Olive Winter Smoother

The first of the Olive Wood Winter Smoothers is complete and on the way to it's new home. I looked forward to the completion of this tool with great anticipation. I was anxious to see how all the elements would play visually with the Olive wood.

Personally I was not disappointed, in fact I was delighted. My only disappointment was having to pack and ship this tool shortly after I had completed the final tuning and created the first shavings with this plane. Of course one of my motivations is to get these tools into the hand of the customers so there is a certain satisfaction in that as well.

Even though I offer a patina'd and oiled finish on the brass parts of my planes, I find the satin, oiled finish plays well with the lighter colored woods. The oil I apply to the brass parts gives it a deeper look than just the brass being left bright. Curing that oil in my wood kiln overnight gives the brass enough protection to resist finger printing.

This plane had no issues with this knarly piece of curly cherry. The edge I was planning was the quarter sawn edge with the curl face coming thru this edge. This kind of piece is usually a planing nightmare. Rock solid bedding, a rigid plane body,  .004 mouth aperture and an extremely sharp iron solves problems with a piece like this. Add in very nice ergonomics and the result is very pleasurable planing.

Ron

Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes (Jim Carrey)