Here's a tale. You can can skip to the end for the pix if you want.

You know those cheeze-o-matic Chinese finger planes AMT issued a few years ago?  Yeah, you do.

I remember when they first came out. I thought they were a cool size and you just had to like them.  On paper that is.

Opening the box and seeing the pitiful wide open throat you could drive a D8 Cat through and the thin wimpy blade. The poor machining and the awful casting clean up.  The general ickiness if it just grossed me plain out and this was years ago and I wasn't near so picky then.  So, I put it away and left it until last week when I came across it again. 

It still had a good size, being about 2" long or so. I decided it was time to make it work and keep it. 

First up, the body had been slit up the side some. I guess that was for some ease of manufacture. But it was just a useless slit. Having a true rabetting finger plane seemed attractive though. So, I opened up some clearance and filed the slit into plane with the blade bedding (it wasn't cut this way).

A small blade was made from an old joiner blade (the second now and I still have one more cutter left if it's a small one). Not super thick, but plenty enough in this small size. 

The ridiculous lever cap wasn't acceptable, so once again, a piece of the old beam scale was employed. You did know old scales always had solid brass beams and over a 1/4" thick most of them?? 

Time to do something about that gaping maw of a mouth. Say, did you ever notice there isn't ever any sheet metal laying around when you need it? I mean, you toss many pieces a year into the trash for one reason and another but then something comes up and you need some and never a scrap to be found.

I ended up cutting up some crosscut sawblade instead. Spring steel is harder to solder than plain steel. You have to grind it completely clean of even the pits you can't see or solder just balls up and won't stick.  When you get it clean enough it tins perfect and the solder flows like water.

I sweated on a sole and nosepiece.  General cleanup of the casting and reshaping some and polish came next.

The palm knob this plane came with was adequate. Nothing special under it's orange colored varnish. Probably birch or something similar from the Kmart drawer pull line. Couldn't be living with that!

A piece of rosewood was on the menu, then some apple from the pile for accent. I've had a bunch of local abalone shells for a while now.  I've used them several times. It seemed like a good idea to just use some more and I had a piece of super colored heart stock anyway.

Since I was using the abalone to inlay the knob, I decided to try using the same piece for the dinky lever cap screw. This screw was once a piece of tubing connector out fo the scrap brass box and a socket head 8-32 screw.  Those socket heads are hardened and will last.

Oh, the lever cap pin is just loose. Tension when you put it to work keeps the pin there. The pin and cap has to be removed to get the blade out for sharpening, being as the sole has a tiny slit of a mouth now.

Still with me?????????

A true rabetting finger plane.

yours,
Scott