Krenov Wood Plane Part 1
As I stated in the Wood Plane Intro post, I’m using David Finck’s book as a guide to build a Krenov-style wood plane, with a few tweaks. The book has a lot of great information, but the instructions to build the plane are spread throughout the book, making it a bit of a challenge to follow along. Because of that and because of my tweaks, I created an outline of the build that I gave to my students. You can download it by clicking the link below.
I have typically used Hock blades in these types of planes. Ron Hock has been supplying these blades to the Krenov School (formerly College of the Redwoods) for many years. You can purchase them through his website, hocktools.com. The blades are O1 steel, typically pretty flat, and sharpen well.
Like most of the planes of this style I’ve made, the body is hard maple. I have also used beech and white oak; the dark plane in the intro video is Bocote, which I really like. It’s super hard, heavy, and looks great.
The plane is fairly easy to make, but does require some attention to detail. The blade bed is probably the most important feature; it must be dead flat or very slightly concave. If the blade does not seat tightly just above the mouth, you will be very disappointed. Some careful sanding by hand can usually fix any issues once things are close to flat. Check the flatness with a good straightedge held up to a window or light.
