New Handplanes

So, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything here. This is the latest project that’s filling my free time. I have a new job teaching woodshop at a school for children with learning disabilities and on my free time I started this set of hand planes. I decided to build them using abutments on the cheeks instead of a cross pin ah-la Krenov style like I’ve done before. I had some two and half inch square hard maple stock that I ripped down the middle, then using the layout lines from The Norse Woodsmith’s plans on building a traditional Coffin Smoother (http://norsewoodsmith.com/content/building-traditional-coffin-smoother) I cut the bed, abutments and mouth using my table saw with an Incra 1000SE miter gauge. The bed is set at 50 degrees. The tote was shaped by hand with rasps and files then sanded to 220, it sits in a mortis in the body The block plane was an after thought really. I wanted to do a low angle block plane but the bed angle for that is usually set at 12 degrees with the bevel up, usually ground at 25 degrees giving a cut angle of 37 degrees. I was able to cut a 12 degree miter but it would have made it difficult to wedge, so I decided to cut the bed at 30 degrees and place the bevel down. I built the block plane the same way as the Jack plane, two halves that got glued together. I had to work on the bed of the block to get the blade to sit perfect and give me nice shavings. The plan is to attach a rosewood sole onto both plane bodies and when that happens I’ll upload some more pictures. So, what do you do when you go through the trouble of building a set of nice hand tools, you make a case for them. The case is maple with a rosewood detail. A set of holders are attached to the base of the box to hold the planes in place and one on the lid for the block plane since it is narrower then the jack. I also plane to replace the mahogany wedges with rosewood to match the soles at some point. When the soles are attached I will do the final finish sanding and chamfer the edges to make it comfortable to use.

-- "At its best, life is completely unpredictable." - Christopher Walken