Spill Plane

I made an odd spill plane of my own design a while back, but it was more of an experiment and kind of a cute failure.

This is a spill plane loosely based on Darrell LaRu’s walk through. This plane works great!  Since the plane stays still and the wood moves, I have been able to clamp the plane down and together, and test it before it was glued up. The shavings are pretty spirals!  I am shaving down wood just to make shavings! I love my new spill plane! I made it to have a duel purpose. It will clean up the edges on cedar picket for when I am making planters. At the same time it makes lovely cedar spills. I took a handful of them in to show my wife and she claimed them as hers!

In olden days, pine spills where kept on a cup by a fireplace.  When you wanted to light a lantern or pipe, you would grab a spill, and light it in the fire.   The short spills in the pictures below are made from cedar and burn for a bit more than thirty seconds.  They smell nice too.

I like the look of the unfinished ash, but I wanted it to look ancient but in good shape so I did a few tricks to give it an aged appearance.

By painting it with ammonia I emulated the ammonia fume created golden oak look popular in the arts and crafts era.  This also raised the grain.  Then I painted it with my hot wax, turpentine and safflower oil coating.   This was driven into the wood with a hot air gun.  Finally I cleaned off the wax finish with a lean cut of shellac.

Here it is clamped to a table.  The cedar plank in the background is what was used to make the shavings on the right.

Here you can see the clamp.   The bar can slide up and down on the dowel.  It is at a seven degree angle so it can be tapped down to lock it to a table top.

The side view lets you see the clamp a bit better.

The wedge was boiled in the turpentine, wax and oil mix.  Perhaps because of the ammonia on the wood, this gave it a wonderful aged look.

Here it is taken apart.  I made the blade from O1 tool steel.  I left some of the forge blackening on the blade to maintain the rustic appearance.

Here is a picture of a spill being made.

Here is a spill just after it was made.

You can see the line where I paused midway to take a picture.  Apart from that, a spill plane leaves a very nice finish.

Bob