped and indexed to define the required plane. Time is money and proffesional time is big money MichaelP38490.5439351852

jj

go to a plate glass window shop. get an off cut of float glass, the thicker the better. it will provide you the flat surface you need.

to reduce the amount of work remember to work up through the girts, and use a lubricant.

i haven't used one of the anant planes but highland gives them a good wrap. personally i found my old stanley #6 foreplane too heavy and cumbersome for jointing tops and back. my favourite for that task is a #5 jack, but a #4 smooth does well as well.

it will be interesting to hear how you find it.

CrazymanMichael,

What sizes of float glass have you been able to get? What about cost? The limited pieces I've seen via mail order cost about as much as those cheap 9x12" granite plates that are offered nowdays (I've got one,and it's extremely useful--but in larger sizes the shipping would break the bank!). It would be really helpful to have, say, a 4x24" chunk of half-inch float glass, if it doesn't cost $50-100.

Thanks,
Carlton

Check with a monument company (i.e. headstone company)near you. Most of the mills that cut the monument granite also cut precision slabs. You could get the monument company to add one to one of their orders and you pick it up at the monument company. I did just that for a slab 12" wide x 24" long x 2" thk ground to within .002 flat over 24" I think I paid $120 for it but has been well worth it

i got my float glass at a window place. mine is about 6"x30" and 5/8" thick - the sort of stuff they use for large glass doors - and i think i paid $5, but that was 8 or 9 yrs ago just after i got back from australia.

grizzley sells granite surface plates reasonably cheaply. i have thought about the idea of going to a monument place but just never did it.

I have one of the Grizzly plates I think mine is 18x24. I love it. I use it for all kinds of sanding where I want something absolutely flat. Great for sharpening as well. I use it to dress my neck shafts before attaching the fingerboard among many other things.

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Thanks for the tip on Grizzley, if I sell my tablesaw I'm going to be driving up there soon.

I would think that if you were going to get a machine shop to flatten your plane it would cost more than the Lie-Neilson. For one thing, there are no flat sufaces to clamp to. Someone threatened to give me a surface grinder (no luck so far) and I was daydreaming about how to flatten plane soles.

An alternate method of flattening a plane is by scraping. You put prussian blue (dye) on a flat surface, place the plane on there to pick up the dye on the high spots. You get rid of the high spots by scraping or sanding, and repeat. That's how precision straight edges, lathes, and milling machines are made. I have a totally worthless Stanley #5 bought new that I plan to do this with. Also some in-process home-made planes.

magic marker is the poor mans prussian blue, and less messy for doing plnae. something of this nature to show where you are removing material should be used when dressing the sole.

i know about the use of scrapers in this application but have always shied away from trying it.crazymanmichael38491.036724537

For planes that big, I have used the top of my table saw or some use their jointer tops also instead of plate glass. I now keep an old piece of MDF with that crappy fake wood surface on it from a cheap old desk I tore up cause the side of that is pretty long and that stuff is actually pretty flat.

I got this tip from Chris Swartz at popular woodworking a few years ago and that grade of paper will take a plane down very fast.

For grinding, go to the belt sander section at Lowe's and get some Aluminum Zircona paper (80 or 100 grit). Snip the belt at the tape mark and stick it down to a table saw wing, 1/4" glass or something else dead flat with 3Ms repositionable spray adhesive. That will give you an enormous grinding surface. It's also good for truing the soles of planes.

There's some great tips here. Even though it wasn't one my mind, I'm glad I read through this thread.

Another source of granite is a counter top store. I got a free granite sink cutout that was on it's way to the dumpster. Roughly 30 by 18 inches.

Roy be aware that counter tops are gound to only with in .06 flat over 5' length. Acording to a cabinet maker friend of mine. Great for assembly and most sanding but you want better for large planesMichaelP38492.4635300926

Micheal, I wasn't aware of that.

Would it be safe to assume then that the variance on my 30" piece is apporximately .03"? And how much variance (if any) is acceptable?

TIA

Roy

The problem is that the a dip could accure anyware along the length but still be in the fabrication tolerance. But the liklyhood is you are correct you are correct.

This is how cabinet grade granit grinding tolerances were explained to me

Hmm, that's quite a difference. Thanks for explaining it. Looks like I'll have to find an alternative for my planes.