Finishing And Trying Out The New Dovetail Plane

Finally it was time to put the new plane all together and give it a test drive.  I did not sharpen the iron to ultimate completion in case I needed to change its angle a smidge.  I would hate to get it to 8000+ sharp then have to grind off some of that hard won territory.

Using a piece of trued-up aluminum bar stock as my fence and some waste mahogany from the scrap pile I gave it a go.

The results were very pleasing.  A half-dozen passes and the work was done.

Now I can take the sharpening to the end point.

I now have no technical excuse to put off making some Japanese planing boards, it is now only a matter of time and priority.

Meanwhile I thought I would give my flea-market 1/4″ shouldered dovetail plane a run.  The shoulder feature is mighty nice, but as you can tell the iron needs some reshaping and sharpening.  The iron in the tool has been really boogered up and will need a lot of work to get right (sorry for the technical jargon folks).

The final step for the project will be to make a sawing template with a bevel matching the dovetail angle so that the female joint can be cut to match the male joint half resulting from the plane.  I will be unlikely to make that a post, unless I have a really slow day and am in a complete idea desert.

In closing let me give a shout out to James Wright whose video on sliding dovetail joints was part of my inspiration for undertaking this tool making project.  The other part was this video on making and using a planing board.  I am anxious to get the decks cleared of the dozen things in line ahead of it to make my own planing board.