Making The Plane, part 1

So, the first step in making my plane was to do some research.  I have a couple of sash planes that I use often.  I looked at these planes first and did a detailed drawing of the better looking plane.

After reading a couple of texts on the subject I knew that I had to either make or purchase a float.  The floats at Lie-Nielsen are quite nice but a little pricey for me.

I decided to make my own.  I went out looking for steel.  I needed something that was soft enough for me to file but would also hold enough of an edge to file wood.  After running into some dead ends someone at Winks Hardware said I should try key stock.  For about a $1 I got a 1/4" square piece of metal.  I was a bit skeptical at first.  

I filed about half a dozen ridges in it like what I had seen in some books. It was extremely easy to file.  

Here is what it looked like after a few ridges were filed in it.    It works wood brilliantly and I have used it for other tasks since I made it.  I am very pleased with how it functions.

The next thing I made was the pitchboard.  It was a fairly simple template that marks out the cuts that need to be made for the escapement area.