Picked up a beading plane the other day for 10 or 12 dollars. I think it's half-inch, I'd have to look again. A little bigger than I like, but what the hey.

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It's not the nicest example of the form, being a later Auburn-made tool, but it was cheap, the iron was in good shape, everything fit, and the stock was dead straight, without loose boxing, and the profile was still in good condition, so it's a lot more than I can say for a lot of the molders I find "in the wild".

The only quibble is a small piece of boxing missing towards the end of the plane - at first I though maybe part of it had slid, but everything's still firm, and looks to be in it's original places, mating up nicely with the mouth opening and the back of the plane. Maybe it did, or someone repaired it, I don't know.

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Question is, is it worth even trying to replace this little missing sliver of wood? I can't imagine it'd make a huge difference in use, so my instinct is to leave it, but I don't know if this is one of those "stitch in time saves nine" things where I'm inviting further damage in use. If it is something I should replace, what would be the best way to go about doing so? I suppose the piece is small enough, I could probably get a chip of boxwood from a chisel handle - I've got one that could use a little reshaping around a chip as it is. I've got some rosewood and ebony kicking around too, if the only requirement here is "hard".