Finished

Well Big Woodie has finally been finished and it's been a bit of a journey. Once I had finally taken delivery of the glass, it was a fairly straight forward process to make the jig for sanding the sole. However, the engineering method that Pete and I had a look at last week didn't really work out. The problem was that the medium used was simply too thick (in the end I used a very thin slurry of paraffin and grease) and even with the most careful application, high and low spots were being marked on the plane's sole which didn't make sense when I checked it with a long steel edge. In the end I used the Veritas jointer to shoot the sole and kept on checking it every other shaving or two...it came flat in the end and then it was onto some 150g paper in the jig to give the sole a final sanding. I've written the draft copy of the article for F&C and just need to 'fine tune' it...I also need to take some better pics of BW and the other smaller planes, job for next week.
I received my cheque yesterday for £100 as the UKW prize and have spent it at CHT on a couple of LN mortice chisels and the 1" bevel edge so they should be arriving next week, not with standing Christmas postal deliveries.