Hello Stewie, that was an excellent restoration post. I also recently bought a 22" Mathieson fore plane with a probably replacement Ibbotson double iron. The body of the plane was worn, but the cutting iron is almost new.

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I was very aggressive removing the dings on the surface of the plane, please don't be too harsh on me. The fore plane is the one in the foreground. (The smoother is also a Mathieson. The plane in the back is a WWII no maker jack plane from the UK with a Marples iron.) I re-glued the handle with old brown glue. The double iron fits well, so I only needed to clean up the mushed area at the top of the wedge. I've given it two coats of BLO and I'm still waiting for it to cure. The mouth was repaired at some point in the past, it's not pretty, but it's still attached firmly.

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It's capable of taking decent shavings.

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I've been very lucky with the Mathieson bench planes I've bought, they perform very well. The smoother in the picture above works great. Other coffin smoothers I have don't perform as well.

Question for all, what is your experience with particular brands of wooden bench planes?

Cheers,

Rafael