Christine

Sorry, dragging up an old topic of conversation I wonder how a thin spring steel pick would work with a decent grip?

The block plane was originally made for flattening butchers blocks, hence the name or so legend has it . If the use is endgrain then the mouth size is irrelevant as there are no chips to break, it's all short grain shavings. The really cool thing about these planes is that the bevel on the iron is uppermost so the cutting geometry is variable a shallow angle (25 degreed iron vevel and iron angle combined)) for endgrain or a steeper one(40-45) for long grain or a very steep one (50-55) for very difficult woods like east Indian Satinwood. You don't need a regrind for the angle change just hone at the different angle, that's all you need but a regrind will more than likely be needed if you need to hone at a shallower angle than the last hone if that makes sense. If you're hollowing you need to change your planing technique. At the start of the cut press down on the front of the plane and transfer the pressure as the plane moves forward. You don't actually push the plane as such but lock your arms to your sides and rock forwards keeping your eye over the mouth of the plane. It should be done quite slowly so you keep absolute control over the shaving, it should come off full width for the whole length of the wood once it's flat. An hour practising should see you set for life. Precise work needs a different mindset to hanging a kitchen door, speed comes from getting it right first time not doing it quickly, gossamer thin shavings you can see through are what you should be seeing. Once you can do that (and it's not hard) you can do anything

I think it’s only missing the adjustable mouth, not the end of the world on a block plane , you may find that you’ll have better results with a slightly steeper honing angle so it acts more like a scraper which isn’t a problem at all, far from it

I think that is a 220 but I’m not sure

It's a No 05, 14" long and 2" wide, is that what you meant? That is a nice plane, just what I was on about, see the fork that fits into the adjustment wheel, cast not bent steel. It will clean up nice but more importantly it will be better steel than new ones. Set it up well and it will be a joy for life 😀

Ed King used to use a coin with a Fender Jazz for Lynyrd Skynyrd's Pronounced album, a dime whatever that is

You and me be mates! I have two too and I love mine. When they're good they're brilliant

These things are great with a bass https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dunlop-418P-73-Tortex-Standard-Player/dp/B00HEKIKYC/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=Jim+Dunlop+Tortex+standard+guitar+picks+-+.73mm&qid=1584275657&s=musical-instruments&sr=1-8

Normally I would suggest something like car boot sales etc but not an option at the moment. Something to think about with ebay planes is that the obviously much older ones 1960s and earlier (Record and Stanley) are actually better built and the castings have had time to settle so will remain flatter. Little details like cast adjusters instead of the rubbish pressed steel on the modern ones, they still work but without the finesse of the old ones

Both good choices, go for a Stanley 60 1/2 and either a Record or Stanley No5 unless you want something more exotic I've got a link in the sharpening thread somewhere on how to set them up

How did it turn out? We used to make prototype speaker cabinets for the HiFi World magazine years ago, the designer used to specify that underlay

More importantly are you able to fill the holes in your build with something that fits?

You can get a good build up with Danish oil, we used to get something similar to French polish with it. We used Rustins. A couple or three coats just wet and let it soak in before wiping it off just to seal then after that put it on quite wet but nowhere near flooded and leave it for about 20 minutes until it started getting slightly tacky then using the same cloth you put it on with rub over it a bit like using a French polishing rubber until it was a smear free then let it dry overnight. Depending on the wood about 5 - 10 coats. The trick is getting the tackiness right before polishing, tackiness probably isn't the right word, thickening is probably what I mean Maintenance, just the occasional wipe with teak oil Edit, no sanding at all apart from an occasional denib before a coat

If I were you I'd draw it all out full scale along with all the fittings first, it will show you exactly what you can work with. If I remember rightly a Fender neck pocket is about 15-16mm, I guess the minimum thickness you need to screw to would be about 12mm so an estimated overall body thickness on 28mm minimum as long as everything else can be mounted too. Probably you'd be better off being thicker than that, there's a reason bolt on bodies are as thick as they are, anything over 35mm would probably work along with a decent neck mounting plate?

It just evolved really, it was pretty much what we decided we'd learn for our first gig and we just added to it or subtracted depending on how much time we had. It was a bit of a no brainer as we played just the one bands material and it was all the most popular stuff. The only thing we ever argued about was the order of the first 3 songs, I wanted to play the same ones every time as I could do them on automatic pilot otherwise I'd freeze and flamingo up. After the first time I did that they let me have my way