I’ve finally finished the Small Smoothing Plane, well, almost finished, the lever cap could do with some more finishing and the infills need a few coats of shellac.
Appologies for the photography, taking pics of shiny brass is very difficult. I’ve just bought a light tent, but haven’t yet got any decent lighting to go with it, so a couple of pics on the kitchen table will have to do for the time being.
I took the plane to the Axminster/Lie-Nielsen show over the weekend, and the feedback was positive. Most comments started with “Wow, it’s hefty!” followed by comments about how good it felt in the hand. It also performs pretty well!
The plane is 150mm (6″) long, with a 40mm (1 1/2″) wide, 6mm thick iron.
I’ll post some shavings soon.
Cheers
Aled
Comments
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Michael on 03.10.2010
Hi Aled,
This plane looks absolutely gorgeous. Do you have any ideas when a kit will be available, and how it will be priced? I’m strongly interested…
Oh, and hereby, I officially apply for the beta testing program
All the best from Germany,
Michael
Aled on 03.10.2010
Thanks for your kind words!!
I’ve not done much work on the kit for a couple of weeks, but should have some answers to your questions within a week or two.
I’m not sure that my production rates are large enough to warrant “beta testing”, but you’re quite welcome to put your name down for a kit from the first batch if you wish
Cheers
Aled
Steve Branam on 03.25.2010
Aled, these are just beautiful! I came over after seeing Michael’s post on his build of your kit.
I would love to see the PDF instructions. One of these days I will be doing this, either from scratch or kit.
You might also consider rough kitting: just the raw blanks, leave all the cutting to the customer. For someone like me who enjoys that level of work, it would save having to find parts. That way you could offer kits at two price points to make them more affordable.
Steve Branam on 03.30.2010
After some email discussion with Aled, it turns out that my suggestion for rough kitting isn’t worthwhile. I had mistakenly assumed that the precision cutting is a significant factor in the cost, but it isn’t. The real cost is the raw materials, and they still have to be cut down to kit size anyway. So now I’m eagerly awaiting the availability of his next batch, because I’ve wanted to build one of these for several years! This will be my first foray into metalwork.
Aled on 03.30.2010
Thanks Steve, I’ll get on to the water jet cutters tomorrow again to give them a bit of a shove.
Yes, the price of water jet cutting adds very little to the cost, as the guys I get the parts cut with hold so much material in stock that it works out pretty cheap. If I were to buy small quantities of brass and process it myself, I’d be paying a premium for the material not to mention the time I’d take just to rough cut it into blanks.
The accuracy of water jet cutting adds a lot of “value” to my kits without affecting the cost that much, so I see it as a no brainer.
Cheers
Aled