A three-quarter rear view of one of my 5/8 inch rabbet planes
I am posting several views of the rabbet planes I am currently working on. Over the weekend I spent quite a bit of time working on fitting' wedges, test fitting, sanding and refining the fit of each wedge. Right now I have two good "user" planes. Which would be fine if I were just making them for myself. My goal is to offer these planes for sale. This means that I have to refine both the design and the construction process down to a point where I am confident that I can reproduce small batches of planes that when compared against one another over time will be recognizably consistent. Paring and filing the bed of each of these two planes to insure that it's iron fitted without any light showing between iron and bed was time consuming. That I accepted as a given. I was more concerned that the width of the two wedge mortises as measured on the top of the plane varied by an 1/8th of an inch. That one wedge is slightly wider where it fits into it's plane isn't an issue if I view each plane as a 'one-off' product. But it means I need to come up with a jig and tool set up that results in a more consistant wedge mortise width.
The other issues that I need to settle on revolve around fit and finish. How fine a grit should I sand the plane's stock to? What finish is going to be attreactive, hard wearing, easy to apply, and acceptable to potential customers? If there are fine crumbs or chips broken off the arris where the bed of the iron meets the side face of the stock, how much is acceptable? At the moment I have more questions than answers. If I get the done by the time of the Common Ground Fair, I will take them with me and see what kind of comments or criticisms I receive from other woodworkers attending the fair. The problem is most people when shown something tend to be complimentary so they won't hurt your feelings, but hesitate to actually buy what your selling. You can't eat compliments.
Having read the blogs of plane-makers Raney Nelson, of DAED Toolworks and Karl Holtey, of Holtey Planes, and admired their work, I have quite a hill to climb to match their work.
