HNT GORDON - USING HOLLOWS

When making complex mouldings with combinations of Hollows, Rounds and rebate planes you will most likely find it is best to draw the desired profile on the end grain of the wood and see if you can saw away any excess wood before you start planing.

One of the most difficult things to do when using hollows and rounds to make mouldings is to get them started and tracking exactly where you want them to. It is sometimes difficult to set up wooden fences to guide the planes down the long piece of wood to be made into a moulding. With a marking or cutting gauge you can accurately mark out where you want your hollows, rounds and rebates to be formed (top photo).

Then use a Snipe Bill planes to start the cut in the desired position. The narrow edge on the sole of the snipe bill will track down the marking gauge line. After several passes you will have a large enough grove to start either a rebate, hollow or round plane. This photo shows an existing round shape and a snipe bill cutting another grove to form a second round shape adjacent to the first. The first round profile was started by having two parallel marking gauge lines, the two groves were formed with a snipe bill pair followed by the hollow plane to form a round (bead) shape.

This photo shows the hollow plane following the two parallel groves formed by the snipe bill to complete the round shape.

In this photo a round plane is tracking down a grove formed by a snipe bill. Be careful not to go too deep with the snipe bill otherwise you will have an undesired grove at the bottom of the formed hollow. When forming hollow shapes only one marking gauge line is placed where you want the centre of the hollow. If placed correctly this hollow will blend into the adjacent round shape to make the desired moulding.

This is a photo of the completed moulding and if you look closely you will see that I have accentuated the the grove between the two rounds to form a quirk which was done with the pair of side snipes which is there other task in life.

This is a totally unique moulding which can only be formed by these tools.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to experiment with these planes as you will be surprised with what shapes you can come up with.