That title is intended to be an imperative. What? Never mind, just make a pair and you will begin to see your moulding designs really open up and take new shape, literally. I have found myself using these in many other places than what they were, I am sure, originally intended for. I won't spoil it for you. Do some exploring. For my own personal use I would choose a pair of these over a pair of snipe's bill planes, if I had to make a choice. I have had a few inquires about these planes and rather than answer the same questions over again I decided I should get my tail in gear and pump out these for everyone. These plans show a single right hand version of a 1/2" radius side round. Just mirror the drawings for the left hand plane. There is a view of the left side and the right side of the same plane so that the escapement and shoulder details are more easily understood as to there location. So don't be confused. I split up some of the toe views so as not to over crowd the details and for clarity. When I have some time I will actually put up some photos of the details, as well. Along those lines, I have pictured (in the past on this blog) some side rounds that I place the escapement on the opposite side to what is shown in these plans. They both work but as you can see in the plans I do it differently now. It makes everything line up better in the layout and is also a bit more practical for shaving ejection. If you want to post these anywhere else online please link back to this page/ post. I offer these as a free download but they are not intended for commercial use. Again please limit the use of this design to your personal use and please don't be silly and try to sell them on Ebay. It is FREE! and it is © copy right protected. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE DOWNLOAD PAGE. (Click on the download button in the upper right corner of the new page to begin download.) NOTE: The plans are in PDF format. If you don't have a PDF reader Adobe Acrobat is a free software that will make it viewable and printable. You do not have to print these to scale but if you do the plans are sized for 17" x 22" paper. Keep this in mind if you go to the print store. Check the print by measuring the 1" square scale. Do this at the print shop because they often mess up. If I made any errors anywhere in the plans please let me know so I can update them.

Our plans from past issues of Canadian Woodworking & Home Improvement magazine include detailed instructions, cut lists, and illustrations –everything you need to help you build your next project.

A new jointer can be expensive and isn't even essential to your minimal hand tool kit. If you'd benefit from a jointer plane & are looking for a usable, cheap option then have a read though these tips on buying a used plane that you can put straight to work.

Our plans from past issues of Canadian Woodworking & Home Improvement magazine include detailed instructions, cut lists, and illustrations –everything you need to help you build your next project.

These gorgeous wooden toy planes are the perfect gift for play and beautiful on display. Their size, simple design and superbly smooth edges make them perfect for little hands to grab and hold. Both wheels spin freely so they are always ready to take off on their next adventure! Each plane is lovingly handmade from birch and linden wood. Measurements: L: 11CM W: 17CM H: 9CM   Weight: 200g Material: Birch and Linden Wood Age Guide: 3 years+

John Whelan unlocks the fascinating secrets of an almost lost art: wooden planemaking. For those curious about the ingenious ways of the craft, this book lays out clear, step-by-step instructions that will enable any woodworker to make a plane. Each chapter (covering 20 different types of planes and spokeshaves) is fully illustrated by the author's line drawings. In addition, there are chapters on the history and alternative methods of planemaking, making plane irons, and the tuning and using of wooden planes. Every chapter that details the construction of a particular plane starts with a photograph of the plane that has been made by the author. As you would expect from Mr. Whelan, this book is the finest and most complete work on the making of wooden planes in print. The reader will enjoy it even if he never puts blade to wood. Should he make a plane or two, he will find Making Traditional Wooden Planes most satisfying

Setting up a wooden hand plane is not intuitive. Not for me and not for the many people who I've seen pick one up off our bench at a woodworking show and attempt to get it to do anything (without any joy).

Setting up a wooden hand plane is not intuitive. Not for me and not for the many people who I've seen pick one up off our bench at a woodworking show and attempt to get it to do anything (without any joy).

Some parts of hand planes eventually wear out or may be damaged from accidental wear. Read our guide to the spare parts for hand planes!

First off I would say that traditional planes have been made out of a number of woods. I plan to discuss those at another time. But the vast majority of traditional planes have been made from beech without a doubt and for good reason. If you haven't seen my post on "Why Use Quarter Sawn Wood for Wooden Planes?" then you should probably read that before this post. So, you ask "What is so special about beech". Well, most people would think nothing much is special about this wood, especially here in the US. It is very hard to get compared to other hard woods and almost impossible to find quarter sawn. It is not like the wood is rare or anything. It is quite abundant. The biggest reason, I think, is obvious why it isn't used much. It is terrible to dry properly without growing fungus, which mars its light color, or it checks very badly. This keeps saw mills from wanting to bother with the wood. Plus it brings a low price. As you can imagine these businesses are geared to being profitable, as would be expected. Interestingly the latter problem of it checking has so much to do with its abundant and distinct rays that we discussed in the preceding post. And this is in fact what makes this wood so suited to making planes with it. We will get to that but lets consider something else before that. A few things that you want to consider in choosing a good plane wood is that it be a wood that is harder than other woods that you plan to be planing. This should make sense without me explaining, right. Beech is harder than most woods that we commonly use. It is the same density as red oak and only a little softer than white oak. So you might then wonder "Why not just use white oak?". Good question. It is harder. Well the problem is that oaks are ring-porous woods. That means that the early growth is much less dense than the late growth wood which is what makes us associate oaks with being "hard". When you look at the growth ring of an oak log you can clearly see the band of early wood that is full of holes while the late growth wood is dense and usually darker. Here in lies the problem for using it as a wood for planes. The primary weakness in a wooden plane is the mouth. It takes a lot of abuse. When the soft early growth layer of the wood crosses the mouth of the plane it is quickly worn away and it leaves a place for shavings to quickly jam. Not something you want. Of course there are other places in the plane that would suffer from this same weakness but for me that is enough to eliminate this wood as a choice for a tool that a workman would count on day after day. So what you want to use is a diffuse-porous wood species. Diffuse-porous means that the early and late wood growth is consistent in density. Often climax forest systems contain these types of trees. Beech is one of these woods and is diffuse-porous. But what makes it more preferable than the rest. It again comes down to its abundant rays. Here we are back to my illustration. As we discussed in the previous post, the rays a perpendicular to the long grain fibers. They run from the inside of the tree to the outside. What this means is that the end of the ray fiber emerges on the tangental face of a board. That is to say the plain sawn face of a board will have the end of the ray fibers showing. End grain of ray on sole of plane makes it highly wear resistant What does that mean? Well as you know end grain is much much much more wear resistant than the long grain fibers. You see, beech has, according to one reference work, approximately 40% of the plain sawn face of a board covered with the end grain of the rays. That is why beech is so appropriate for wooden planes. When the wood is oriented with the quarter sawn face on the sides and the plain sawn face on the sole of the plane then you get the best of both functions of the abundant rays that beech poses. End grain of rays look like small dashes on plain sawn face for beech. So while there are other hardwoods, as well as some tropical woods, that are harder they don't beat the wear resistance of the "end grain" function of the rays. Though I wouldn't argue that they couldn't be comparable in wear resistance. I frankly haven't made enough from tropical woods or ebonys to give my opinion on that. Now, keeping in mind what we just discussed, add on to that beech is so plentiful, readily available in areas where planemakers were at, it wasn't competing for other uses like cabinetmaking, that it has relatively easy working characteristics and that it grows into large trees, unlike many of the alternative planemaking woods and you can see why it became the wood of choice. Now this discussion isn't with the aim to say that using other woods is wrong. But many I know have wondered why this wood was chosen. I hope I helped answer that question to some degree. As I mentioned there were other woods used to make planes and I plan to post what woods were also used. But in the meantime what ever you choose just make sure that it is at least two things. First it is quarter sawn and second that it is diffuse-pourous. Try to keep its density higher than the woods you plan to work. If I couldn't find quarter sawn beech then I would first look for hard maple. It would almost without a doubt not be in a quarter sawn option but you could look for some really thick plain sawn boards and produce your planes with the quarter sawn face on the sides of the plane. Happy planemaking!

Setting up a wooden hand plane is not intuitive. Not for me and not for the many people who I've seen pick one up off our bench at a woodworking show and attempt to get it to do anything (without any joy).

Are you new to the world of antique planes and you have a strong passion for old wooden planes? Or, are you a veteran collector of antique planes who frequents

A plane’s iron pitch is its angle in relation to the sole/bottom of the plane. Read our guide on what is the perfect pitch for plane irons!