Drivel Starved Nation; It’s Friday and I am about to take the afternoon off to meet some old friends. But, I thought you might like to see the first pics of the CT-18 Dual Angle Smoothing plane…
We still have about 4-5 weeks of work before we ship. All the bodies get their soles ground beginning next week, and this is slow, each has to be put into a special fixture. Stainless steel does not like heat so in order to flatten the soles, the grinder is set to cut 0.0002″ per pass. That’s two ten thousands of an inch.
The irons are all out being sharpened and the scrub irons have yet to arrive, but beginning next week, we will start assembly of the bodies as they trickle in from the grinding house.
Oh, all of the aluminum TB-2v2’s are done and are being shipped starting Monday. And so are the stainless versions. These are crummy cell phone pics, but you get the idea;
Here’s a pic with the depth skids loosely attached. For those who have taken my Jointmaker classes, you now know how powerful and useful depth skids can be – turns your hand plane into a thickness planer…
A close-up of the unique blade retention mechanism…
Here’s another angle;
Have a great weekend!
-John
I will have a happy weekend indeed! This is so exciting! It’s great to see the CT-18 coming together. It’s a sweet-looking machine, and I’m sure it will work like a dream. I can hardly wait. I’ll have to spend the next 4-6 weeks coming up with projects to use it!
Looking forward to my bevel, too. Such fun! It’s going to be a great summer!
Have a wonderful weekend. Thoughts of planes will dance in my head…
— Peter
Nice!
I really like the black blade retention piece, just something about it looks good in black.
Looking forward to putting mine to use .
Thanks for the teaser,
Rutager
Just got my bevels- beautiful and they lock ever so tight! I can’t say enough good things about the cam lock.
I was just at the local woodworking store and happened to look at the bevels they carry, yup still using a wing nut that won’t allow it to sit flat- amazing that people put up with that.
Thanks for innovating John, my work is better because of your designs.
Best,
Rutager
Glad you like them!
john, just got my ct-18 and it looks really nice in the package. still recovering from shoulder surgery and it is just too heavy to play with right now. i won’t be up to lifting its weight for at least another month and a half but i know it will be waiting for me when i am able.
dave