Tiny Infill Rabbet Plane

This one is an attempt to replicate the smallest plane in my collection. I've got the whole thing drawn out in CAD and have sent out the sides to be cut in 260 brass, 304 stainless, and Grade 5 titanium. I'm then going to do some experimentation with building this plane in different materials and with slightly different techniques to try to get the hang of building metal planes.

The brass version will have a dovetailed base, the other two will be pinned.

The dovetailed version is up first; the sides were commercially laser cut out of 260 brass from my drawing and need a little bit of work to clean-up. The cuts aren't plumb, particularly on the dovetail tails, but that's not a problem given the peening that will be happening later in the process.

I cut the sole in my shop from 0.5" x 0.125" bar stock. My machining set-up is rudimentary. I've got a vintage Unimat (DB-200) that is both tiny, and has the rigitity of a wet noodle when milling, so most of the work here is hack saw and file. It should be good enough for drilling my pin holes when I get there.

As for the dovetails, these were surprisingly similar to cutting them in wood, just replace the chisel with a safe-edge file, and the dovetail saw with a hack saw and it's more or less the same.

With about 7 hours in to the sole, I've got it in a place where the sides will slip on with just a bit of force. A steady filing rhythm was essential, as well as regular depth checks to make sure I didn't overshoot.

Then it was on to adding edge profiles to the top and ends of the brass. The convex parts were rough shaped with a flat file and then faired with 120 grit sandpaper. It will get a higher degree of polish later in the process, but this is all I need now for the shaping.