Gidgee burl smoothing plane

I was excited to get the opportunity to use some of this beautiful Gidgee burl in one of my low-slung smoothing planes.
(Click on any photo to enlarge).

This is rare and valuable wood, so I had to be extra careful on the band saw. I got some nice clean blocks and I made sure to keep even the smallest off-cuts.

The shoe box of small pieces will be good for inlay work, small infills or beautiful knife scales.
Here are a few photos of the finished LSS-35 smoothing plane.

This low slung smoother measures 156mm long, with a 35mm wide blade.
The imperial equivalent measurements would be approximately 6 ¹/₈” long, with a 1 ³/₈” wide blade.
I used to make this plane size with an 1 ¹/₄” (31.75mm) wide blade. The extra blade width definitely improves this small smoother.

The little guy gets left behind

This was my first go at incorporating my new shape in a set of four low-slung smoothers. I experimented with a new type of brass for this set and in my opinion it was too soft for tool making. I assembled and peened the smallest size plane body first and was not happy with the results. As you see in the photo the brass deformed too much and the dovetails on the smallest sized, plane body look sloppy.

I wanted to redo this body however my 01 tool steel supplier did not have any steel in stock for the plane sole so I continued on with the rest of the set. I used my common sense to alter my peening technique for the next three planes and it all worked out fine. These three planes look and work beautifully. I will not work with this type of brass again, so this is a finished set of three planes.

The Kingwood infill material was wonderful to work with and it was an added challenge to get the infills to match from the same piece of wood. The sizes of the set from left to right are:
7 ½” long by 1 ¾” wide blade
6 ¾” long by 1 ½” wide blade
6 ⅛” long by 1 ¼” wide blade