A little bit of toolmaking, I needed a way of setting all the sawn pallet boards dead straight. For some reason, either wobbly blade, wobbly fence or wobbly technique not all the boards were coming out of the table saw straight, so inspired by the old coopering planes I made long narrow plane for clamping to the bench and pulling the boards across.

The pictures of the completed plane were taken after it had seen a few weeks of work truing up boards for the Batch #2 and #3 of the rustics – so far its worked pretty well – although it tends to clog up quickly so I may need to look at the mouth and wedge shape again. The marks on the sides are where its been clamped and re clamped to the bench.

Like any wooden plane its a bit tricky to set up – its length doesn’t help.

Made from Maple and Sapelle that I had knocking around the shed, its constructed in two halves, roughly following the internal shape of a wooden bench plane I had, just narrower, its length was pretty much dictated by the length of maple I had – as you can see from the photo of it next to a speaker, its probably a little on the long side.

1 1/4 inch double iron
30 inches long

UPDATE: since making the bench and finding a decent Stanley No.7 I haven’t used this plane, I’m thinking of lopping the ends off and seeing if it works as a tiny smoother or possibly scrub plane, but I haven’t worked up the nerve yet. Also the clogging was due to the chipbreaker having a slight gap where it met the blade. (oct 2013)