After all the metalwork on the shell of a plane, it’s always a real treat to get to the point of shaping the wood for the infill. After all, love of woodworking is how I found myself doing this to begin with…
Here’s a sampling of the tools I use to shape the stuffing for infills. From left to right, there is an Auriou cabinet rasp, a pair of Gramercy tools rasps, a Heller vixen pattern file, a Bill Carter style chisel which has been hardened and blunted, the Benchcrafted Skraper (the coolest tool I never knew I needed til I got it), and a Lie Nielsen bed float.
The Vixen pattern file (they’re also called Mill tooth files sometimes) is a fantastic tool for hard exotics. It’s essentially a float-like tool, which is to say it’s row upon row of scrapers. While a good hand-stitched rasp is unparalleled in sculpting wood free-form, and can hog off stock very quickly – they leave a lot of witness marks on the wood. A vixen, or float, however, is capable of leaving nearly a nearly finish-ready surface.
Konrad says
Dry erase markers… gonna try that! Thanks Raney.
raney says
I think that's yet another golden tip from Larry Williams… the only thing I've found that works better is lampblack, but it's messy. Besides, Jennie won't let me have fire in the lab 🙁
Rob says
Hey Raney,
I see you have one of Jameel's Skrapers. He hasn't put them on his web site yet… I been eying them for oh, 3 months or so now in all the odd pics they show up in, but he was saving them all for the road shows for a bit.
I remember Jameel pointing out some of the cool things they do about a year or so ago on his blog. I been wondering about them since They seem like quite the utility MacGuyver tool. How is it helping you with your workflow?
Bests, Rob