Wooden router plane

Tool-making bug is itching me. Earlier I said that I needed router plane for my workbench build, but what the hell, I just wanted to own one. Honesty is the best policy
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Here is my starting point: cutter with threaded rod and milled facets:


Since I had no "real" cutters available here for any reasonable money, I needed to make one from scratch. On one hand I didn't like usual option - L-shaped hex wrench, and on the other hand I wanted some adjustment facilities, so I came up with this solution: to weld tip of the chisel to the threaded rod (10mm diameter). The idea was to minimize number of parts involved into design, and since I had to make the cutters anyway I decided to give it a try. This was the most expensive part of the project: 6 chisels (4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm, 12mm, and 16mm), plus metal turning, milling, and welding work (that I had to outsource) took me about $80. I don't know how chisel tips were welded, I just asked guy who did it for me to try not to overheat cutting edges. Will see how my cutters gonna hold the edge. Also I spent quite a bit time truing up cutters geometry, but thanks to DMT stones it wasn't too bad.

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Having cutters ready I made a bolt that holds the cutter:









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The adjustment nut had to be re-shaped slightly, so I employed my poor-boy lathe, this time cutting brass with sharpened tip of the file:

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Next I made a prototype out of pine:






The prototype was very right thing to do, it let me to test all my not-so-good ideas before I found something that would work for me.
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Next was plane body (beech).




(Main hole drilled with the help of sacrificial piece of wood. The drilling is still my weak spot, I guess I need a drill press.)


(Templates like this one was another right thing to do.)

Ready for shaping:


And here the shaping starts:








Checking shape against the template.




Here's my favorite one: prototype is being used as a tool to build a tool it's been prototyped for:




Sanding.






Two brothers:

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Brass work.

Brass stripes glued into cutter-mounting hole to protect wood from wearing:


Back side of adjusting nut cover plates and back washer:

You can see that I had to hammer brass parts to adjust their shape for better fit. Turned out that metall allows for some errors as well as the wood.



Bolts' heads re-shaped from hex to round:

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Handles.

Handles turned on my poor-boy lathe from some unidentified wood from my mom's garden.




One ready and one more to go:


Final shape of the handles: more smooth curves to match plane's body:


Reaming handles with some ugly bit made from bolt:



Despite its ugliness it provided perfect recess for the head.

Drilling holes for the handles.


Here's how I made little recesses for the handles: I glued sandpaper at the bottom of the handle, screwed it in place and kept rotating it until it cut its way down in the plane's body. Then removed the sandpaper.





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All parts in place, ready for finish:


After two coats of danish oil:

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And finally some tool porn for the brave who survived such long post









Plane in action:



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Couple of words about how adjustment works. It works great! I think adjustment machinery is quite clear: you turn adjustment nut which is locked in place with cover plates, the adjustment nut pushes/pulls the cutter up or down. The threads on the rod/nut is 1mm step, so one full turn of the adjustment nut gives 1mm (a little more than 1/32") of cutter move. So if I need to go 0.25mm down I do 1/4 turn and so on. Cool! And this little dot on the adjustment nut helps me to track cutter move:

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Thanks for stepping by, being a happy owner of the router plane now I'll be happy to answer any questions about one