Shop Made Infill Plane

[Matt Owen]

This is an infill plane I made. More mistakes made than I wanted, but I think it turned out ok. Regardless, it was a lot of fun to make. East Indian Rosewood, 8" long, 1 7/8" O-1 blade that is 7/32" thick, 53 degree bed angle.

The design is an imitation of one of the planes that Ron Breese makes. Unfortunately, it doesn't look nearly as good as Ron's. I would love to try one using brass sides & lever cap, but don't have the funds quite yet for that. I also want to make a few more to see if I can make it look better before I use the good stuff. This one is all hot rolled, and the sole and sides all warped a little on me when I ground off the scale. My next one will definitely use O-1 flat stock.

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I didn't have any swirly grained woods to check, but this piece of maple planed smooth and clean in both directions.

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Thanks for looking!

Matt

[David Gilbert]

Matt,

Your plane looks fantastic. I have always wanted to build one.

Cheers,
David

[Steve Vaughan]

I'm liking that right there!

[Bill Moser]

Hey, that's awesome! It looks great,and I'm impressed that you did it from scratch. Are your ears ringing?!! I built a shoulder plane from a Shepard Tool Co (now defunct) kit a few years ago, and what I remember the most was the ringing of the hammer against steel as I peened the sides to the sole. It took many hours to hammer-weld that all together (next time, I'll wear some hearing protection!), and then many more hours of filing. For those who want to try it, but don't want to start at the scrap-yard, St James Bay is offering kits at crazy low prices.

[george wilson]

A great effort!! You must already have good skills to do that on the first try.

[Chris Griggs]

That is awesome looking and it looks like it works quite well. Very cool! Thanks for sharing.

[Brian Kent]

That is very nice, Matt. Congratulations!

[David Weaver]

I hear you say there are mistakes, but I don't see them. Looks great :)

[Jeff Wittrock]

Outstanding! That is a good looking plane.
I have no doubt there will be more to come. You can't just stop at one.

[Joe Fabbri]

The plane looks great, Matt, thanks for sharing.

I saw on another site that a guy welded (probably MIG) the pieces together. He kept it steady with the heat, by using some bolts to keep the sides together. It seemed like a pretty good alternative, if you can keep things from moving around.

I wonder if that would work.

Anyway, nice job.

Joe

[Steve Branam]

That's a gorgeous hunk of wood and metal!