Tuning the smoother

Today I got around finally to work on the smoother again. First problem to tackle were problems with the feeding of the shavings through the mouth of the plane. Better said, no shavings actually wanted to feed through the mouth. The plane clogged immediately with the shaving wrinkling up like an accordeon between capiron and wear of the plane.

It took some itterations to fix the problem. First I polished the edge of the capiron, making sure there was absolutely no burr left on the edge. The fit between capiron an cutting blade is very good, so no problem there,

Next was the wear, There still were some rough spots, so I polished everything up as good as possible. This of course opened up the mouth a bit more. At the end the mouth was around 1mm, starting to get rather large. With the capiron set further from the edge the plane now worked very well. But with the cap set close to the edge, still no joy!

I decided to compare with another wooden smoother, a Nooitgedagt. This one has a wear angle of 80 degrees, while mine was 75. So, another round with the chisel, and this finally did the trick.

Thick shavings, thin shavings, doesn't matter, it feeds through the mouth effortlessly. So the mouth is a little wider then first intended, but I'd rather have a plane working correctly then a theroretical perfect design.

Actually, the plane is now very much like the smoothing plane in the Seaton Chest. That one has a mouth of 0.9mm (calculated from the descriptions) and a wear angle of 89 degrees (almost vertical). So I feel in good company.

Tight mouths and a capiron set close to the edge is a troublesome combination in a wooden plane.