Infill smoothing plane find

[custard]

I do plan to remove the back bevel from the plane Iron

That would be my inclination too, remove the back bevel and flatten off a couple of inches of the iron and take it to a mirror polished finish. Not because it's strictly necessary, more because it looks so nice! After all, isn't appearance a big part of why we all like infills in the first place?

On page three of this thread there's a detailed account of doing a similar job,

record-stanley-laminated-plane-irons-t106851-30.html

 

[custard]

I will definitely try Araldite to stabilise the bun

I might pause before I came to that conclusion,

-is the job functionally necessary? I'm not sure, the crack doesn't look particularly deep.

-it's an old crack that's now contaminated with waxy, oily grime. Not a good bonding surface

-what caused the crack in the first place? Possibly a failure to drill the correct pilot hole, the way that particular screw doesn't sit flush in the countersink makes me suspicious. Maybe a better course of action would be to plug the screw hole and do a better job with the same screw and a new pilot hole. In any event, you absolutely have to get that screw properly seated, IMO that's far more unsightly than a small crack

-this idea of blending epoxy and sawdust crops up all the time. However, professional restorers use it only rarely. The reason is the sawdust will behave more like end grain than long grain, so the quality of the colour match will actually be quite poor...and that's assuming you've got a good timber match to donate the sawdust in the first place.

Incidentally, looking at the additional photos you've posted I'm even more sceptical that this is the original front bun. Difficult to tell from a photo but the rear infill might be Indian Rosewood and the front bun might be English Walnut?