I have coloured one of the mitre planes using nitric acid, the colour is a little artificial to begin with, but after a month or two it will settle down and become much more mellow, Boxwood does go honey coloured with age.  It is strange that nitric acid will eat through steel but fortunately it only colours the Boxwood.

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I have started on yet another Boxwood mitre plane.  Showing the setting out marks and I have tried a different way to remove the waste.  Instead of chiseling it out like a mortice, this time I bore holes.  Fourth picture.

By now you should know about my blunt chisel technique, well here is my blunt saw method.

When I am sawing this very difficult Boxwood either side of the cheeks, I have ground the end of the saw, like the chisel, turned it upside down and I am removing more wood faster this way than with the teeth.

However every now and again I use the teeth to make the groove slightly wider caused by the set, another good tip.

The tape is holding a bit of copper which is protecting the bottom edge.  It takes forever to level the bed. 

The plane is now finished after many trials and tribulations.

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This is another Boxwood mitre plane with Ebony mouth closer I have just made, to replace the one I have just sold.

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I have just finished another Boxwood mitre plane.

Here is a picture of all the Boxwood planes I have recently made.  One of them shows my old Mahogany spokeshave sharpening device slipped over the protuding plane iron, this gives it much better control when using.  I did make a Boxwood one but there was no grip, Boxwood being too hard.  A lot of people say how do you hold these planes, my answer is, I only copy what plane makers in this country have done in the past.  This type of plane was used for cleaning up large mitres and end grain, according to the Dictonary of Tools.

These wooden mitre planes, always in Beech with a Boxwood mouth closer, were made in the late 18th centuary along with the metal ones. The wooden ones are quite rare as the metal ones seemed to be prefered.  Being in Boxwood it makes them nice and heavy.

A few weeks ago when I started to make these few Boxwood planes, the idea was to make it easer for me and give my wornout shoulder a rest from the metal planes.  In my mind I thought it would be fairly easy, how wrong I was.  These 4 mitre planes affected my shoulder even more and each one took almost the same amount of time to make as the equivalent in metal, this is because I do everything by hand.  I did get the last one in slightly less time, as I altered the method of removing the waste.  The more you do of anything the better you become and you do find easier ways of doing it.

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An even bigger mitre plane in Boxwood this time and a slightly different approach.  Instead of cutting the bird mouth out underneath, I drilled one hole from the bottom of the plane into what will eventually be the escapement.  Then from the top of the plane I started chiseling down from the back of the bed towards the mouth, using my new bench.

Here is my 1/2" mortice chisel in action.

I chiseled down both sides of the bed, then in the centre piece I drilled holes, this method proved a bit quicker before chiseling out.

This picture shows still more chiseling to be done.

Today I finished the plane, the last job was the wedge.  I only had one piece of timber left out of the original piece of Boxwood that I made the body out of.  I needed a finished width of 2 1/8" for the wedge and as you can see from this picture I only just managed to get it out.  The gauged line below shows the width I had to work too and as you can see at this stage there was still 2 pieces of bark showing.  I just managed to get a perfect wedge.

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An even bigger Boxwood mitre plane than the last one.

This proved to be the hardest piece of Boxwood to work that I have ever used.

This is a first for me, using a piece if gauge plate ground on the end square, just like my blunt chisel technique to cut through a knot.  The one tool I needed to do this would have been a 1/8" paring chisel ground flat on the end.  So now I am on the look out for such a tool.

The finished plane.

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The top of the plane set out, beautiful grain.

Underneath  the plane showing where the mouth closer bit goes.

First thing is to put my name on the end grain.  The filed half rounds will be at the bottom of the chamfers, this I normally do much later but in this instance I have done it early.

One of the top edges of the piece of Boxwood was missing, but it didn't matter because again the chamfer will eliminate this problem.

The front of the plane is 1 3/4" high and I counted the annual rings and there is just 50, it's amazing how slow a Boxwood tree grows.  An Ash tree could do this in 4 years.

I have cut a bird mouth underneath so as to be able to drill a series of holes through to the escapement, this is for when I turn the plane over and start chiseling.  I will eventually come across the holes, which informs me I am getting near the mouth and there isn't much wood left.

I have chiseled some of the wood out and have reached the holes. 

Chiseled out ready for smoothing the bed etc.

Now I have cut the mouth closer out and where the iron and wedge goes, most of the hard work is finished.

I have finished the chamfers, put the mouth closer in, smoothing the top of it and finishing off with my blunt chisel.  See below.

Now I am doing the eyes.

A picture of the bottom showing a nice fine mouth.

A nice rear end.

This is the iron I tried in the plane, but at a later date I changed it for a better one.

Here I am cutting the wedge out.

I have shaped the wedge and am now bbout to smooth it off.

Trying the wedge in with the iron to see how good the fit is.

Now I have shaped the bottom of the wedge.

Here is the plane finished with a different iron.

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I have starterd a Boxwood smoother, this time a little bit longer, a little bit wider but not as high a the last one.  It is a beautiful piece of figured Boxwood.  Look closely at the picture.

This piece is for the wedge.

This picture shows the holes I have drilled through the bottom of the mouth into what will be the escapement.

Here I am chiseling out the escapement using a large mortice chisel.

This picture shows most of the chiseling out done and I have reached the drill holes.  When I reach the drilled holes I know I'm nearly at the bottom of the plane.

These saw cut lines are tricky to get right as the saw cuts go through the mouth opening, great care is needed.

I have now chiseled out where the iron and wedge go and this picture shows me smoothing off the cheeks and especially the corners, using my blunt chisels.

Using my new French rasp  I am shaping the boat sides.  I often use a chisel to take the majority of the wood off, finishing off with a plane, but in this instance I was trying out my new rasp.

The boat shaped part  finished.

I have soaked the Boxwood plane in warm linseed oil, the plane is finished.

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  I managed to salvage this bit out of the piece I thought wasn't any  good.  It is in fact rather a nice piece.

Here I am doing the birds mouth before drilling.

I have started to chisel the escapement out.

Because it is raining heavely and I can't use the vice near the door to finish the body.  I have turned my attention to the iron and the wedge.

I have reduced the width of the iron, placed it in the body to get the right measurement for the wedge.

The iron and the wedge are now finished, it has stopped raining and I can now do a bit more on the body.

This picture shows how far I have got today. 

 You wouldn't think that the wedge came out of the same piece of wood.  But in reality it is the same colour.

The plane is now finished, showing the wide chamfers and the eyes etc.  At this stage it is not linseeded.

The chamfers were probably the most difficult bit to do on the plane.

Here is the finished plane having been soaked in raw linseed.  This piece of Boxwood was very heavy and adsorbant. 

 Breakfast time and the plane appears to be completely dry, how unusual.

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