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I am originally from Western Canada where wooden moulding planes are about as plentiful as tropical fish in the Arctic Ocean. Being an avid recreational woodworker and woodworking reader, I had read about them and always wanted to try my hand at making them (I am a closet neanderthal you know). This is quite difficult having never seen them but there are a number of excellent resources available.
My research led me to the fact that one requires a set of planemaker's floats in order to make these wooden moulding planes. Thanks to the metallurgical knowledge of my father in law and some flea market files, I spent about 3 weeks of the summer of 1995 making myself a set of planemeker's floats.
The set consists of 2 floats. The first is a flat wide tool with a set of wide teeth designed to flatten the sole against which the blade rests, and the opposing side of the mortise that holds the blade and wedge. The second is a knife like tool for getting into narrower areas that the flat blade cannot reach. The key to both is having the teeth filed so that they cut a perfectly flat even surface. That is what takes the time. Before you can work the steel you must take the tempering out of it, then when you are finished you have to make sure it is hardened and tempered correctly. This was a whole new skill set for me.
My set of floats works very well. That year I made several planes for woodworking relations for Christmas. They were well received, but I didn't make one for myself. I suppose the plan was to make myself some afterward but I got side-tracked with other projects. I will make more planes though. They are an excellent smaller project and the satisfaction of using your own plane after having made it is enormous.
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