Honey, I Shrunk the Plane!

This tiny little fella is a Veritas miniature block plane. I’d been thinking about getting one for a while; mainly for shaving braces. It’s a real jewel of an item- steel investment cast body with stainless steel fittings.

You can appreciate the scale here, next to my Stanley 60 ½ plane.

It is without doubt very small, but I used it today for the first time on the heel of Youhei’s neck.  All of a sudden, planing a 45 x 20mm surface, it seems just the right size!

Whilst the French polish is hardening on Roland’s pair……

I’ve been working on the bindings and purfling on Youhei’s mandolin, the bindings are black walnut from the same piece of wood as the neck, so everything matches, and the red lines carry on the theme of the rosette.

And here's the tailpiece....

Pretty stuff!

Here’s of couple of nice shots of Youhei’s.......

The circle of life?

I’m at that stage where I’m well into the polishing of Roland’s instruments; the shellac really brings the wood to life.

This is first time that I’ve used Pau Ferro and it really is a beautiful wood. Unfortunately for me I only bought two sets; if no one else claims the second set, I’m tempted to use it on the mandolin that I keep promising to make myself!

 So, as this project nears its natural conclusion, another starts. The next on my waiting list is a quilted maple Standard Plus which will be going off to Youhei in Japan.

Here’s the complete rim; the end graft is from a nice piece of burr walnut, although most of it will be covered by the tailpiece, I still like to pay attention to these small details.

And the neck; again lots of lovely walnut!