Beautiful Burr elm infill

I bought this beautiful piece burr elm from M.A.C.Timbers, it is big enough to infill a jointer. Mike has had this wood for over 30yrs. (I think it will be seasoned now)

I am cutting the elm up to make the handle.

The plane infill end to end measures 23 1/4", the wood measures 23". Even allowing for the 1/2" space either side of the mouth, the wood is just big enough if I overlapped the 2 pieces when cutting out, too close for my liking, however I have just managed it. I got the handle out of the same piece.

Below the handle glued and screwed into the rear infill.

The wood over night slightly altered it's shape, I had already loosely tried rhe rear infill in the plane, but when I applied Araldite to the sides thinking it would ease the sliding in of the infill, just the opposite, it proved immensely difficult, out came the lump hammer and a stout piece of wood, boy did it make me swet.

Final trimming to the front infillusing my blunt chisel technique.

I had already glued the wood for the front infill into the plane, it is going to be a job to shape in place, I do make hard work for myself.

This is as far as I have got, I am going to a sale for the next 2 days.

I am working on the front infill.

Far too wide I have got to cut it down.

This is as far as I got and just before I put my tools away I have filled a lot of the imperfections with Araldite and saw dust, it looks ike a stick toffee apple. Can't wait to have another go at it tomorrow.

Cleaning the glue and saw dust off with my blunt ended chisel, I have used this technique through out the making of this plane.

A slightly raised pyramid effect on the top of the bun.

I have covered the wood surface with Araldite rubbed in, left it for 3/4 of an hour then I rubbed it off using a drop of linseed oil. I have used this technique on large planes that I soak in linseed.

This picture shows a Ward tapered iron, I haven't got a parallel iron as yet, placed in position with the loose lever cap and screw, just to show the effect.

For the first time I have used Phosphor Bronze 3/16" rod for the rivets, the lever cap and screw has a steel 7/32" rivet, this was given to me by Karl Holtey, it was left over from a previous pattern he made for me many years ago. For the first time I haven't used an adjuster on such a large plane, simply because I haven't got one.