A plane for difficult grain

[chris in Ottawa]

This plane has a high blade pitch of 62 degrees for those situations where you run into tear out and you'd rather not scrape. Seems to work great as a finish smoother on figured woods. The mouth was left tight so you wouldn't want to do much more than light finish cuts.
Made from a hard maple bat blank with a polished rosewood wedge. Good excuse to use 2, 10mm mother-of-pearl dots. I machined the brass cross pin (less effort than making a weaker wooden pin). Discovered I like pinching the plane nose with my fingers for better control. This gets your hand down lower and gives you a better feel. I think the next one will have notches on either side of the over sized well for thumb clearance!

[charlton]

That's very nice. I would love to make a plane some day.

[Jack in Nepean]

Looks good and seems to work well. Matter of taste, but I don't like the hatching. FWIW I seem to get a good grip on a smooth surface. Which blade did you use?

[matt in golden]

Chris, that is awesome...

How long does it make for you to make one of those?

Matt

(edit: I quite like the hatching...)

[chris in Ottawa]

The blade is the wide 48mm Taiwanese-Style jack plane replacement blade LV sells. This blade is super hard and hold an edge well but costs $12. The plane is based on the Krenov style and the book to buy is by David Fink (LV). It takes a couple evenings to build one. An oscillating pole sander speeds things up! It can become an addictive low cost pastime.

[Ryan in Edmonton]

Awesome plane. I'd love to try making one someday too. Whats the dimensions of it?

[KenL]

Nice plane Chris!!

Ken in Ottawa

[Mike in Orangeville]

That's a lovely plane, Chris. Very nicely done!

[Dominic Greco]

Chris,
That looks MARVELOUS! Well done!

I have an old 2" Sorby iron and chip breaker that I want to build a high angle plane around. Because of the length of the iron, I'm probably going to make a more "traditionally" shaped coffin smoother. But it will be built in the Krenov method.

I really like the brass cross pin (that's sort of what I was planning on doing as well)! But the inlay on the wedge is the detail that really caught my eye.

thanks for posting this.

[Jim Shaver, Oakville Ont.]

Great looking plane..


Hey Dom, welcome to CWW!

[chris in Ottawa]

I like the lower 'pinch' grip for control with this plane. In order to make the grip more comfortable I cut a notch in the right side of the plane cheek. The grip was uncomfortable with the sharp top edge. I was concerned the force on the pin (when the wedge is set) might split the side cheek. It doesn't appear to be a problem because the force is perpendicular to the wedge than it is vertical. May build the next one stretched out with a 'bun' infill style nose!