The following two pictures are of a pair
of planes that I built in the summer
of 2000. The basic designs of the
planes are based on a pair appearing
in John Whelan's Making Traditional
Wooden Planes.

(By the way, this pair of planes won second place in the woodworking category at the Guilford (VT) Country Fair on Labor Day of that year! ;-)



Stop Chamfer Plane

The chamfer plane is made of european beech and uses a 1-1/2in Hock iron (without the cap-iron). The thickness of the iron required slightly reshaping the stop and the wedge from the design in Whelan's book.

As with the Jack plane, because I couldn't find stock that was sufficiently thick, the body (and the stop) are laminated from two equal pieces. Likewise, the body's throat was roughly shaped before glue-up. The finish is linseed oil.

Jack Plane

The Jack plane is made of european beech and uses a 2-3/8in Auburn Tool/Thisle Brand double iron made (which I got from Trevor Robinson).

The throat uses the "traditional" design. However, I couldn't find stock thick enough, so the plane is laminated from 3 pieces (the throat was roughly pre-shaped before lamination, and then finished after glue-up). The middle piece is 1 in thick, which matches the width of the tote-mortise, so the mortise was also shaped before glue-up. The finish is several coats of boiled linseed oil.

As a note, I found Perch and Lee's book on plane making a great supplement to Whelan's book with regard to the shaping and other details of the throat. This was especially true in that, since I used only hand tools I was able to avoid the adjustments to the throat that Whelan's use of power tools necessitated. Finally, I would highly recommend the sections on plane-making in Ken Robert's books to anyone attempting to make a "traditional" plane for the first time.










26Dec00
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