Building a copy of Gordon Gould's land plane

[52Redbelly]

I hope Gordon will take this as a compliment to his design and excellent plans.

I will post pictures of my progress next week. Cannot post pics from an iPad.

Today I got the runners welded to the sides and the two cross bars between the sides. Tomorrow I will put in the two angles to hold the blades and the 3PH structure. I bought a cutting edge from AgriSupply but then was given a very heavy used blade from a motor grader. Still trying to figure out how to mount it to the angle, as it is curved slightly. I will probably just weld it on and hope for the best.

I am thinking about angling the front blade (the motor grader blade) about 5 degrees and setting the rear blade square to create just a bit of a crown in the road. And since there will be no way to adjust the depth of the blades once it is built, I am thinking about setting the front blade about 3/8 - 1/2" below the bottom of the runners. The only use for this tool will be dragging gravel driveways. I would sure like some of your opinions about both of these ideas.

 

[Gordon Gould]

All sounds good to me
I hope you like it as much as I like mine. I'll post a picture for you.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Put the blade 1/2" down and if you install the cutting edge on an angle, I would put it at more than 5*. On my 84" wide LPGB (land plane grader blade) the blades are 18" back from one side to the other. I don't know what that angle is, but it works good and that is what I would use. I'm thinking that on my 60" LPGB the blades are back 12" from one side to the other, but I'm not 100% sure of the 12" measurement.

Good luck with your build, I am sure that you will be happy with the implement.

 

[jenkinsph]

When setting the blade angle it would work best if the rear beveled edge is parallel with the ground. This will wear more slowly and keep the leading edge sharper. Picture how you would sharpen the blade with a file, that surface should be flat or parallel to the ground. If you stand the blade up at a steep angle you will wear the edge down prematurely. I know that the grader blades I have purchased were designed to be set at about 45 degrees.

If you bolt the blades down with plow bolts tightly the curve in the blade is a non issue. You can shim it beneath the blade if you want to. The easiest way to handle the drilling without a machine shop is to clamp the blade to the steel backing plate or angle and use the holes in the blade as your drill guides. I used a 5/8" bimetal hole saw with the 1/4" pilot bit removed and this worked great drilling through the 4x4x3/8" angle iron. The proper sized holesaw is a close enough fit not to wander when drilling the holes.

Here are pics of the two landplanes I have built and a picture where I was getting set up to drill the holes, a pair of c clamp vise grips works well to hold the material in place.

 

[52Redbelly]

I like the idea of mounting the blade with plow bolts but drilling through the mount 8 times does not sound like much fun. May be worth the trouble though. Thanks for the idea.

 

[jenkinsph]

I like the idea of mounting the blade with plow bolts but drilling through the mount 8 times does not sound like much fun. May be worth the trouble though. Thanks for the idea.

I hope you carried away from my post to use a holesaw to drill the holes, much faster than using a twist drill. Maybe a minute or two per hole.

 

[52Redbelly]

Looked for the bi-metal hole saw at Lowe's and Home Depot, but they don't carry anything less than 3/4 and I need 5/8. I'll try a real tool store tomorrow.
Still working on posting some pictures, but honestly it is a spittin' image of Gordons.

 

[catdozer]

Here's my LPGS it has straight blades and set to 1/2 below the skids it works great for me!

 

[52Redbelly]

Well I finally got my Photobucket account set up so I'll try to post some pictures.

A friend of mine owns a nice metal fabrication shop. He got me all the steel.



He had me draw what I wanted in AutoCAD, and he ran the 3/8" plate through his laser cutter. What an amazing machine! Every piece is perfect. Take a look...



I needed a flat place to work, so the old trailer seemed like a good place to get started. It didn't take long for it to get pretty heavy, but once I had the first few welds done, I knew it was square and flat.



Here is how far I got on the first day



Seems like any day I plan to spend a few hours on this project it is over 100 degrees. Here is where I am as of yesterday. The next step is to paint it Ford 8N red.



Notice that I haven't installed the cutting blade yet. I got a used 6' loader bucket blade from a local road construction company. They were going to scrap it, he said it was worn out. For my project it is better than new, and I'll never wear it out. It also adds another 100 lbs to the land plane. Also notice that I cocked the front blade holder 8 degrees, which is 10" back on one side. The land plane is 6' wide.



I'll post a couple more pics when I get it painted and the blade installed. I could not have done this, at least not nearly as well without Gould's plans. I can't wait to try it out.

 

[jwy]

Could you give a link for the actual plans of the land plane? Thank you!