Workshop activity.

I've just finished a small batch of dovetail guides, it didn't seem very long since I did the last one!

My Kirjes pneumatic drum sander is a great little tool, I don't know how I managed shaping my planes without it. The only drawback is that the motor gets hot and needs to be left to cool every 20 minutes for another 20 minutes, not great when you're in the middle of a batch. So the answer was to buy another motor which was cheaper than I thought (£90), I  wish I'd done this ages ago.

I bought this Norris A5 on E Bay, the laquer was well scratched and there were plenty of paint spots but there was no damage and it had a good length original blade.

The front bun showed some fine figured rosewood, this one should come up well.

Another E Bay purchase was this Spiers panel plane for £136, a good buy. Apart from the cracked spur which I can easily repair from my stock of Rio Rosewood it was in nice order with the original (if short) Ward blade which gave a very fine mouth. This will be a great user plane.

 The front bun has a brass stud added by a previous owner, this is quite common and allows the blade to be retracted slightly if tapped with a hammer. This is a useful addition and has been nicely done, I won't be removing it.

Here is a very nice Slater shoulder plane which caught my eye. I bought it from http://theoldtoolshed.co.uk/
for £95 inc postage which I was pleased with. It had the original good length Marples iron with all parts stamped 0. The condition is very good with no damage but what really drew me to it was the use of the sap wood of the Rio Rosewood which looks stunning. Slater were considered budget planes in their day so the use of the sap was practical and the user presumably didn't mind as they were paying less for the plane.

My last purchase was 135 unused cast steel plane blades by Herring. They are about 100 years old and the steel is wonderful, although they are a bit rusty. I use these on my Mini Smoothers, that will keep me going for a while! I will post later on, showing my process for cleaning up and preparing these blades for use.