Hand Planes

My smoothers have been gathering dust too but only because I've been working on stuff that doesn't require smoothers. Stuff for the shop that's going to end up painted doesn't need to be all that pretty. On the other hand, the shoulder plane, bullnose, skew rabbet, block planes, and LA Jack have been getting quite a bit of use. source

Time to teach your grease monkeys how to service the planes and accept responsibility for dicking around. You can buy best planes in the universe, but if you dont teach your morons how to work, you'll be stuck blaming someone else for you ineptitude. source

Yes I had problems too recently although fortunately suffered no breakages. Perhaps if the makers read these comments they could consider them in future issues. source

In the world of smoothers, I really like having several different kinds. Even though they supposedly do the same thing, sometimes one works when the others just wouldn't behave. source

If you, or your friends, all ready know how to do the metallurgy for O1 tool steel, then making blades is pretty straight forward. As others have mentioned, you don't need a cap iron, just use a thicker piece of steel. This simplifies both the construction of the plane and its use. So now all you're dealing with is a rectangular piece of metal with a bevel on one end. source