Krenov Wood Plane Intro
NOTE: This was scheduled to publish April 2 but for some reason that didn’t happen…
I’m back from a recent trip to Arizona, where my wife and I spent some time with two of my siblings and their spouses at Saguaro National Park and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. We also stayed three days at a photo retreat, where we were able to get some great bird photos. Great trip!
Several readers have asked about my wood shooting plane. It’s a Krenov-style wood plane, customized to work on a shooting board. When I was teaching, I created a series of videos covering the creation of a “typical” Krenov plane, then followed up with the modifications necessary for a shooting plane. I’m going to re-publish those videos here, starting with an introduction to the series.
I never took any classes at the College of the Redwoods, so I don’t have first-hand knowledge of how they teach making a wood plane. I have, however, talked to several former CR students and I have made about a dozen of the planes. I also taught my Advanced Handtool – Handplanes class at Cerritos College at least six times; in each class about 24 students made two planes each. That’s a lot of planes in which I’ve had some involvement.
I used David Finck’s book, “Making and Mastering Wood Planes,” as the textbook for the classes. Lost Art Press publishes it now and I strongly recommend getting the book if you want to make this style of wood plane. I didn’t follow the book verbatim, as some of the techniques did not lend themselves to the classroom situation, where I had a wide range of handtool skills to deal with. The book has a lot of great information and includes many photos of David’s planes (and some of Krenov’s), which can give you some guidance on design possibilities.
