Planes by the pint

Well I can tell you were all agog wondering about this one.

Anyway...

Occasionally, or maybe more often than that, my dad tells of an old dear in the village he grew up in who used to sell potatoes by the pint. Seems to me a cunning scheme to sell folks a lot of air to me. Anyway, I reckon you can probably fit more planes to the pint than you can potatoes. If you nest them.

I know, I know. It looks like a crush at the bottom. But they're all fine, honest. If my apron plane had been a low angle instead of standard, I'd definitely got that in there, I'm sure of it.

See? Look at all that space at the top! Alas, nothing quite small enough to fit in it. I suppose I could have stopped off to make one or two. Didn't think of that. Anyway they had to be functioning... Wanted to put the Stanley #271 in there too - or try to - but inexplicably can't find it. Okay, perhaps not so inexplicably. My top tip: make every effort to avoid long absences from the w'shop directly after you've tidied it; you can't find a thing.

Unfortunately the detail rebate's effusive tail meant I could only get one in. Too bad, because they look good in a jar, turns out. Likewise, the cherry knob on the side rebate ruled out more than one, and I couldn't find the Stanley #79 either to try that. It must be somewhere.

 Yes, it's a woodie! I was especially pleased to get that one in, for variety.

And the final total. Ten. Yes, TEN (count 'em) planes to the litre chez Alf. And by no means all "miniatures" either, but proper grown-up planes. If I'd ever succumbed to the siren song of violin maker's thumb planes, it'd easily be a round dozen.

So my wondering mind can rest easy again. Until the next time.

When is a plane till not a plane till

You know those fair and fête things where you guess the weight of the fruit cake or how many sweets are in the jar? This is like that, except you don't get to win the cake. Or in this case, the jar of planes.

"The jar of... What?" Do I hear you splutter?

Well it's like this... A few weeks ago I looked at this unexceptional Kilner jar knock-off, and thought "Self, I wonder how many planes you could fit in this jar?"

Well you know me and wondering - it's fatal. Instead of having the thought, discarding the thought, and then going and doing something useful, the thought stuck. The thought persisted. Dammit, the thought positively nagged. So you can guess what happened next.

Well I say "Next", but I mean a coupla weeks later, obviously. Doesn't do to rush.

I gave myself some parameters to avoid the temptation of asking El Presidente if I could borrow a gross (or two) of key rings and totally skew the results. Viz: The planes have to be of a functioning variety; they must be in one piece and not broken down into component parts; and they must come out of the experience unscathed. (The last one was particularly important.) I also wanted to avoid an exclusively Canadian jar, if at all possible. Just because.

So a single one litre glass preserving/food storage jar, approximately 6in tall. How many whole and functioning hand planes can I fit in it and still seal the lid?

And just to get you started, yes, I did use the Veritas miniatures, but as you can see, they didn't get me very far...

Answer next week. I know you'll be on tenterhooks.

Ugly Tree

Gosh, I'm flying through this job, aren't I? I do hope you're keeping up...

Waddaya mean, "What's changed?" That bit bottom left wasn't there before. See? Total pig to do it was too, and, ye gods, it's as ugly as sin. The drawback to using the materials available, and making it knockdownable, is the hideous result. On the other hand, that's three planes no longer in rust-beckoning cardboard boxes.

Although the rebate plane may yet be thrown back in there, as it's already bitten me and I have yet to put it to wood. Cheeky blighter.

First try at using pigeonhole type storage, so we'll see how that goes. If I like it, I've definitely learnt a useful thing, in that planes take up quite different spaces than you think they do. Again, the rebate plane is the culprit here, turning out to require that much more space than I'd thought. Fortuitously, the flexibility of the rather snug divider allows just enough leeway to angle it slightly and make it fit. (Yes, it looks like it's curving because, well, it is curving.) The stupid ex-kitchen cabinet design then throws a centre strut into the mix, which I initially thought to work around. Somehow. In the end it was easier to cut the pigeonholes short, and give myself the opportunity of seeing whether really narrow slots for shoulder planes are actually practical.

Mistake? Nooooo. That's what we at Alf Towers call a Design Opportunity...

Cabinet Woes

My entire w'shop time this weekend, and I achieved... this.

Am I disheartened?

Well, yes, actually.

I'd hoped for a tad more progress than that. But it's all trying stuff out and ripping it apart again with a view to the long-term solution. Eventually. So I need to keep reminding myself that the physical evidence of my efforts is not the whole story - and at least three planes that previously had no proper homes now do so. But it's other useful stuff that's really important, like how actually 9in of interior depth is not as generous as I thought it was.

Ouch, that's close. About the thickness of a gnat's wage slip in between that tote and those chisels... And things like the bevel-up smoother blow it completely out of the water, being entirely Too Long.

Anyway, lots of things confirmed and/or learned. Such as:

• An existing cupboard with an interior height of 21 1/2in is not a good research tool. How long is a jointer plane, boys and girls...? Yes, exactly.
• Saws that may fit within a 21 1/2in height, will not necessarily do so once handle support allowing for flamboyant Wenzloff totes is taken into account (saw storage discarded).
• Flat doors are, as I knew, a waste of everyone's time and space.
• The back has to be strong enough to hang things off - obviously not the case here.
• Hinges have to be well out of the way - again, not the case.
• It'd help if said case was actually square...
• Far eastern ply is the most God-awful splintery hell and I hate it. Also one particular piece (on its third or fourth bit of recycling now) smells distressingly of piddle when cut.
• And...

Well, you get the gist. But it's all grist to the mill, and if I can just get all the tools out of the dust and rust, it'll be something. Then I need to make something to use the Southern Yellow Pine, so I have the room to buy something else with which to build a proper tool cabinet out of. Some time. When I've finally decided what I want.

'Cos guess what? I don't much fancy dovetailing a load of SYP. Coward, ain't I?