After attending the plane class by Jim Hinze I decided I would take what I learned and make a jointer at half pitch I picked up some Marble and Cocobola Wood from my local wood source and started the project. I wanted the harder Cocobola for the bottom thinking it would wear better.
I first squared up the two pieces and then cleaned them with acid tone as both woods were fairly oily, then glued them together with Gorilla glue. With the glue up complete I squared up the plane again as the two pieces moved around a bit during clamping.
Once the plane was square again, I marked the planes front and a directional triangle on top then cut 3/8" off each side. I then marked the center and cut the center blank in half followed by cutting a 600 angle on each center piece.
Next came the layout of the inside of each side for glue up positioning, degreasing with the acid tone again and gluing the pieces back together again.
Once the glue had dried I re-squared the plane up, marked and drilled the retaining pin hole, burnished the hole with the polished pin and set the pin in place.
Next it was time to make and fit the wedge, then came filing the mouth to get a nice tight fit.
Now it was time to get creative and shape the plane to my liking. The wood was extremely hard so I used my band saw for this process.
Once the outside shape had been roughed out I tightened it up in the vice and used my spoke shaves to clean it up and round over the edges.
A few hours of shaping and smoothing a little polishing and the finished tool came out looking great ...
Now all I have to do is finish sharpening up the blade and put it to use. The finished body size came out to 2" high x 2 3/4" wide x 24 1/2" long.
All in all, if I took out the time for the glue to set the whole project took me about 5 hours. I'm thinking of making a pocket plane for my apron out of Osage-Orange next.
