Scrub Plane out of Firewood

 

Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads to light

Milton., Paradise Lost

So first off this is my first post is a long, long time. I had a couple management jobs away from woodworking and chairs the kept me busy and frankly life has been really busy. But like Longfellow said, don't tell me your busy, ants are busy, tell me what you're about. It's also funny (funny weird not funny ha ha) how a non emotion, an adverb, has become the go to answer for how we are. 

As you can see I can still tangent. So yeah a couple jobs and other life stuff but I did recently get a really nice order and am setting up a shop which I will post about in the coming weeks. My current bill payer is carpentry which well pays the bills. Nothing more. 

Below you can see a handplane, specifically a scrub plane, that I made a while back. I could have bought one but this a really simple,  really forgiving introduction into plane making. The body is ash (made like a sandwich) and the front tote is ash as well.  All the wood came from a very well seasoned piece of firewood. 

It's sitting next to a Lie-Nielsen #5 for size comparison. The iron (also from L-N) is held in place with a pin and wedge which holds is tight enough. I do get pretty aggressive with this plane and the blade has come loose but that's a sign to me to settle down not a failure on the part of the plane. 

Here is a view of the cambered blade and wide open mouth. 

I don't lavish a lot of sanding on my shop tools or fixtures and this plane is no different. I barely sanded the bandsaw marks off and the finish is just wax but it does work really well. One thing that flies in the face of conventional plane wisdom is despite being a very light plane it cuts remarkably well. It's not a show pony more like an old pickup. If you want the plans I'd be happy to draw the shape and email them to you.