Thanks William, both for the material and photos you posted, and for sharing an experience for which I would give my eye teeth!
Derek and William: I will comment a little - I live about 15 minutes from IP and am going to spend the last two weeks of April ( 2018 ) finishing up the ' first ' program at the school - I enrolled when they were splitting up the terms, which they no longer do, as it can create open bench space(s). I am truly a lucky lad to live so close to a place that people come from all over the world to attend. As William said, it is truly inspiring. Robert and Yvonne are wonderful people, Robert a true Craftsman, and his assistant, Caroline, is exceptional as well.
I have been a fan of Jim Krenov forever, and read and re-read his books. I own one of his smoothers, which is beyond monetary value to me.
You are a lucky man Derek - Attending the School, I have had the opportunity to use several of JKs planes; that is as close as I will get...
Having said this, what you need to comment on is context. For example, you mention that the mouths of the planes made (no doubt still with the Hock blade-chipbreaker created for these planes) is very small. That supports my understanding that these planes - and Krenov - do not use the chipbreaker to control tearout. One cannot set a close chipbreaker on a tiny mouth as it will clog the escapement.
Derek: When made, the mouths are made as tight as possible - we set the CBs really close ( but not as close as I set my Stanleys for instance ) - on my Krenov style planes, I typically set to less that 1/32''.
The second factor follows from this, and that is the wood that is used. If figured, how do the students learn to control tearout? I do not recall Jim ever making a plane with a high cutting angle. All were common angle (45 degrees). Do they rely on scrapers? Or do they avoid all but straight grained wood?
Derek: Typically, Krenov used straight grain wood, however, much of the wood he used ( and the School uses in the later sessions ) can be reversing grain - Bocote, Goncalo Alves, Sapele, etc. Also, many of these are abrasive, which presents its own problems. There are a couple higher angle planes floating around, but a well tuned Krenov style plane at 45 degrees will deal with most issues, especially on real fine cuts. Scrapers are used, but infrequently. Sandpaper is not used for final wood finish at all. All surfaces are either planed, scraped, or chiseled before finish.
Thirdly, the jointer plane is 9". Again this suggests that hand planes were not used to joint wood, but perhaps only used to refine a joint, with the work mainly done by machines. Krenov was big on his use of machinery. This is not a criticism - I am equally a blended woodworker - but the reason for a short "jointer" needs to be clarified. 9" is the length of your average #3. Other than Paul Sellers (who probably also prepares his wood on machines), I do not know anyone recommending jointing with such short hand planes.
Derek / William: I don't know what William was shown - typically the smoothers are in the 9'' range and the jointer ( C/W 1'' blade ) is around 11-1/2 - 12'' long. The smoothers use a 1-1/2'' blade. The bulk of the work is done by machine, but like I noted, every surface is touched by a hand tool, even edge jointing- glue lines are non-existant if done properly, as we all know.
Here is a thread I started when I made, as a side project while at IP, a 1-1/4'' jointer while at the school - it is about 13'' IIRC:
https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....age3&p=2549372
Regards from Perth
Derek