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Trevanion, the infill is figured Gidgee (Acacia cambagei), one of the denser & harder of our numerous dry-country Acacias. You should indeed have a crack at it, most people end up discovering the metalwork isn't half as difficult as it looks. I would advise trying a parallel-sided version...

you're moving right along! I reckon your plane will be making shavings a good month ahead of mine... :) Cheers,

Pete, I didn't mean to imply the wedge won't work as designed - if you use some reasonably stiff wood for the 'lever-cap' & position the cross-bar more carefully than I did, I'm sure it'll be ok. I managed to get mine a bit closer to the bed than intended, which meant the wedge had to be thin...

".....So the moral of the story is don't deviate from the plans unless you have a lifetime of sorting your own cock-ups....." Ah, but there's no fun in just sticking to the beaten path, Pete.. :wink: I made one of these kits up as a review for our local woodwork mag., & because it was a...

:o I guess you'd call it convergent evolution, Pete, I swear I hadn't seen your post before ! Interesting that you used brazing rod for rivets, I tried that too, but like you, found it was much too hard. Brass rod is far more forgiving, depending on the alloy. You can get 260 brass fairly...

Dunnit - here 'tis: It's not really a WIP, but covers some of the problems & pitfalls I've encountered in my own plane-making. Happy to answer any specific questions anyone may have..... :) Cheers, IW

While I maintain that screw adjusters aren’t really necessary on this type of plane, especially as you tend to set them once between sharpenings, I accept that many folks feel lost without them, particularly early in their planing career. Learning to tap-set a plane is just one more distraction...

Close enough to 40 years ago, I first became aware of the lovely infill shoulder/rebate planes of the latter 19th century & immediately lusted after one, but such beauties were well beyond my financial reach at the time. After much thought, heavily influenced by my limited budget, tool kit &...

Righto, working on it. Give me a day or two to find some pics & put it together..... Cheers, Ian

Ah, thanks Andy. I thought I'd tried the wheely thingy, but obviously not! All good now.... Cheers, Ian

Hmm. made a pig's ear of that post, & there doesn't seem to be any way to edit it & delete the duplicate image & put the correct one in its place. Can someone tell me how I might fix it?? Thanks, IW

Had quite a few deja vu moments reading about your plane build, Tom, & was reminded of many similar moments with my first dovetailed infill. The time from beginning to end of that project was even longer than yours! It didn't help that I was stupidly ambitious and decided to make a coffin...

Sam-Jack, many years ago, I was given a very old (pre lateral-adjuster) Stanley #4. It was a bit of a sad case, someone had used it to drive railway spikes, or something equally sensible, and knocked out a goodly chunk of one side. However, cleaned up & fettled a little, it performed ok & I...

Oh well, no use submitting that patent application, then...... :lol: I see you went to the bother of including a screw adjuster, Pete. Looks like a similar arrangement to what I did for my first SP, for which I used a Record replacement blade. At the time, I had access to a small hobby-type...

Hi Carl, that's my patent wedge-locker. :) There are a couple of reasons I departed from a traditional wedge. It was made to have the typical wedge bearing against a bridge riveted in the body, but I found the slope I chose was probably a bit shallow & the wedge tended to lock in very...

Hmmm, while I'm sure the rebate block plane would do at a pinch, I'm not sure it really substitutes for a shoulder plane. As Derek Cohen has pointed out elsewhere, one of the features of shoulder planes is the long toe, which allows firm & accurate registration of the tool before starting the...

Richard, you're not terribly well-off for these sorts of woods, are you? You can buy a limited range from a few suppliers over here. Prices are a bit eye-watering, but justifiable for small, 'valuable' projects like this. 'Ringed' Gidgee is one of my favorites, the fine fiddleback figure...

Just a quick update on my little chariot plane. I wasn't happy with the wedge, it is a beautiful piece of Mulga, but the scrap I made it from was too thin & short to form a decent palm-grip along the lines of the Norris original that inspired it. A friend gave me a chunk of what he thought...

"The screw holding the cross bar holding the wedge " seems to be generally referred to as a 'bridge'. Yes, I decided with my very first metal plane that it's the better way to go. The main shear force is at the edge where the pin enters the sides, so a screw is just as strong as a through pin...

Nice little plane, Richard. Having made a couple of dovetailed metal planes myself, several of your comments struck a chord! I just finished a small 'infill' chariot plane, which I posted on the Ubeaut forum. (Hmmm, tried to post a link but this forum won't let me. It's in "Hand Tools...