The Realm of the Unknown

     The more I get into making this plane, the more I realize I really don't know!  I've handled very few wooden bodied planes so I'm kind of going by logic and pictures.  After Church, I started the day with this:

Sunday Morning

     At this point things are pretty blocky and I'm resisting the urge to smooth, round, chisel, sand, etc. to a shape that's pleasing to my hands.  The main thing missing is a sole.  The directions say to attach the sole, mark out the mouth, and then cut it out with either a router or coping saw.  I chose the latter:

Roughing out the Mouth

     What you see here is the piece of Purple Heart that will become the sole of the plane.  I'm a little bit stymied with how to treat the mouth.  The pencil line you see is the actual space for the mouth in between the front and rear blocks.  The rear block is cut at 45 degrees so the mouth in the sole will need to be formed to make a ramp that is perfectly flat and 45 degrees all the way to the opening.  Since this is what the blade rests on it seems that will be crucial.  Because this plane will be used to take large shavings, the mouth can and should, be pretty large so they will pass through.  I did cut a slight chamfer on the bottom of the mouth, it will eventually taper from the pencil line to the edge of the opening.  I'll use a paring chisel to accomplish that once the glue dries over-night.  By contrast, my bronze Smooth Plane has a very "tight" mouth to allow just the thinnest of shavings to pass through.  The two holes at the top of the sole are for the Ebony pegs that will align the sole to the body.

     Here's where I left off this afternoon, everything's glued together and I roughed out the wedge from a piece of Zebrawood.  It and the blade are at the lower corner of this picture:

There's a Plane in There Somewhere!

     Just a side note here, last night Diane and I went to a place called  Bottles & Burgers for some gourmet burgers on New Years Eve.  The tables had a rustic finish on them which could have easily been made by a curved bladed scrub plane such as this project will hopefully become.

Happy New Year to All of You