Marcou Pocket Plane

Philip Marcou describes a recent addition to the range of handcrafted handplanes he makes.

The wood is Afzelia Quanzensis which comes from Mozambique and Angola. This is a great wood for planes because it is very stable. It will go much darker with time and use. I have used a waterproof exterior wood glue for assembly of the parts.

The blade is O1 tool steel, professionally hardened and heat treated by New Zealand’s premier heat treatment company (Heat Treatments, Auckland) to Rockwell 62-63. These blades will be easy to sharpen and will hold an edge well under average working conditions. I have ground the primary bevel at 25° and honed at 30° which is standard practice. I expect this plane to be generally useful for general carpentry purposes.

The plane is designed to be simple and convenient in general use. To set the blade one merely places the plane on a flat wooden surface, inserts the blade with moderate downward pressure and tightens the screw – this should give a light to medium cut. There is some room for lateral adjustment which can be gauged by eye or feel before fully tightening the screw. There is no need to use a hammer to set the blade projection and it is preferable to take light cuts with a sharp blade at all times. Although I have honed the blade ‘straight across’ I do recommend that the blade should have a very slight curve, with the corners removed. The slight curvature is attained by pressing more on the sides of the blade when honing and this is facilitated by use of a simple Eclipse type honing guide.

I recommend the use of white candle wax to lubricate the sole. The wood can be oiled or waxed occasionally to keep it ‘nice’.

I have spent time on the brass parts because this is where I have noted that some mass producers try to save money at the cost of appearance and sometimes function too, hence the attention to the knurling, screw detail and generous cap proportions.

Philip Marcou’s Pocket Plane is available from Piranha Tools.