Hard core building

I was gonna run a few plates through the 10-20 drum sander, but they were very uneven and quite thick in places. I remember sawing these on my out of tune bandsaw, of which I am abysmally tired. 

Running the 10-20 and the dust collector in the apartment workshop is usually ok, I try to do it in bursts of maximum 45 minutes to save my relationship to the neighbours. But it smells odd! I don't know if there's some gunk from an exotic wood in the dust bin or if it is the cheap sandpaper I bought, but it smells (stinks).

So I started out planing the plates with a jack plane. I aimed for more even and around 3 mm, then the sander would be done with quickly. 

But the jack plane tore out some of the reversing grain so I reached for a number 4 1/2 smoothing plane. Then my number 3 smoothing plane. 

And there you have it - my new plan. I'll make two new piccolos that won't be touched by sandpaper at all during the build. I've thought about doing this before, but always gave up. But now my planes are sharper and better adjusted, I've made my own scrapers in shapes I missed, and every last edge is keen and shiny. 

Here's what it looked like after a while:

And here the first ones are done. In the pic you see the three planes, a cast iron cabinet scraper and a card scraper, my digital thickness caliper, and last the welding clamps I used to hold them to the bench. 

I will probably use an electric drill and maybe the mini table saw. I'm not amish, just tired of sanding.