Plane for gains on a baby tender

[lbrewer]

Hey everyone.

 I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd share a tool idea that helped me out cutting the gains on a lap strake cradle boat that I'm building for my soon to be first grandson.

I've had to fuss a bit with cutting the progressively deeper rabbets, or gains,  at the stem and transom on the few clinker projects I've tackled. On this one, the 3/16" soft cedar planking wasn't very forgiving of any wobble in the chisel while freehanding the cut.  After boogering up a couple of planks I figured something with an edge guide of sorts would be helpful.  I don't have a rabbet plane because  normally use a router for that task.  Except for cutting gains.

 

The handle is made from some 1.5 inch white oak stock I had in the shop.  The plane iron is 1 5/8" so that gives a 1/16th protrusion outside the plane body which works out for a nice clean edge cut.

 

The iron is just fastened with a couple of stainless screws onto the 35 degree cut on the leading end of the plane.

 

The edge guide screwed to the bottom is 5/8" wide, allowing a 1/2" cut on either side which is what I wanted for the 1/2" gains on this build.  Changing the width of the edge guide would allow different width gains as appropriate.

 

"Gain plane" in action. 

It actually works pretty well at making nice clean cuts and I haven't damaged any more strakes with a chisel slip. 

[lbrewer]

Handy dandy thickness planer and thickness sander for the same project