Brese 875 Smoother--Making Progress

After some time off I'm back to working on the Ron Brese 875 smoother kit. A spare moment here or there is all I can snatch lately.

Last I was struggling with what to do with the front bun, after a string of cold weather had caused excessive dryness in the shop and caused a small check to develop. After forcing some flexible thin CA glue into the check with pneumatic pressure (a straw and some lung power right over the check) and subsequent lapping, and repeat, the check is now "in check". I think after the bun is finished the problem should be gone forever, barring another string of super cold and dry shop conditions. I also fit the bun a little on the dry side (loose) so shrinkage will be kept to a minimum. Putting this plane together is just as finicky as getting the action right on an oud. It all depends on shop humidity, or rather consistency in the shop environment. I'm also not so finicky as to let a little check in the front bun bother me. I'm not building this plane to sell, and a potential cosmetic issue isn't going to affect performance. It's the rear infill that matters, and it's very stable.



I made a quick and dirty "bird's mouth" fixture for planing the sides of the rear infill. The perfect tool for fitting straight-sided infills is, ironically, an infill plane. And I had just the tool for the job.



A few deft strokes with my Brese small smoother and the rear infill was the perfect size, to the thousandths of an inch.



It slid in like a piston.







After getting the front bun close, within about 5 thou, I started shaping the profile. No hot-dogging here, I'm following Ron's design since it looks great and is comfortable in use. I wasted most of material with a core box bit and a round over bit. I'll further refine it with chisels, rasps and scraping/sanding after it's pinned to the body. I also went ahead and cut the escapement ramp and applied a coat of french polish to the ramp and the bed of the rear infill.



It's a good idea to finish these areas now, since it would be difficult once they are pinned in to the body.



This plane is shaping up...





Next step is to drill and install the aluminum dowels.

Brese 875 Smoother--It's Done

After a couple months of work, the Brese 875-W50 is complete. Here's an explanation of the model number.

875 stand for 8-3/4", the length of the plane's sole.

W stands for "wide", a reference to the 2-1/4" wide iron.

And finally 50 stands for the bedding angle. Since this is a bevel down plane, it also refers to the cutting angle.

After a week of finishing the ebony and another week of curing time, I rubbed out the finish (padding lacquer, followed by a few thin coats of Tru-Oil) and applied a couple coats of Renaissance Wax, honed the iron, and set plane to wood. I have a particular piece of cherry that I like to test planes with. It had some curl to it, but not too much. It strikes a good balance between "difficult" and "cooperative". It also looks beautiful when planed.

This kit was extremely satisfying to build. With careful work, diligence, and some coaching from Brese, I now own a world-class infill plane capable of taking incredibly fine shavings, well under one thousandth of an inch. But more importantly, the surface of the wood left in this plane's wake is stunning. Absolutely smooth, lustrous, silky, chatoyant, with great depth and character. It just begs to be touched.

Thanks to Ron Brese for providing a way, with some skilled work of course, for more people to enjoy the pleasure of high-performance planes at a more reasonable cost. I can't recommend enough a plane kit from Brese Plane.

One can only describe the performance of this tool to an extent. It really has to be experienced. So I'll let these photos do the rest of the talking. Make sure you also take a look at the following video, it should give a better idea of the performance of the tool. Warning: In order to preserve the high quality video, this is a large file, about 28 megabytes.

Video: Brese 875-W50

If you're interested in obtaining a plane kit from Ron, he can be reached at ronbrese@breseplane.com

Brese 875 Smoother--Getting Started

The tote is close to final shape, and is a uniform thickness. I didn't document the process of shaping the tote. It's fairly straightforward bandsaw and rasp work, much like the Gramercy Carcase saw I completed last month. The hard part is coming up with a comfortable shape. Actually, that was the easy part, since Ron provided me with a full-size template of his tote shape. I already knew this shape fit my hand perfectly after using one of Ron's 875 smoothers earlier this year. Here I'm planing the ebony for the side wings of the rear infill. After bandsawing this piece, I took it to within a few hundredths of final thickness with my Bailey 5-1/2.



I cut both wings from the workpiece to rough shape.



I then trued up the bottom edge of each wing (the edge that rests on the sole) so it was dead flat and square. I used my Brese small smoother for the task. Set to take an extremely fine shaving, I tweaked the edge until it was spot on.



I then lapped the side of the wing that will be glued to tote on a granite surface plate so it was dead flat. This makes a perfect joint with the tote.



This is going to be a sweet tool!

Brese 875 Smoother--Front Bun

Getting some spare time to work on the Brese plane has been challenging lately. But this week I've snatched a few moments during work to process the ebony for the front bun. This chunk was small enough that machine preparation was out. It's been a while since I've had to four-square a workipece completely by hand. Good tools make this job quick, easy, and predictable. I used my Bailey 5-1/2 (outfitted with Lie-Nielsen blade and chipbreaker) to get it real close, then my Brese small smoother to perfect it. After taking the blank within a few thousandth of final width, I laid out the escapement angle and the profile. Next step is to mill the profile in the bun and cut the escapement ramp.

Brese 875 Smoother--Pinning the Infills

The infills on the Brese plane are pinned to the body using two methods. The first requires a 3/8" aluminum dowel to be placed through both infills in the area close to the mouth. The pin is then installed into this dowel. The other pins are simply wood screws like on the Brese small smoother I did last year. Here I'm drilling the front infill for the 3/8" dowel.





To keep the dowel from rotating when drilling and tapping into the end, a small dowel is installed through the bottom of the infill.



The pin extends about half way into the 3/8" dowel.



The rear infill gets the same treatment...



...except drilling into the bottom of the wedge-shaped piece presents some challenges. I came up with a quick and dirty jig for holding the infill.



It did the trick.



Once the dowels were placed it was time to drill through the sides and into the infill (or dowels). Here I've mounted the plane in a drill press vise. I used shims to raise the plane off the metal surface for protection. The wood piece on the right is also shimmed above the plane side so it presses on the top edge of the rear infill when the vise is tightened, pressing the infill tight to the plane sole for the pinning operation.



Drilling the pilot hole for the 8-32 machine screws.





The holes for the pins are countersunk for peining over. I turned the countersink manually while in the chuck for a smooth and precise chamfer. I didn't want any chattering.



The c-clamp ensures the rear section of the rear infill stays tight to the sole for drilling the rear holes for the wood screws.



Tapping the aluminum dowels through the sides of the plane while still clamped in the vise.



The chamfer is sized so the screw seats before the slot reaches the plane side.



I was a bit "file" lazy, and decided that I could grind down the heads of the pins with my 1" belt grinder. I could see exactly what was happening, and the results were predictable and controlled.



I ground down to about the bottom of the slot.



I was able to get real close without touching the plane body at all.



The I peined the heads into the chamfers.



Then back to the grinder to remove most of the steel. Amazingly, I was able to get within a few thousandths on the belt grinder. I took the rest down with a file until I was within a couple thou of the sides.



Then straight to the surface plate for lapping the sides. I started with 180 grit and worked through 400. Anything beyond this I think is too shiny. I like the surface that the 400 gives.