# Hand made wood plane



## locoboy (Sep 7, 2008)

Hi guys,

My Uncle who lives in Melbourne is a very talented carpenter / cabinet maker and has made some extremely fine pieces of furniture in his time.

He has won 1st prize at the Melbourne show on a few occasions for his furniture.

His long running passion for woodworking has lead him to have a LARGE colleciton of hand tools, namely wood planes, i beleive has has in excess of 500 of them, he has been collecting them for many many years now.

Now he has just about every conceivable make and model of plane available to him he has begun making his own just for kicks!

He has made up to 20 to date.

Just an insight into hw these are made for those that dont know.

First the steel is cut with very accurate dovetails to make the join between the sole and the sides.










Then these 3 plates are attached to a block of wood the correct size and the end of the tails are peened over using a ball pein hammer.










Then they are hand filed down, the handle and the blade retainers are made and then large rivets are placed through the body of the plane to hold the wooden bits in place and again peened over.

Then all filed off and hand polished up.










A friend of his from his tool club lent him his favourite plane and he made a copy of it in metal and wood.
Here is the original one his friend lent him.










Pretty neat eh?

I wish i had 1% of his craftsmanship skills. :'(


----------



## Bob N (Oct 12, 2004)

That is art at it's finest.... I do love planes  

500 is quite a few and I would be interested to know how he keeps the rust off that many. I'll bet his WD40 bill is thru the roof 

Thanks for sharing the pics of how he goes about the process.


----------



## curiousgeorge (Nov 6, 2006)

Enjoyable post, locoboy. Your uncle is a true artist.


----------



## locoboy (Sep 7, 2008)

curiousgeorge said:


> Enjoyable post, locoboy. Your uncle is a true artist.


Indeed he is,

Some of his dressers / cabinets etc have had motifs or designs taken from his travels hand carved into them.
There is an absolutely fantastic piece of furniture he made that has a cross carved into the front of it, the cross was on a grave headstone in a church graveyard in my local town and he photographed it and he did a chalk rubbing of it to get its exact size and proportions then hand carved it down the front of 3 or 4 drawer fronts.

Truely spectacular,
I shal get some photos from him and post up here.


----------



## stef1611 (Oct 8, 2008)

Am in awe mate !!!!! Does he sell any of his wonderful creations? 
I'd love to have a look at the collection...
Steph


----------



## Timeman (Oct 3, 2008)

*I 2nd that!*



stef1611 said:


> Am in awe mate !!!!! Does he sell any of his wonderful creations?
> I'd love to have a look at the collection...
> Steph


I all so 2nd that..

This is just outstanding work! just one of them planes will last a life time very nice indeed.

Thank you for showing us a masters work.


----------



## locoboy (Sep 7, 2008)

I forgot to say that just for fun he made them a matched pair..........why i dont know, ..........maybe just because he can!


----------



## locoboy (Sep 7, 2008)

Here are some more photos of his hand made planes to whet apetite until he sends me some photos of the work he has done with the planes he has made.

My favourite has to be this one, the Rhino plane, just beautiful.
































































Awsome eh?


----------



## Hamlin (Dec 25, 2005)

Hi locoboy,

I must agree with the others, your uncle is a true craftsman. It's a shame that this "art" has pretty much been replaced by CNC machinery here in the states. Those that do make such fine tools, are few an difficult to find at best.


----------



## laozai (Jan 23, 2010)

来自中国的捞仔说
太帅了
太帅了


----------



## TwoSkies57 (Feb 23, 2009)

Loco..

damn, your uncle got Skills! The number of folks who can make those kinda planes nowadays is quickly dwindling. Attractive and functional. Those infills are just beatiful and that smoother is a tool any accomplished craftsman would be proud to have in his/her collection. 
Is he strictly a rivet kinda guy or does he solder as well? He's definately one guy I'd love to spend some time with in the shop...Learn all ya can from him..

thanks for the post!!


----------

