Make the easiest handplane ever! (Pt 1: design and blade) 

I love earlier age Rex! Only about a year into RU-vid, last video he found out that toolmaking will be a big thing on his channel and here he's discovering Patreon and calling his hand plane prototype a "wooden pickle" XD As someone who's watched pretty much every video on this channel - many of them more than once (some of them more than a few times) - there's something so special about watching these earlier videos with tne knowledge of the way and progress Rex is going to make in the future! Rex, if you get to read this, I found your channel about four years ago now, when I just started woodworking, and it's been a big part of my personal journey. Many of my projects and skills came from this channel, and it's honestly one of my favorite channels because not only is the content clear, interesting and charming - you also consistently make videos that keep your viewers in mind - people who might not have even a table saw, and not all their cuts are 100% clean or straight. But who have a few tools, and maybe a small workshop, and are into woodworking because it's fun, exciting and fulfilling. I could honestly write a much longer love letter, but for the sake of brevity, I would just like to leave you with this sentiment: you don't know me. I'm not much younger than you, and we could be peers, but there isn't really much of a chance we'll meet - we live on the same planet and that's pretty much the closest I can geographically place us. But still you've been part of my personal life in a meaningful way for some years now. And I find that wonderful, because I find that seeing the big picture gives one a sense of achievement. But witnessing a personal story gives one a sense of meaning. So I want you to know that you are a positive part of my personal story. So thank you!

Thanks for explaining things, it's not so easy to get information from other channels. I'm definitely going to consume all your videos.

You call it a wooden pickle, but I think it looks more like a vintage race car than anything I ever made for the pinewood derby. :) Great video as always!

Rex, the prototype looks lovely - just like one of our vintage British open top sports cars. Hmm, maybe you're right, a little bit...!

That plane looks like a Pinewood Derby car with a driver laid back, chilling as a sleepy driver. LOL

Rex, how can beautiful wood be ugly? Your prototype looks like a fast moving car. I like it!

Your "Wooden Pickle" looks like the body of a Cub Scout Pine Wood Derby car!

if you look for insanely cheap steel for blades, i had good luck with broken bits of metal cutting circular saws. You know, you go to your local metalworking small shop, ask if you can forage a bit in the waste bin and get any good sized pieces of those blades they use for cutting the steel with. It's crazy hard, about 1/8 of an inch or 3mm thick and it keeps an edge like you would not believe it. Granted, it takes a looong time to shape and sharpen but it has the incredible advantage of being similar to high speed steel in the aspect that you can be a little careless about overheating when grinding and needing sharpening far less often. I made a blade for a wooden jackplane that's 60mm wide 180mm long (that's 2"3/8 wide 7"long) and it works very well. I did a bit of kitchen oven tempering before shaping but it did nothing to soften it, so i don't think that's actually necessary. Did not cost me a cent and you might be able to use some woodworking blades for the same purpose

This is SUPER late for this video being 2 years old, but I've been on a bit of a binge because your videos are great. "I have a solution but, it's not pretty. You might want to avert your eyes." (RU-vid proceeds to play ad for Home Depot) I know you had nothing to do with that exact moment, but it got me laughing! Edit: And the chisel was from there!

Finally a project that uses a good chisel to use for a good plane !!!!!!!!

Love your style. Your approach to woodworking, and the crazy ideas you come up with are exactly my approach. Only you have more time and tools to pursue some of the crazier things that I wanted but never got around to doing, like cutting down a cheap borg chisel to make a plane iron!

Great project, I haven't gotten around to making a wooden plane yet. But I have picked up a couple extra plane blades at yard sales and estate sales, for almost nothing, probably under $1 for both.

Great video Rex. Clear explanation. Will you make a video on Japanese planes? Japanese craftsmen make such thin shavings.

Rex is the man! I have watched so many of his vids and realized I don't need to spend copious amounts of money to have a super great shop where I can create. Also signed up for his Patreon - with the value I have gotten from these vids, and the money I have saved, $5 seems an awesome value!

You can use one of those mag switches to hold the plane iron when you are grinding it flat.

The wooden pickle looks great to me Rex :D That's my kind of tool. Improvised and functional :)

Rex, you could also harden it yourself! Get that blade white hot, then quickly quench it in some canola oil. Look into it, it isn't hard to learn.

2:10 ... James Krenov! I love his work since I picked up a book of his back in the '80's!! Simple and elegant!

I bought an old rusty cleaver for around $1.25 for my iron It should be enough for 2 or 3 irons actually Wish me luck🙂

I respect what your are doing, Rex. It is quality work and I think it provides a good start for someone who wants to learn how to do quality work. With that said, until a person is ready to test, grind, drill, file, tap, harden, temper and polish a blade from mystery metal, obtaining a good blade will eliminate half the issues that can cause a plane to fail. The Hock blade mocked in the previous video is really not that bad of a deal. It would not be my first choice for a beginning plane maker since it has a chip breaker, but Hock and Lee Valley both supply some good blades that could be used as references and to make top end planes easily. I think learning to grind, drill, file, tap, harden, temper and polish a blade from mystery metal is an important skills well worth developing but it adds another full learning curve to woodworking. Even so, having a good reference piece to compare to will be important if a person does get into blacksmithing tools. If a person is interested in making a good plane I would advise them to make a single iron blade first since a chip breaker is only wonderful after you learn how to adjust it. Till then a double iron blade can be the death of joy. A good single iron from Lee Valley would be a good reference and an easy way to make your first plane. I would advise getting a Hock blade later since it has a double iron and will introduce another variable that has left more than one good woodworker screaming in frustration. In any case, get as many Hock blades as you can, while you can. After Ron Hock is gone they are likely to become legendary, cult items hoarded by the followers of Krenov.

Great videos, really inspiring. Instead of buying a chisel and spending time with power tools we don't own, why not just buy a replacement blade?

Great video. I did something similar, but with a 3/4" chisel, and made a rabbet plane with it. I didn't even bother cutting off the handle, and just use it as it is, and I find the handle doesn't get in my way. Then if I need a 3/4" chisel, I still have one. Anyway, I'm surprised more people don't use chisels like this to make planes. Again, good job.

I'm looking forward to the next video. Even if you don't get a properly hardened blade right off, the softer than wanted iron would teach you how to sharpen a blade with all the extra practice! Lol My local hardware store lets me pick through their metal trash for old (lawnmower/edger) blades to play with. All I had to do was ask. I plan to use these free blades to practice making knives and now planes. Just a thought.

Such a great idea. Thanks I’ll be following along

I understand this video is 3 years old, but the edger blades actually are hardened, but they're tempered way back to avoid shattering, which would be extremely dangerous for the edger user. A simple re-hardening & tempering would do the trick. I also understand that hardening and tempering is mysterious to a lot of people, but it's a super simple process requiring only a cheap map gas torch & toaster oven - a very small investment that opens up a whole new world of creating your own tools from other tools... 🤷‍♂️👍

Hi Rex, Home Depot sells a Stanley plane iron for about $24 plus tax. It's hardened steel, 2" wide and has a 25deg bevel. I would say that's a pretty good deal.

Rex, I have subscribed to several low volume channels in the past and watched them explode in popularity. You have really good content, know your stuff, and have a great delivery style. I predict that soon you will have 100,000 + views per video typical.

To hell with the looks, if it's comfortable in the hand and does the job intended, what more could you ask for ?

You said "You may wish to look away." Hey man any metalworking that works is beautiful.

Interesting concept. At the time of writing, it appears that Amazon (because you reference Amazon in the video) sells all sorts of plane irons for anywhere between $5 - $20. On the other hand, it seems woodworking sites are listing certain Hock blades for as low as $20 - $25. You could also pick up a Stanley iron at any hardware store that carries those goofy red planes for $20 - $30. So there seem to be many ways of acquiring a cheap plane iron without resorting to power tools.

Ordered a chisel from your link; subscribed! Thanks!!!

Arrrgghhh. Two parter on 2 week sched Arrrgghhh Love your stuff. Keep it up

Great set of videos. I appreciate you taking the time and effort. I think many of us have the same kinds of questions and you've answered some of them.

This is incredible, thanks so much for the uploads!

I think the Echo blade is high carbon steel but may not be tempered to where you wanted it for a plane iron. There are plenty of articles on the net that tell you how to harden and temper and give you the colour charts required. The only additional thing required is a blow lamp.

First, I love your videos and projects. Second, have you considered modifying your not-high-carbon-steel blade into a chip breaker? Waste not, want not.

Huh, is there a video on making something like that transitional? I have a loose plane frog that could use a new home

Rex, did you try heat treating the edger iron? Torch, quench, & Bob's your uncle. In the past I bought a short bar of oil hardening steel several years ago fory plane blades. First project was a panel plane.

I also like the looks of the pickle could you include a sketch of the profile of it on your plans.

Beautiful, wonderful plane iron procurement!

"Wooden pickle" sounds like a euphemism for something else entirely. ;)

I know this is an old video, but edger blades and lawnmower blades are high carbon, but they aren't hardened. If they were hardened then they would snap too easily, but they have to be high carbon or else they'd wear out too quickly. If you want to harden it, just stick it in a hot fire until it turns cherry red and then quench it in motor oil. You can use a charcoal grill and a hair dryer to get the iron hot

I would love to see if the trimmer blade worked better after hardening and annealing. I almost went out today and bought one to test for myself but decided to ask if you would give it a shot since you had all the hard work done already. Great channel!

Holy shit man. I'm a new sub I subscribed two days ago and I can't get enough of your videos! Good quality content from such a small RU-vidr I can see your channel taking off now! You speak in a way that a noobie like me can umderstand. Thank you for this wonderful content and valuable information keep it up! -Ryan

I think it looks like a soapbox racer, not a pickle. Nice vid.

great job very nice idol hope someday ill have some of your tools.

Nice improvisation for a plane blade. I have some old wooden plane blades lying around. I think I'll get one prepped so I can follow along. I would love to see a build, along with some dimensions, on that hybrid plane some day. I have a half dozen frogs lying around, but cannot find any dimensions for the thickness of the sole. I'm assuming the rest isn't quite as critical as the thickness of the sole.

* Looks for Rex's video on a DYI belt sander *

I've built several wooden hand planes and I simply find old, cheap wooden planes that are so trashed they aren't worth restoring. Then I remove the iron, toss the old plane and refurbish the iron for my newly built hand plane. It's cheap, easy and the old irons work great.

At 5:25 I just about spit coffee across the porch...

I like the "wooden pickle" - the knob gives it a more mechanical feel than organic, like an old mill. There's other sources of blades on ebay - for narrow ones you can get those cheap 3-4$ 30mm wide (bit over an inch) chinese wooden hand planes. They're not bad, if a bit small. The blades are incredibly hard, and either T10 Steel (chinese high carbon tool steel) or HSS. They take quite a bit of grinding to fix the shoddy edge the manufacturer puts on them but once it's sharp it stays sharp for a long time. And nothing says you can't turn the blade sideways and put a new bevel on it. to give more width. Well, it might be a bit short, but if someone has such a dire need for a plane that they'd use it, I can't think of a better option. Bonus point is that since they're chinese sellers, they'll ship the things just about anywhere on the planet. Downside is uh... they're chinese, and the planes are made of indonesian mahogany, which I'd bet is not cut with a consideration for the environment... Sometimes you can find packs of blades for sale on ebay but the last few listings I saw for them went down months ago. I'm assuming they didn't sell.

I have been watching your videos for a short time and love all so far. Wondering why you didn't heat your blade to red hot and dip it into vegie oil to increase the carbon in it?

You can buy tool steel blanks that are larger off of Amazon or Ebay for about the same price as that chisel.

Great video. It might have been safer and easier to flatten the chisel on the belt sander before hacking the handle off. :~{ I am a big fan of your channel.

really great channel

As others said, the pickle looks functional. And though the steel isn’t high carbon imagine a bronze or iron tool

3:53 What do you mean "ugly"? It looks like a sports car.

Leaf spring steel might be a good source.

What about using a 12-313 replacement (or similar)? Those seem to be somewhere between $17 and $20. Less massive, possibly less wide. But I think that could be easier?

I’m sure you realized it later, but it would have been easier to sand the top of the chisel flat if you had left the handle on it...you’d still have had something to hold on to. Love your channel! Thanks for the content.

I had contemplated doing similar with a chisel. Good to see somekne give it a go.

I love your presentation and overall video quality. I get a real Marc Spagnuolo vibe from some of your exposition. Please take that as a huge compliment. Was pumped to get a notification today and looking forward to the next video!

have you tried rehardening the iron? maybe it just isn't hardened to the degree you want for woodworking.

Rex, if you ever have a need to rebuild or restore a small motor just let me know. I have replaced bearings, switches capacitors and a have done a myriad of repairs on electric motors and would be happy to help. Regards.

LOL, it's not a pickle, it looks like my first Pinewood Derby car..... It's Nostalgic!

I think it looks like it could be a pinewood derby car. Not ugly

I just checked and I can buy an 8inch long 2inch wide piece of O2-Toolsteel for 2,94. You can literally heattreat that stuff on a coal grill or with a blowtorch (there`s videos for that on YT). Might be the cheapest way to get Plane Irons.

Pickle Rick's plane! Lol nah it looks good. Who cares anyway as long as it gets the work done. Well done.

The lawn mower blades are usually a reasonable carbon steel, not a tool steel really, the trick is rehardening them after your done.

I love the wooden pickle…

That does hurt the eyes..... have a set of stanley chisels similar to those from the 70s...

Beaucoup points for quenching in a gelato container. :)

Excelente forma de explicar

Can I keep my chisel intact and use it both in the planner and as a chisel?

Is there a rough plan? Just to get an idea of angles and heights, I'm a real beginner.

#Rex Krueger I have a 2-1/2 long blade with chip breaker, is it possible to make a functional krenov plane? My blade have already a chipbreaker similar to hock blade but like I said is 2-1/2 long blade and hock blades are usually almost 9 centimeter long

And I love the wooden pickle.

The edger blade probably is high carbon steel. It has not been tempered to be hard. The manufacturer wants the blade to wear down not shatter. If you could heat and quench your blade it would hold an edge longer.

If the sparks match it should be high carbon... So you might just be able to harden it yourself

5:50 down right pornogrfic, like an 80's hair band music video... lolol

Just a thought but it would be great if you were to build an English Workbench and post follow along plans. Everyone seems to want to sell the plans and the bench design several hundred years old.

Did you consider hardening the edger blade? Not all hardening is the same; something that needs to hold up to impacts with concrete can't be as hard as a knife because it would chip, but still benefits from being high carbon for strength (and is probably hardened but then tempered to a softer level). Hardening a chunk of metal that size and then tempering it to a suitable extent is ... not trivial, but also not rocket science. A blow torch and oven are the only tools you need (and the oven is optional).

Man, you ruined a perfectly good paint can opener!! Aaarrrrgggghhhh !!! (just kidding) lol

There are junk shops near me with vintage plane irons at 50p to a £1.

I found a cheap chisel at Lowe's... their in-house brand, Kobalt. It says they are made from Chrome Vanadium Steel. I Googled it, and can't seem to find if it's comparable to High Carbon Steel. Do you know anything about it... Would you recommend it? If anything else, would it be good for beginners, on a budget? 2" is only $16.

Oh, the humanity!!

5:30, me: Seriously. No. No-o-o-o-o! "Apply your hands" - the redline all yours video. :)

You should harden it in molten salt.

off to Home Depot. Kent, Canadian Tire in search of the cheapest chisel

Hey, Rex. You may have mentioned it in the video or it was mentioned by somebody maybe in the comments or something, I didn't have the time to go through everything and look/listen... Anyhow, would you be up to taking that plane iron you made from a lawn mower blade and hardening that yourself? Then, testing it for durability? It might be that steel is OK and just needs to be properly heat treated at the blade end of it, aye? :-)

If you're going to go on Amazon, just search for O1 barstock, and buy a foot of 2" x 1/8" steel for about $20. you'll get 3 plane irons out of it and you know exactly what you're getting.

Why remove the handle of the chisel when you could leave it? If you leave it, you can use the chisel in a plane body, and you get both tools.

Could potentially buy a circular blade even and cut out the shape.

I've made plane irons from chisels but they've been grooving and moulding planes with narrow irons. Not sure if spending $13 for a low-quality chisel is worth it, though. For that money, you can get an old iron or a junk plane and refurbish it for about the same amount of effort and probably get a better iron made from higher quality steel. A wooden smoother is on my short list of projects, but I intend to get one of those nice Hock irons or repurpose a junk plane for it. I'm spending hours and hours on the project, it deserves a good iron to make it worthwhile.

great

I mean, you could see in the previous video already that this is not strong steel as you were using that file, and it was leaving marks on it. I am a bit surprised by your logic.

There are Stanley plane irons for 15 bucks

The proto type didn't loolk good? who cares? Function over form is what I say. Great video.

Why not just buy some hs or OS steel at like online metals you know it's hardened and the price is about what you pay for the chisel. and you get about a foot for the price.

Stanley Irons have that kind of price