I have been interested in building myself a coffin smoother for some time now and have recently seen the tapered plane blades that LV is now offering up. My question is about the taper. Does it seem like they may be tapered a bit too heavily or is this a fairly standard taper. I am personally not interested in creating a plane that is historically accurate or anything of that nature, I just want to make a nice functioning coffin smoother. So the fact that they are an inch short doesn't matter to me at all. I have used an old coffin smoother that was fairly rough but really liked the feel and function of the plane. But I just haven't been able to come up with a blade that was in good enough condition suited for this project. I've contemplated just buying one of Old Street's coffin smoothers but thought I'd rather make my own.
Also, any info or tutorials on building such a plane would be great. I have never made a non laminated style plane so cutting the mortise will certainly be a fun project.