Rex Krueger

Sneak Peek: Make a $2 plane iron (maybe)

Added 2018-01-25 11:49:19 +0000 UTC

My videos on buying and restoring vintage tools are pretty popular, but I do hear one complaint a lot: "That's a very nice video, but you just can't find cheap old tools where I live. They either don't exist or they're worth a fortune. What do I do?"

So I've decided to make more videos about tool making on a budget. Those videos do really well anyway.

It seems that people really struggle with finding good planes, and that's kinda strange since the plane is probably the most basic woodworking tool out there. It's just a blade in a jig. I mean, even a chisel is way harder to make. So plane making is the way to go.

Wooden planes are pretty easy to make, and they're cheap...except for the iron. It seems like Ron Hock is really the only game in town when it comes to good, readily available plane irons.

Here's the thing: Ron's irons cost $50.

I'm sure that's a fair price for what goes into them, but as someone who typically spends $10 or less on an entire plane, I'll be damned if I'm going to drop 50 bones on a plane...and still have to BUILD the plane. That's just crazy.

For years now, I've been looking for a source of high-carbon steel in the form of some cheap consumer product. I wanted something mass-produced that you could just grab at Walmart and re-grind into an iron. Well, I think I've finally found it. I think I have a source for high-carbon, hardened and tempered steel that will let me make an iron for about $2. In my next video (available a week early for ALL patrons), I'll give it a shot.

If it works, it could be the start of making some really cheap tools for fine woodworking. Stay tuned.