In yesterday's class, we made the cross pins, against which the wedges will secure the blade in place, and cut the cheeks off the sides of the plane blocks; until now they had been whole blocks. Then we cut the center block into two with the correct slopes to bed the plane blade at the desired angle. My smoother is being crafted from Osage orange, a very hard and beautiful yellow wood. Domestic varieties are also known as hedge apple and by other names.
I then marked the location for the crosspin, drilled holes through the
body to accept it, and glued the cheeks back onto the center blocks.
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| The Osage orange smoother in clamps after the cheeks were re-glued to the center blocks |
The clamps came off after a few hours. I centered the crosspin between the checks, trimmed off the crosspins where they stood proud, and laid out the profile for the plane on one side. Then it was off to the bandsaw to create the rough outline shown below.
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| After the clamps came off, the boxy plane body was sawn to rough shape |
Next steps are to refine the body shape, hone the blade and fit the blade and the wedge to the plane body.
Norm
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