Two of my latest batch of squirrel-tail palm planes

 

One of the frequent questions my wife raises is 'is there anything you can make that will sell for $75.00 or less at a craft show?'  Up to now my answer has always been no. My chairs sell in the range of $1,000.00 apiece on up. When I go to shows I expect to make contacts with potential customers, but it rare for someone to purchase a chair on the spot. Still Ann's question has been nagging me for years. And, admittedly, I would like to make something small that would be attractive to the many woodworkers I speak with at shows.

Over the past several years I have spent more and more of my time in the shop working on a variety of specialized planes suitable for Windsor chair-making. One of the designs I recently came up with was a pair of prototype squirrel-tail palm planes, one with a flat sole and the second with a convex sole. After playing around with the design and putting the first planes through thier paces, I have made a first batch of the palm planes with convex radiused soles. As I write this post I have not yet heat treated the blades I ground for this batch of palm planes. I will get to that shortly.

 

My palm planes are available with bodies made from either quarter sawn european beech or tiger maple with european beech infill. The wedges are made using Central American rose wood.The planes are 1-3/8 inches in width, 4-3/4 inches in length, and stand 2-3/4 inches in hieght. The stop against which the wedge seats is reinforced with a brass rod running from side to side. As with all my plane blades, the blades for these planes are made using O-1 tool steel which I grind and heat treat myself. The blade for the palm plane is cut from 1 inch wide steel stock.

As well as selling these planes through my website, I will list several on ebay. The planes will sell for $75.00 plus shipping.

Questions or comments please contact me.

 

Thanks for stopping by, STB