A New Plane

My mini smoother, shown above, was my most popular plane and there isn't much I could think of to improve either the design or the looks.
I'd been toying with the idea of making a version of my larger high angle smoother but in the style of the mini smoother. It's shown below with a lever cap from St James Bay Tools in the US, this was the wrong size but gave me an idea of how it might look.
I decided to make the plane the 'proper' way but excavating the cavity from the solid rather than using the laminating method, it took longer but not too much.

Here is the drawing of the lever cap and the piece of 3/8" thick brass which it was to be made from.

I have a cheap tapping set which works very well, I have used it a lot in wood to great effect.
I experimented with different pilot holes in the waste until I got the right size, 4.4 mm for the 4.8 mm thread (M5).

I threaded the locating pins for the lever cap using the drill press to get them vertical.

The finished pins ready to be cut down to size.

I used a spacer to get the required distance for the lever cap to work and used double sided tape to fix each part together and attach it to the bed ready for drilling the side holes.

It all worked fine and with the parts roughly shaped here is the result.
I will finish it off tomorrow if I don't get too many orders.