This time around I was more concerned with the cosmetics but equally as focused on function. It seems that when making a hand plane I’m always treading that line between form and function. Usually I’ll be more towards function as inevitably your tools get a bit of abuse during their lifetime and having something that’s so pretty you don’t dare use it is a strange concept to bestow upon a hand tool.I did give this plane a little bit of fancy embellishment that hopefully highlights the amount of effort and time I’ve put into it. Some gently figured Maple and American Black Walnut have combined nicely, and this is the first time I’ve made a laminated style plane that required some mortice chisel work that you’d expect to find in the construction of Japanese Hand Planes and some Western ones. I quite like the chisel work and providing your tools are sharp, the area you chisel out should be clean, tidy and accurate. I think when I start another, I’ll try that method as it’ll reduce the number of surfaces needing to be flattened for gluing. Plus I like taking a mallet to a mortice chisel, there’s something decidedly satisfying about that combination of tools.Previously I’ve made planes with a cross pin which has worked okay. If I had a pillar drill this part of making would be much easier, doing it by hand is feasible but potentially far less accurate. Having a cross pin that’s not quite square and parallel to sides and ramp creates more work later on when fine tuning the mouth, wedge and cut of the plane. I’m not sure whether you could call whatI’ve done a cross pin, perhaps it has another name but it serves the purpose of holding the blade in with the wedge.

I’m proud of this one, a lot of work has gone into it. I’ll be testing it out tomorrow, obviously only for quality control purposes…

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