So how many of you are going to try this?

[Donnie Raines]

Did you catch last weeks edition of Wood Works with David Marks? He built a wooden body a plane....pretty neat. I have a curly cherry plane in the works right now.....

http://www.diynet.com/diy/woodworkin...308142,00.html

[Michael Perata]

I have been in his shop and he has about 10 or so that he built - all very nice.

He studied awhile with Krenov up the coast and the first thing they do is build their own tools, at least what they can. He is also close friends with Hock so he gets the pick of the litter for the iron.

He made it look very simple, but the devil is always in the details.

[Tyler Howell]

I'll take a dare! I started a 2 night class at Rockler last year about this time and never got to the 2nd session for some work related reason. All the stuff is here. Just a matter of time and those last steps.

[Keith Christopher]

I have already milled up some claro walnut to try this one. But alas, I never seem to make any furniture for myself. The cobblers sons have no shoes.



Keith

[Brad Olson]

I will be making one soon. I really need a couple of high angle smoothers and it is impossible to find a good solution in cast iron for high angle smoothers (beside low angle jack with a high angle blade-coming soon to my shop from LV).

I just need to get around to ordering a blade and chipbreaker from Hock.

Brad

[Donnie Raines]

I am making this one a higher angle(50 degree bedding)....I hope it works!!!

[Dan Moening]

Brad,


I'm curious, are you aware that LN makes a high angle frog for their #4 and 4 1/2 ? Or do you not consider this a good solution? Is a 50* pitch not what you're after? Or is the price this issue?

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/tool.html?id=HAF

I've been considering adding this frog to my list as it'll likely get here before I have the chance to build my own wooden smoother (which is on another list )

Dan.

[Brad Olson]

Big reason for not going the LN route is two fold.. First is that the high angle planes end up beind in the neighboorhood of $300-350 and for a little more than that price and can get a really nice infill plane that will work even better (that also has the york pitch). Second is that I am not really sure if the high angle will work better than the low angle LV jack plane with a high angle blade (which I will be getting sometime soon). I figured I'd experiment with a couple of high angles (up to 60 degrees or so) and see what works best before I come up with a final solution.


I did the same with scraper planes. I build my own out of wood before I got around to buying the LV larger scraper plane, since I found the functionality (of my design) of the scraper plane to be quite wonderful on curly maple. Once I got the LV I was even happier because I could now adjust the angle of the scraper blade (which you can't do with a wooden scraper plane).

[Mark Singer]

Donnie,

That is a great project....I would love to try if I can get caught up. My daughter just move out of the guest house and my wife want me to make a opium style day bed , coffee dable and other pieces...I will be busy. But I really like the look of that plane and would like to give it a try

[Thomas Prondzinski]

Donnie
What size plane iron did he use? I think it was a Hock iron. Where to buy them at?


Thanks Tom

[Donnie Raines]

Not much shop time this weekend. Saturday was a full day and this morning(sunday) the entire family seems to have pink eye.

The iron I used was the iron from the LN 4 1/2 with a hock chip breaker.

[Brad Olson]

The iron and chipbreaker he used can be bought directly from Hock. It is specifically designed for home brew planes and included a thick iron and chipbreaker for around $50. David Marks used a 1.5" blade from them. On the Hock website they are midway down the page below the replacement bench plane irons. The nice thing about these Hock irons design for home brew planes is that the blade and chipbreaker are very thick to reduce all hints of chatter.

[Manny Hernandez]

Donnie
What size plane iron did he use? I think it was a Hock iron. Where to buy them at?

Thanks Tom

You can get them from Japan Woodworker for a little more than $30 depending on size. You can also get blades from David Finck that look similar, but are made of A2.
Once you build a few of these you'll find they're pretty easy to make. Only takes me a couple hours not including glue drying time. The one below was built with leftover wood from various projects. I used the a 1 3/4" Finck blade. I built this when I needed a low angle midsize push-style plane. The angle is around 38 - 40 degrees if I remember correctly.