One of the previous commenters had asked about some details on snecking blades. The sneck is a very nice addition to a blade, particularly on low angle miter planes, as it provides a very handy means for reducing blade projection without having to strike the plane body itself.
The method I use to sneck miter blades is simple: just add a supplementary thickness of steel at the rear of the blade. It’s a very easy process, but it’s a nice introduction to peining and rivets, which are critical to constructing dovetailed infill planes.
Here’s the annealed O1 stock I’m going to use for the blade.
This is 1″ wide, 3/16″ stock, and I’ll cut another section of steel the same width, about an inch long, to use as the sneck – in this case I’m using 1/8″ for the sneck, but you can use a thicker sneck if you prefer. The mating faces of both pieces of steel should be nice and flat to ensure you get a clean union between the two – the goal is for the blade to look like a single chunk of steel at the end. I lap both pieces on a granite surface plate to about 220 grit.
And that’s all there is to it.&nbs
p; Start to finish, including cutting the blade stock, I’d say this took about two to three hours to do a batch of four blades to the point of having them ready to heat treat. A single blade would probably be do-able in an hour or less once you get used to the process.
Please bear in mind that there is no reason you can’t add a sneck to a blade after heat treating, but the hardened blade makes drilling and shaping much more difficult. However, an annealed sneck on a hardened blade is not an issue at all in my experience.
Finally, here’s a shot of the blade after heat treating, in place in a small miter plane. Also pictured is the coffin smoother (with the older LC screw) I briefly showed in a previous post, which someone else asked to more photography of.
Hope that helps with the basics of snecking. I’ll be posting the first sequence of prepping the Towell miter plane later in the week.