Brese plane---shaping, peening, lapping, tuning

For those more interested in oud construction, I promise some interesting posts in the coming weeks. For the time being though, it's infill plane construction. There is a certain similarity between plane making and luthiery, I've always thought.

Here I've sanded the ends of the infill flush with the body.



Getting started on shaping the infills. I used a Nicholson #49 rasp, followed by my little Grobet detail rasp. Great tools.

Here's a little video.






After rasping and filing.



Ready to file and peen the screw heads.



The screw heads after some filing, then peening.



After peening, and filing almost flush. The scratches on the side are from the masking-tape covered tip of the file.



After lapping the sides and further refining the shape.



The sides lapped and infills taken through 0000 Liberon Steel Wool.






To tune the lever cap to the face of the iron, it must sit perfectly flat to the iron, otherwise the plane will not perform correctly. When I do critical fitting of oud ribs, I often use an LED pen light to check the fit. I aim for a light-tight fit. So I figured this would be a good application for this technique. You can see the tip of the LED at the upper left.



I'm shining the light as far as it will go into the escapement, butting it tight to the end of the lever cap at the left end. See the sliver of light tapering to almost nothing as it moves to the right?



And at the right end it's light-tight. The little spot of light is from the gap between the right edge of the lever cap and the inside of the right side wall but there is none showing between the lever cap and the iron. I need to remove more material from the right side of the cap.

Here is a video to illustrate the technique.



Next pics will be of the finished plane!