This is my favourite plane. I like it so much that I chose to use it as the profile picture of the Bazz Granger Woodworks Facebook page. It’s a Rapier number 3 plough plane, made by the Anglo Scottish Corporation in Gateshead, England. It is a copy of the Record 043 plough plane, and looks almost identical, although some will argue that it is of inferior quality than the Record. When I got it I simply cleaned it and put it to work. I enjoyed using it so much that I bought some aftermarket irons for it to make it more flexible. With a free morning and an itch to do a fun project for myself, I set off to make my favourite plane even better.
This is the inside of the fence for the plane. Notice the holes at either end? They are to install a wooden auxiliary fence to prevent the metal damaging the timber that it is pushed along.
I had a small scrap of ash laying in the timber pile. The first job was to plane it completely flat, square and true. This was a very important step because if it was out of line it would force the plane to register incorrectly off the reference face, which would skew each pass and create a ragged cut. Next I cut it to size, tidied the cuts and drilled holes for the mounting screws:
Next I had to cut the notch to allow the fence to clear the iron. This is to allow the plane to be used as a rebate (or rabbet) plane. I also chamfered each outside end and the outside bottom edge. This doesn’t affect the performance of the plane in any way, but it improves it visually:
Next I used several coats of Alfie Shine to finish the fence before installing it.
And this is what it looked like when the plane was reassembled:
Obviously I had to test it, and I can safely say that as well as improving the look, feel and balance of the plane, it has improved performance too. My favourite plane just got even better. Not bad for enjoying a quiet morning in the workshop.
