Making an Infill Shoulder Plane

Although they may not be your first priority in woodworking tools, shoulder planes are very handy for traditional hand work. Nineteenth century infill shoulder planes were minor works of art, with bronze or steel bodies ‘stuffed’ with exotic woods, but they are relatively simple in construction and do not require any special skills to make. The combination of spectacular wood and brass can make a very attractive tool.

There are several ways to make the metal body, but perhaps the easiest way is to cut brass pieces from stock bar and rivet them together. This requires only basic tools and a little care to make a strong, neat plane body.

The plane I will describe was fabricated from readily available, standard thicknesses of brass bar.

Sides of 1/8" (3.2mm) thick, plus core-pieces of 1/2" (12.7mm) thickness, make a body 19mm (3/4") wide, which suits the 19mm Qiangsheng shoulder plane blade I used.

The materials cost me around $55 ($30 for brass and $25 for the blade) and it took me all up 12 hours to make. I didn’t bother with a screw adjuster because they can be more bother than they are worth on this type of plane.

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