A co-worker asked me to build him a hand plane for his and this is the result. I was originally going to use a piece of Bloodwood or Redheart, both woods that I love to use, for the body but I couldn’t find a piece that wasn’t dry enough, and ended up with this piece of East Indian Rosewood. The blank was rough sawn when I got it so when I planed the one side and found that red-ish orange “eye” on the cheek I was pleasantly surprised. The plane is built following the Krenov style, but after gluing the body back together I decided to put the tote on it. I used a half inch cherry dowel as the cross pin and a maple wedge and with some of the scraps I made the adjusting mallet for him. I didn’t finish it with anything but suggested that some tung oil or linseed oil would be a good idea.
