Plough Plane

Plough plane for books up to A3 size. The easiest way to trim! built using modern materials and made on modern machinery this plough is a top quality tool built to last.

This plough plane is a modern take on a traditional bookbinding plough. Books with lots of pages can be tricky to line up the page edges. A plough was developed to cut a small number of pages in each pass. This means you do not need an expensive powered guillotine to square up your text block or book.

Cutting a small number of pages on each pass of the blade reduces the force required. With reduced cutting forces the size, weight, complexity and construction of the plough is simplified. We have been developing this tool for over a year and believe this is the best way to make a plough that is safe and suitable for hobbyist and professional bookbinders alike.

 

Designed to leave your book project with a professional square edge with all the pages cut cleanly.

Operation

The plough plane operation is extremely simple :-

Loosen the clamp handles underneath the bed.

Set the back stop bar to your page width.

Place your text block on the bed and snug it up to the back stop.

Align the text block against the green spacer block.

Clamp in place with the clamp handles.

Verify the blade will cut where you want it.

Now you can start your cut rotating the depth knob a little on each pass to slowly cut through the block.

On every pass a few pages will drop free and once complete the blade will cut into the wear strip on the bed.

That’s it. All done.

Plough plane more detail

Blade

The plough plane handle contains a specially ground blade. The blade is made from HSS or high speed steel. Normally found on cutting tools for metalworking lathes and drill bits. It is far superior to normal carbon steel as used with traditional ploughs,  woodworking chisels, hacksaw blades etc. We buy the steel as rectangular blanks they then go to a specialist company to grind the specific profile cutting edge. The newly ground blank has the steel actuator rod silver soldered on ( yes it does contain silver). Finally we hone and polish the cutting edge. Once completed the blade is incredibly sharp and will slice easily through a text block.

Handle

The handle has been very carefully designed to fit nicely in your hand. Fully retracted the blade is safely contained inside the handle. We recommend to always leave the blade fully retracted to avoid any cuts. The 3D printed depth control knob fits perfectly in the handle.  Designed to easily control the blade depth of cut without becoming stiff to move. With a bit of practice the plough is a joy to use, really simple and very accurate.

A wear strip of plastic relieved into the bed stops the blade from cutting through the wooden bed. This can be turned over once it gets a bit worn and eventually replaced with a new one. Just get in touch and we will provide a replacement at a small cost.

Plough Plane track

We have used a quality linear bearing for the track that the handle runs on. These bearings are more commonly found on computer controlled cutting machines for example routers, lathes and milling machines. Bearings of this accuracy have now become cheap enough to incorporate into machines like this plough. This one is for example is capable of keeping the blade within 0.02mm of its datum.

Specification

Made from birch plywood for stability over time, humidity and temperature. Varnished several times for durability this plough is an investment if looked after it should last a lifetime.

Finished size is:-

56cm wide, 30cm deep, 36cm high and weighs 5kg.

Cutting capacity 41cm wide x 30cm deep and 70mm thick.

We recommend an occasional small drop of light machine oil on the linear rail. Once applied run the handle back and forth a few times to distribute the oil into the bearings.

Every one of our ploughs are finished and assembled by hand so please allow ten working days from placing your order before despatch.