HNT GORDON - USING ROUNDS

Your side rebate plane will cut up to 7/8” (22mm) for the life of the blade. You may be able to push this to 1” (25mm) in some cases when the blade is new but you will find the wedge will impede some shavings when cutting over 7/8”. When trimming the walls of a dado or grove whether the walls are vertical or angled for sliding dovetails the depth of cut will depend on the width of the dado or grove. You will find for dados with vertical walls the depth of cut equals the width of the dado. If you are doing the groves for dovetail joints the depth will be slightly less than the width at the narrowest point. You need to allow for this when marking out your joints.

This is the ideal plane if you wish to make/modify sliding dovetail joints to be tapered. These planes will cut the male and female parts of these joints with ease. You will obviously save a lot of time if you remove the majority of the waste wood with a saw or router and use these plane to do the trimming work.

The top photo shows how to use a tenon saw to cut off the excess wood.

The adjacent phot shows trimming the joint back to the marked out lines on the tongue of the tapered dovetail.

This photo shows trimming the shoulder of the dovetail joint.

The completed male part of the tapered sliding dovetail joint. I use this piece to mark out the female part of the joint

Once marked out I will then saw down at the dovetail angle to the depth of the joint. I will also do a saw cut in he middle to help make it easier to chisel out the waste. You could also use use a router with a dovetail cutter to cut out most of the waste.

Once I have chiseled out the waste I will then use the side rebate to accurately plane the sloping side walls to the marked out lines. This tool makes light work of this normally difficult task.

The completed female part of the tapered sliding dovetail joint.

The complete joint. If done accurately the joint will tighten up as the edges of the two boards become flush.

Another use for these planes is when making mouldings. The side rebate plane fit the bill for cleaning up the vertical walls found in complex mouldings.