I need a couple of small planes for finishing soundboards. These are expensive so I figured that the best thing to do was make my own.

The blade is a strip of gauge plate or ground flat stock – O1 carbon steel in unhardened form, readily available from EBay. I’ve had this bit lying around for years left over from something else. Being unhardened it is easy to shape with hacksaw and file.

I didn’t measure anything on this other than the angle of the bed of the blade (45º). The pictures should show how it all goes together.

The wood is oak from an old chair leg, cut on the bandsaw and sanded to a good finish.

Got the soundboard and fretboard glued on.

I had to make clamps for the soundboard from threaded rod and bits of wood.

Making the clamps took longer than anticipated due to the number of them but they seem to work ok. I drilled the wooden bits at a very slight angle so they apply the force at the tip rather than near the threaded rod. Padding was via neoprene sheet glued on with Titebond – I’ve got a big sheet of the stuff left over from boat window gaskets and it works well.

I’m reusing a reclaimed parquet floor tile for the fretboard and other fittings. I think it might be walnut – not sure. What I do know is that the grain is very wavy and horrible to work – tear out is hard to avoid. I also found out what happens if you use hand tools to plane down the top surface of a used parquet floor tile – it took me a long time to work out why the tools became blunt almost instantly. I assume that bits of grit had become embedded in the top surface. Memo to self – saw off the top of the next tile!