DIY handplane adjusting hammer

There's a shop downtown called Daiso, where everything (literally!) is AU$2.80.  Some products are a little rickety, but some are perfectly solid.  Especially for two-eighty.

The blades of wooden-bodied handplanes are typically adjusting by tapping them with a small hammer.  It's generally thought it's better to do this with a copper-faced, or brass-faced, hammer, rather than a steel or iron hammer.  If you use a steel or iron hammer, the concern is that you will eventually "mushroom over" the butt end of the blade.

So, some people buy a plane-adjusting hammer like this:

They're very pretty -- but they're not worth sixty bucks to me.


So, when I saw the funny little hammers at Daiso -- for two-eighty! -- I thought:  I can turn this into a plane-adjusting hammer!


First I visited Next-Door Uncle, to get a scrap piece of copper tube.  Then I drilled a hole for the handle, cut a slit for access, and cut four flaps into the future "face" end:

And another view:

I sprayed some oil on it (to facilitate the process), and jammed the copper tube onto the hammer head:

Then I used a cross-peen hammer (shown; also $2.80 from Daiso!) to fold over the flaps:

A closer view:

I actually got to use the "anvil" portion of my machinist's vice!

And, here's the completed project, in (posed) action:

It's a little "rustic" looking -- which is fine by me (I was aiming for "functional and completed", rather than "beautiful and never finishing"!).  And, it works well:  copper is surprisingly heavy.

As you can see, it has a red plastic handle.  I roughed it up with some coarse sandpaper.  No, I didn't B.L.O. it.

Also, the handtool woodworkers among you will notice that the mouth of this handplane is exceedingly large.  I ground the blade with a pronounced curve (as you can see), and use it as a scrub plane.


Not including sketching out the design, and visiting N.D. Uncle, this took me an afternoon.

The best project is a completed project.


--GG