The sole of the plane is made out of lignum vitae for wear resistance and because this wood is naturally lubricating. My first choice for the sole was brass chanel as I figured that would last about forever and look cool to boot but I couldn't find anyone selling the size I needed in a small enough quantity. I found some online that would have been perfect but the company had a $500 minimum order. For that I could a couple of nice metal shoulder planes. The wedge is made out of ebony.
The hardest part about making this plane was cutting the ramp for the blade. It took for ever to get it flat and true. After I got the ramp finished fitting the wedge was actually pretty straight forward. I ended up putting a slight hollow on the side of the wedge that rests against the iron so that I would get downward pressure right at the end. This was neccessary since the iron is fairly thin and tended to chatter during my trial cuts. The iron started its life as a 3/4 spade bit. I ground the tang down till the whole thing had a uniform thickness and then ground the end square and put an edge on it.
This shoulder plane workes quite well at triming the cheeks of tenons and cleaning up rabbets. Because the iron is thin and bedded at a 45 degree angle it's not the best for end grain. But that's ok because I have a low angle block plane for now and plans to get that stanley 92 or Lie Nielson in the future.
