Bodacious Cowboy

It’s not uncommon. I hate the idea. Going back to the OP question, I think paper thickness is a matter of personal taste. I don’t like it to be too thick, myself. For sticking in, regular hide glue if done before closing box, liquid hide glue if done after box closed.

Fact or assumption? This is a genuine question, not a challenge. I know you are a smart fellow.

The recipe quoted is 1.2:1 resin:oil unless my calculations are wrong (entirely possible). That’s always been fluid enough for me. Anything more than 1.5:1, different story. And if you do need to add solvent, no fancy process is needed. Just add it to the varnish, heated enough to make it fluid, if necessary. I always use heavily cooked colophony, by the way.

For that resin:oil ratio, I wouldn’t be adding solvent at the making stage. Maybe add a little if necessary before application. I suspect it wouldn’t be.

Why is that, Melvin?

This is key. So often, beginners waste hours polishing the part of the blade that never touches the wood. No burr, no cigar.

Wise words. When you've taken yourself to the brink of insanity with your blades, you'll probably find the soles of your planes aren't flat, and another can of worms opens. I know some people get a huge kick out of renovating old planes, but it ain't my cup of meat. I have to say that I personally prefer old Stanley planes to the contemporary premium variety, but only because I know a good guy with a surface grinder who will do a wonderful job of flattening soles for beers.

Don't get obsessed with a flawless mirror finish. All that matters is that the blade cuts wood efficiently. Unless you want to make sharpening into a hobby.

Hi Baroquecello Think you have 2 problems here. First, you're trying to "renovate" old plane blades that might be very far from flat, and could take an awful lot of work to flatten (on the non-bevel side). Second, a 1000 grit stone is far too fine for this job. A grinder won't help you with what you're calling the "mirror" side. I'd suggest 80 grit sandpaper glued to a flat glass plate as Shunyata suggests, or you could treat yourself to a coarse diamond plate (eg a 120 grit Atoma). And people will argue until hell freezes over about the pros/cons of going straight from (say) a 1000 to 8000 (or so) grit. Personally I think that's absolutely fine (it's what I do, with excellent results), and I can say with confidence that this isn't your problem. Check out Paul Sellers's YouTubes on sharpening with diamond plates and a strop. Good luck - I don't even want to think about spending 8 hours sharpening a plane blade..

I've tried many different types of gouge over the years, old and new, including many of those mentioned in this thread. My favorites, by a long way, were a set of Japanese scroll gouges bought by a colleague from Dick in Germany over 30 years ago. I'd love to get my hands on a set like that.

Having guided many beginners through their first neck fitting, I can give you a couple more tips to make life easier. These things seem like second nature to experienced makers, but we often forget that they might not be obvious to first timers. First, make sure that your neck root is absolutely dead flat. Check it again after glue sizing - that can make the endgrain swell, giving you a bump in the middle. You always want the neck root and the bottom of the mortise to be in wobble-free contact, otherwise you'll be chasing shadows when trying to get all the variables right. Second, take care with the layout of the neck root and the marking of the mortise. If you get these centered and symmetrical and cut with care, the neck should go in with negligible twist, which gives you one less thing to have to worry about. Third, after every adjustment to the bottom of the mortise, make sure it's flat before measuring and moving on. For the same reason as my first point. You can use a little straight edge to check for high spots, and make minor corrections with a small, carefully flattened sanding block, same shape but a little smaller than the mortise. If you know that the neck root is dead flat, then any wobble in the neck must be down to a bump in the mortise floor, and you have to fix that before checking alignments/measurements. Best tip would probably be to watch Davide's videos...

Yes. Edge of top to (narrow) end of fingerboard.

If you really mean "b" I'd make it a lot more than 1mm too long. Maybe 5mm or so? And I'd suggest cutting the mortice depth to give a neck stop of 130mm (unless you have a compelling reason to do something different) rather than chasing a specific string length.

Sure, but it's sensible to have everything where you want it when the overstand and fb projection are both about 3mm too high, so all there is left to do is carefully and evenly widen the mortice and tweak the back of the neck heel for length and parallelism with button when it's fully home. You really have to be clear in your mind about all the things you have to achieve when fitting a neck, and how to correct so that you end up with them all in the right place.

The angle of the neck heel (where your black arrow is pointing) on the template is just a random starting point. Once you start fitting the neck you can take wood off the neck heel until it's parallel with the button. As you get closer to final fit, carefully remove wood from the heel with a sharp block plane to achieve perfect parallelism with the button and a gapless fit when the neck is in final position, with neck angle, overstand, neck length, straightness and twist all (hopefully) perfect.