Forming the throat on a chair-maker's plane

 

This past weekend I shaped the rounded soles on this batch of small chair-maker's planes. That was the subject of my last post. Before I shaped the convex profile on the plane body blanks, I roughly chopped out as much material from the throat of each plane as I thought I could get away with. With the lateral curve not yet created, I didn't want to chop to deep. On the other hand, the plane body is a lot easier to clamp to the bench when the bottom surface is still flat. The plane's small size and curved  sole makes paring the throat a chore. To make this task more managable I made a jig to hold the plane stock steady as I formed the throat with a set of chisels. The jig consists of a four sided box, with a curved bed cut to fit the profile of my small plane. When clamped to my bench, the box securely holds one of the plane bodies as I pare the throat. Dispite all this prep work, I am going to have to do some final fitting and shaping of the throat when I fit the blade. Typically the mouth of the plane is going to need to be opened a little wider and the straight slot of the mouth formed in the glue up of the body opened up in a slight curve to match the curve ground on the iron. So the throat is still going to require some final tweaking.

Beech has a tendency to break out when pared with a chisel. To help keep this under control I have fitted a throw away temporary wedge in the throat to give my chisel something to cut up against. This limits grain break out at the mouth of the plane.