Adjustable Rounder Plane or Witchet

 As far as I can see, these planes are no longer made and are rarely available second-hand, so making one might be a challenge. They are called adjustable rounding planes but they have different names depending on their use. Ladder makers call them "rung engines", rake makers call them  "stail engines" the term "stail" being the name of a rake handle. Boat builders call them "spar shavers" but in the USA they are also called "Witchets" but no one seems to know why they got this name. Anyone know ? Basically they allow poles to be rounded and made smooth e.g. rake handles or stails, or they can be used to produce tapers as the diameter cut can be varied.

This is a Varvill (York, England) large adjustable wooden rounder plane. Plane was probably made  between 1862 and 1904 but there is little information on the manufacture and when these type of wooden planes were made.

This shows the components of the above plane. Notice the brass liner and it's shape and the good quality wooden screw threads.

This is the plane partially open. It measures 9 1/2 inches long and 3 3/4 inches wide (i.e. the total width were the mouth sits) and 3 1/2 inches thick.  These measurements are approximate as I've not seen the plane.

This is a copy from "Ancient Carpenters' Tools" by Henry Mercer, 1929.

The plane illustrated by Mercer (shown above) is different from the Varvill plane in several respects:

1. It is larger, measuring about 12 inches long, 4.8 inches wide.  This allows more torque to be applied on using the plane.

2. The plane has two blades.

3. The shape of the mouth is less curved and more like a "v" shape.

4. There appears to be four dowels at each corner to guide the plane when the screws are applied. This is an option that I may need to consider after using the plane.

5. There is no brass insert in the mouth. I understand the insert aids turning and reduces the friction and also stops wear of the wooden mouth. 

This is shown in LeeValley tools and was made by T. Turner, Sheffield probably between  1840 and 1912.

The above "Turner" plane  is different again:

1. It has metal plates protecting the handles.

2. The blade is fixed with two bolts into the body of the plane.

3. The blade is situated at the edge of the plane rather than in the middle.

4. It is easy to measure the angle of the blade to the body from this photo(45 degrees).

I made mine from two blocks of beech each measuring 11 3/4 inches in length, 4 1/4 inches in width and 2 1/2 inches deep (after planing). These were planed true and the centre lines marked for the position of the blade. A "v" shaped hollow was cut on each base. This was made 3/4 inch deep and 2 inches wide. This was cut using a tenon saw, chiselled smooth and finally shaped with a round wood file,

The most difficult part of the construction was making the housing for the blade and wedge (there was no chip breaker). The blade was housed off-centre (3/4 inch from the one edge of the plane) as this would  help keep the dowel straight during the rotation through the plane. I had the iron and wedge from an old wooden smoothing plane that had several cracks in the base. This meant I had the old plane to guide me in making the new housing although the depth available in the new plane was less because of the "v" cut. Looking at the photos of old planes I decided that 45 degrees was normal so marked out the dimensions on the sides of one of the blocks. The mouth itself was marked 2 inches across and 1/2 inch wide centred on the centre line already marked on the block. The shoulders to trap the wedge were 3/8 inch thick, The housing was made with a chisel making sure the 45 degree angle was maintained through the body and meeting the line of the mouth.

The tightening screw holes were drilled in the centre of the width and 1 inch from each end. Unfortunately I made a mistake and drilled the wrong sized hole for one of the screw threads which meant that the handle of the screw was near the blade. My remedy was to shorten the screw iron and make sure the hand grip of the tightener was beyond the iron.

To try the plane I used some spare wooden screws I'd already made. but found that I needed to shape the blade so it that about  1 1/2 inches of the blade was angled (about 1 mm maximum)  leaving the final 1/2 inch at right angles to the side of the blade. Also the entrance to the plane was slightly widened to allow some lead-in space for the dowel. This worked OK but I found that the chips blocked the mouth easily. The blade housing was then modified by making it wider at the base and shaping the inside edges to ease the flow of the chip from the mouth. At the same time it was important to keep the strength of the wedge channel that keeps the blade in place..

I then made the screw threads on the pole lathe from some 2 inch diameter beech. 

Progress so far. The adjuster arms are temporary.

Adjusting screw

So finally the plane was oiled with linseed and was ready for use. I will report later on its use and how it works. I have tried it on some beech poles and found the best way to make it ready for use is to adjust the screws to get a comfortable fit in the mouth and then tap the blade into place to make contact with the side of the dowel at the widest part of the blade and start screwing. This will take a few passes to get a continues shaving from all around the dowel. Experience will tell but I can see that the initial adjustment is going to be crucial in its use.

 This cuts from 1 1/4 inches upwards but not sure of the limit.

Some modifications:

a) To reduce tear and wear on the base and also aid reduce friction, I fitted some brass plate around the outside of the mouth. For this I used 1.5 mm brass and screwed this in place as shown.

Brass plate fitted as described.

b) I also sharpened the blade so that it was curved at both ends to aid entry and exit from the blade when cutting. The centre of the blade was flat and so determined the diameter of the dowel that was cut.

When the screws were adjusted to give the smallest  diameter this gave a dowel diameter of 1 1/4 inches which is about the minimum size for a rake handle. It can make much greater diameters but the blade needs to be inserted deeper.

I have used it a little but not yet to make a stail. The crucial adjustment is the position of the blade as well as the shape of the blade. I have used it to reduce the diameter of a short pole by starting with the widest diameter to get a consistent cut and then gradually reducing the diameter and getting a continuous cut.  I haven't seen any account of the use of stail engines so I will update this blog when I have tried to make a stail.

Update on using the stail engine.

I have now used the plane to make a stail (handle) for a wooden rake using a length of hazel found locally in a stream. The plane worked well starting at the thicker end and working along the hazel gradually reducing the diameter as I progressed.  This produced a stail 3.54 cm (1 3/8 inches) at one end and tapering to 3.01 cm ( 1 3/16 inches) at the other and of total length of 173 cm (5 ft 8 inches). It took several passes to get the desired result with the first pass removing most of the bark. 

First pass from the thicker end of the stail

Second pass after removing most of the bark and cambian.

The finished stail. There is a slight bend so it was clamped whilst drying to straighten a little,

The stail  was set with the blade tilted slightly. The only problem was that the shavings tended to get caught in the throat of the plane but this was easy to check and keep clear as the plane was rotated. It didn't interfere in the operation of the plane as the shavings cleared away from the blade and I can't see an easy modification as the throat has to hold the blade in place.  Generally I am pleased with its operation.

The stail was bent slightly so it was clamped whilst drying.

Comments on the further use of the plane.

I have now used the plane to make several hazel and alder stails for wooden rakes. The video shows it in use making an alder stail. I generally start by removing the bark on the pole with a draw knife and on larger diameter poles, shaping it to try and reduce any unwanted curvature and smoothing any knots from side branches. I start the stail engine from the larger diameter end and do a first pass until the plane rotates without cutting. The key to using the plane is the adjustment of the blade so that it cuts into the wood at the leading edge but "runs out of cut" at the other end. Both ends of the blade are slightly curved to help prevent tear-out on the leading and trailing cuts. Also for larger diameters, the blade needs to go further down into the mouth to contact the wood and so cut. If the cut is too deep, I found that the thicker and wider shavings lead to congestion in the mouth and frequent stops to clean out the mouth with a wooden stick. Also with a deep cut there is more chance of tear-out making the pole less smooth. I found the best position of the blade produced a wafer cut, probably about 3/4 the width if the mouth. It was easy to remove 3 mm on the pole diameter on each cut and also keep the mouth from clogging with shavings. It is also important to keep the plane a tight fit to the pole by adjusting the arms. If the plane "wobbles", the pole will be marked erratically by the blade. All in all, the rotary plane offers many advantages, e.g gradually changing the pole diameter or tapering. However, it does take quite a lot of practice to get it working well and I guess each plane will be different. I am pleased I made a large sized plane with good grip on the adjusters for rotating the plane. 

Use and sharpening of card & cabinet scrapers.

 I have a Stanley number 80 cabinet scraper that I picked up second-hand that I have been using for some time to smooth surfaces that the plane finds difficult where there is "tear-out" of the fibres. An example is the hazel mirror frame that I recently finished.  More recently with some time on my hands I looked at the sharpening methods on the internet and also the use of card scrapers in general. One thing to recall is that the term "scraper" is a misnomer as these scrapers are designed to cut the wood fibres and not produce a lot of sawdust as sand paper does. 

Card scrapers have been brought to my attention whilst in Spain and visiting one of the Chinese supershops that sell about everything including tools. I found these scrapers that looked ripe for modification for use as wood card scrapers and making burr edges using traditional methods.

Possible card scrapers in a pack for 1.50 Euro. These are made for KMT tools and distributed in Spain. There are four in the pack of different widths, 10.5, 9, 7 and 4 cm with a plastic handles at the top as shown. They are 0.2 mm thick.

Cabinet scrapers and card scrapers are different and need a different method of sharpening and preparation. The cabinet scraper is mounted in a tool or jig that sets the blade at an angle to the wood scraped and the blade is thicker and bevelled to 45 degrees with a burr on the end. In comparison a card scraper is not mounted but held in the hand to "scrape" the wood. The working end of the scraper is sharpened to 90 degrees and a burr drawn from the surface that does the fibre cutting.

Cabinet Scraper

Basically the scraper consists of a rectangular steel plate that has two long sides ground to an angle of 45 degrees and then honed to something like 1200 grit, much like sharpening a chisel (although these a normally about 30 degrees).  I normally do this free-hand with a diamond stone (as the main filing has already been done). However I noted that Paul Sellers on one of his videos mounts the blade in a wooden block (he uses a block 3/4 inch thick and 2 3/4 inch by 9 inches) at an angle of 45 degrees with another small block underneath screwed to rotate and keep the blade from moving whilst filing and honing. The blade is put in the block with about 1 mm protruding up, fixed in position and then the block clamped into a vice. If needed the edge can then be filed diagonally across the blade ("through filed") and when there is a good bevel, the file direction is changed and the file is drawn horizontally  across the edge (i.e. file at right angles to the edge). The next stage is to use finer grits up to 1200 grit, and then remove the blade and remove the burr on the flat faces so that a nice clean sharp cutting edge is obtained on both long edges.

The next stage is seen to be crucial to creating a working edge to the blade. In principle this involves "bending" the sharp edge of the blade to form a burr that acts as the cutter when in use. To do this a tool called a "burnisher" is needed. This is any hard steel surface such as an older chisel but you can purchase burnishers for this purpose. Burnishing is basically pushing the hardened steel along the cutting edge of the blade, starting at 45 degrees to consolidate it. The blade can be mounted in a vice, the burnisher wetted with oil (some descriptions of this method talk about "kissing" the burnisher, so I guess wetting the burnisher also works!) and then pushing the burnisher along the blade starting at 45 degrees but gradually turning the edge to about 70 up to near 90 degrees. The pressure on the burnisher should not be accessive as this can be counter productive. In fact it should be no more than you'd use to push a traffic light crossing (if that helps; practice makes perfect?). You should be able to feel the turned edge or see it when magnified. 

When the blade next needs preparing, it may be possible to just repeat the burnishing stage. The next step is to mount the blade by putting a piece of A4 paper under the front of the cabinet scraper (the curved edge is the front) on a flat surface and then dropping the blade into place with the bevel pointing to the rear of the scraper. On the Number 80, the rounded edge is the front of the scraper so that it is pushed in the opposite direction to a plane as the bevelled surface does not cut but the burr formed at the tip does the work.  Then squeeze the blade in the scraper and tighten a little whilst squeezing. The wing-nut in the centre of the blade can then be tightened a little before trying the scraper. After that is is a matter of adjusting the wing-nut to get the required action. You should get shavings of wood or curls and not a lot of sawdust. I have found is useful to finish a surface after planing particularly where there are changes in the grain, knots or other features in the wood that make planing difficult  even with the sharpest blade and finest adjustment. Sometimes it also helps so go across the grain but again it comes down to reading the grain in the particular wood and how the surface is reacting to the scraper. Also I have found it useful in green wood working when working with wood with lots of growth "character",  e.g wood ripped from a smaller trunk where there has been spiral or twisted growth or lots of side branches. Some work can be done when still green but I have had more success after the wood has dried indoors for a couple of months or more, planed and is ready for finishing.

Card Scraper.

The preparation of the cutting edge is in many ways similar to the procedure described above for the cabinet scraper. The main difference is that the edges of the scraper are firstly flat, i.e. there is no cutting edge just a perfect box section with edges at 90 degrees. A wooden holder (this time 2 inches thick, 3 inches deep and 6 inches long) can also aid in the procedure but this time the blade is held perfectly vertical just above the wooden surface. The blade is inserted along the centre line, i.e 1 inch from the edges). The square edge is filed etc to produce a smooth surface with 1200 grit finish, the card removed and burrs on the flat surface removed so that a perfectly square edge is produced to a smoothness of 1200 grit or better. At this stage it is a good idea to remove the sharp corners of the card to prevent scratches on the wood when in use. 

The next job is to produce the working burr on both long edges of the card. The method here is a little different according to who you follow. Paul Sellers does it by oiling the burnisher, mounting the card in the block and pulling the burnisher over the surface at the same angle it was filed, i.e 90 degrees to the card. Then the burr is removed again on a flat diamond stone (or similar). Then the card is again mounted in the wooden former so edge protrudes by 1/8 inch. Starting with the burnisher level, itis passed long the face and then gradually the burnisher is lowered until is finally hits the wooden edge of the block. Again light pressure is needed with something like 8 to 10 passes at each stage (but I expect experience will aid in this). This geometry (1 inch width and 1/8 inch protrusion gives an angle of 7 degrees but anywhere between 5 and 10 degrees is said to be good.

The scraper is used almost vertically with fingers around the side and thumbs pressing the card in the centre to produce a curved edge. If the holding angle to the wood is too perpendicular, the scraper will slide over the surface without cutting. If the angle is too low, the cut will be too aggressive so it is a matter of feeling the action and making sure that you get "curls" of wood rather than a lot of sawdust.

Card scraper holder made of beech. The block is 2 inches wide with the card clamped in the centre. To produce the burr, the burnisher (in photo on the right) is drawn across the top of the card with it protruding 1/8 inch with the burnisher touching the edge of the block.

This shows the peelings from using the card scrapers. These are curls of wood and not saw dust.

The scrapers worked well in shaping the lampstands (see other post) after they had dried. A spokeshave was used to shape the stands but left some marks particularly near knots that needed smoothing to get a good finish. Using a card reduced the amount of sanding needed. It was also easy to see how the grain changed around knots etc and reverse the direction that the card was moved (as both edges of the card had a working burr).

Here are some examples of the use of a scraper when used to prepare the final surface of a hazel lampstand. The "peeling" edge of the scraper seemed to last a long time on hazel and ash.

Hazel lampstand after spokeshave and before using scraper.

Surface of hazel after using card scraper.