The road to recovery (Spiers plane rehab update)

Tending to business has kept me away from this side project. Here's where things are right now with the coffin smoother.

In the photo, you should see a few things:

-A wedge that is now firmly glued into the underside of the infill.
-The tapered tongue on the tote that has made the wedge necessary.

The tongue was cleaned up the other night, and everything fitted together. I glued the wedge in last night, but the tote didn't fully cure, so I'm re-gluing again today. This is one of the great things about hide glue... It will give you second chances. And, according to the paper that came with my glue pot, it will forgive up to 1/16" gaps. Good news all around.

It will also give you stinky fingers, but I digress.

The shot above should also show a few other things, such as

-It's clear they used something resembling a dado stack to run the groove in the infill. That implies uniform depth, which is why the tapered tongue was problematic.

-Paper shims. These planes were NOT immaculately made. That doesn't mean they don't do a damn fine job. But that element of human error is reassuring to me. It tells me that nothing is perfect, and mistakes can be corrected without diminishing the end result.

I like that. This was the best performing plane that I owned before I cracked it open, and I was really worried that I'd mess that up in the process of fixing the handle.

Coming up after Thanksgiving, I get to clamp in the repaired infill, drill new holes for 5/16" replacement rods, (Per Konrad's advice) ream the holes, put everything back together, and pein the new pins.

After that, it's the slow, arduous task of filing, and cleaning everything back up.