Final Fitting

Here I'm chopping out the mouth opening by dropping a chisel into a knife line. I mark the line with a square which should line up with the blade if everything has been done accurately. I creep up on the mouth openning to avoid going too far, after a few years of practice this usually only needs two marks with the square to locate the mouth position. The paper pad provides support but is forgiving enough to not dent the wood.

Here is a typical mouth openning, just enough to let a shaving through. The blade angle on this batch is 52 1/2 degrees so it is designed to plane without tearout on most woods.

Here is a picture with the wedge installed. You can see it is curved which provides two points of contact on the flat underside of the cross pin, this is an important detail which makes sure the blade is held very tightly in place. You'll also notice I've chosen a different wood for the wedge which has much more spring than the very dense Kingwood. This spring is also important in ensuring a tight fitting wedge. The wood I've used here is Lacewood (London Plane) but Oak, Ash and Walnut are all good alternatives.