Peter McBride

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(click on the images for a larger picture) 

A small infill smoother. The wood infill is Indian Rosewood & the lever screw is set with a gemstone, a cabochon cut Lapis lazuli.
This is the third plane I've made from the scrap brass and steel, to see the other two ... click here

Once again I started with a length of 1 1/2"square extruded brass tube found at the scrap metal merchants. I made the lever cap from brass bar using a hacksaw, drill and files. The blade is 1/8 inch thick & 1 1/4 inch wide.

  

The plane is 6 3/4 inches long, has a steel plate lead soldered onto the base. Pictured above next to a #1 Stanley, and below next to a Norris #2 smoother.

I make the blades on these small planes from 1/8 x 1 1/4 inch AISA Type - 01 flat ground stock. Oil quenched from cheery red, then tempered at about 175 deg C, which gives me, according to the info sheet about Rockwell 61 - 62. For the slot in the iron, I just drill the large hole, and the hole at the other end. In between I drill a run of holes slightly smaller and then using a chainsaw file, join them up into a slot. A couple of flat files get me square and flat up to the layout lines. I don't have a mill, but I think I still can do it quicker by hand than I could on a machine.

The throat is nice and tight. 

Being a scavenger I was using the smallest piece of rosewood I could make the handle from, and was chasing a little band of sapwood out of the top horn, and took it down a little too much for best comfort. There wasn't enough of it to make a feature, it just looked bad. I would have preferred the horn to slope up a little more...bit more like the #1, but even that said, in my hand it's pretty comfortable. It will be a good fit for a 4 or 5 year old ... in a couple of years when Coen is a little older!

Copyright © Peter McBride 2007