We just received our first fully finished sample of our new Crucible Planing Stops. The cast ductile iron stops are all poured and are about halfway through the grinding process. So it won’t be long now.
The stops will cost less than $50. And they are incredibly simple to install:
- Drill a 5/8” hole in the wooden block for your planing stop
- Pound the iron stop in
- Uh, done.
Whenever we post photos of this planing stop or our holdfast, people remind us that cast iron is fragile. It’s a stupid material to use to make a holdfast or planing stop. You can’t hit it with a hammer – it will shatter. Heck, it will shatter when you drop it on the floor.
Even when we tell people it is ductile iron, they respond: Actually, you can’t make holdfasts from ducks, ducts or tile, either. Do the research!
Today, I beat our planing stop samples with a lump hammer more than 100 times each to see what would happen. As always, the answer is: nothing.
— Christopher Schwarz
Do you have to file the teeth to a point?
The teeth come ground to a point where they will work fine, but they won’t cut the user. Then, when the user feels like they want to use sharp teeth, it takes just a couple minutes to file them sharp (just like a blacksmith-made forged stop).
If you play this at 1.5x, it reminds me of barbiewoodshop on Instagram.
If you play this at 1.5x, it reminds me of barbiewoodshop on Instagram.
I’m not that good. But thanks.
What happened at the end there? Looks like the hammer almost slides off the vise. Did a duck bite you?
That made me laugh for the first time today. Thanks!
This is funny. I repeatedly hit my ductile iron hold fast with a BFH for many years. It still looks brand new.
I feel badly for the vise 🙂
For sure. I think Chris needs to spend his spare time restoring that ugly, beat up vise.
Love seeing posts with more information about metallurgy! also the last few seconds of that video were priceless 😂
I don’t think your patrons should be taken literally. Obviously referring to any purveyors of fowls. And if you don’t get the Life of Brian reference, go to the back of the class
That must have felt good. Awesome.
Random, but maybe not impertinent question: if ductile cast iron is so much better than bog standard cast iron, why don’t they make pans out of it? all the good of cast iron sans the fragility. I ask here since I never heard of ductile cast iron being discussed by folks making cast iron pans.
They don’t make cast iron pans out of it because of the cost. Ductile iron is more expensive than grey iron. While a cast iron pan MAY break if dropped, they don’t get dropped that often. The price difference between grey iron and ductile iron just makes it to expensive for regular cookware.
Ductile is a little more expensive, but not much. One of the problems is that some foundries simply don’t pour ductile – they only pour typical grey iron. And switching back and forth can be inconvenient for scheduling pours. We are working with a foundry that does both. And so you have to wait for them to have enough orders for ductile to justify a pour in ductile.
As a metallugist I can think of two reasons
One is cost, ductile cast iron requires additional magnesium alloying and processing to change the morphology of the graphite in the iron matrix from a flake/plate shape to a sphere/nodule shape (this incidentally is a large part of why ductile cast iron is ductile)
Two is heat transfer, I am not a pot metal expert but I do know that the coarse plates of graphite found in some grades of grey cast iron have excellent heat transfer properties which would likely make them good candidates for cookwear when compared to ductile cast iron
You should cover your bathroom walls with duck tiles.
Ohhhh!!! I can’t wait!
How does it mount to a bench? Can you put it into a dog hole?
They install in a wooden block that is friction-fit into your benchtop. The block moves up and down with hammer taps. Here is a blog entry that shows it: https://blog.lostartpress.com/2020/04/02/install-a-planing-stop/
You know you should never strike a metal mallet on another metal surface. The mallet could explode.
Also I’ve read that in rare instances, benches that are built out of wet wood will spontaneously explode as they dry. This is occasionally fatal.
That’s going to put a lot of blacksmiths and metal smiths out of work…
I love when I get visitors to the shop and get to watch them cringe when I set the Crucible holdfasts. It’s like they think it’s going to explode or do cart wheels or something.
Or even better, succumb to your will. I am, of course, referring to the holdfasts, and not your visitors!
I wish I wasn’t so attached to my cut off Ryoba blade planing stop. Its ugly but I really am so attached to it. The Crucible planing stop is amazing and does not appear to be breakable. Congrats on a job well done. It just might cause me to make a change.
What did that planing stop ever do to you? (Save you anger for a choice piece of hickory next time…)
I ain’t angry. We do this to test the ductile. I just happened to film it this time.
I’m sold. But it’s not listed in your catalog. Not taking advanced orders?
We don’t have them in stock to sell. I hope next week.
Wait…do do I need to hammer the planing stop 100 times with one of your hammers for best performance?
I’m so confused…
Rebrand it as a “Stress Reliever” an sell it for $2000….
You sould work on your marketing skills…
LOL
Ducks can smelter and blacksmith? I guess is the first sign of the duckpocalypse. I for one welcome our new duck overlords.
The obvious conclusion is that the particular lump hammer you used isn’t actually made of metal. Good work on the sound effects, though.
gotta be better than those cast aluminum ones, im on my 3rd one?
Some people need to buy new armchairs because theirs are clearly broken.