Summary

Handplanes are pure joy. Using them is a joy, making them is a joy and they’re a joy to look at. You can make one in an afternoon, using common hand tools and any old bit of wood. People make them out of old skateboards, chopping boards and old planks.

I made this one - my first - from an offcut of red cedar I bought on eBay. It has a slight concave on the hull, no rocker and a hand hole rather than a strap. It’s coated in some bio resin left over from the SUP paddle project. I started it with a jigsaw and a hand sander and then finished it with hand tools, in the kitchen, during lockdown.

Making it was tons of fun. You can’t really go wrong with a handplane. As long as it floats and you can hold on to it then it’s a success.

Inspiration

Lots of inspiration for this. The beautiful steam-bent handplanes of Perlins Community Project, the beautiful poplar and cedar handplanes of Otter Surfboards and these beautiful handplanes from Danny Hess:

The original inspiration to get on and make one myself was this video from Surf Sufficient, although I ended up going my own way:

And here’s a bit of bonus inspiration. It couldn’t be more different from my experience of body surfing, but what a watch.

Ingredients

• One block of red cedar. I got one from eBay that was 210mm x 300mm x 30mm and then spent a lifetime planing it down. I recommend getting one around 15mm deep instead.
• Something to seal it with. I had some super sap bio resin left over from another project. Although super sap is less offensive to the environment than traditional epoxies, I’m going to try tung oil or boiled linseed for my next handplanes, to make them even lower impact.

Tools

• Block plane
• Coping saw
• 80 grit sandpaper
• 120 grit sandpaper
• 1,000 grit sandpaper
• Drill

Method

Plane your wood down to a thickness you like. I ended up about 10mm thick, which felt about right, but you could go thinner.

Decide on an outline you like and draw half of it on to an A4 piece of paper, then fold it over and trace the design on to the other half, so you’re left with a full, symmetrical outline. I went for a fish shape but you can do anything. Check the inspiration section to see what other people are doing. Cut the template out and draw around it, on to the cedar.

Use a coping saw to cut the template out.

Use a block plane to round off the top of the rails.

Use a block plane to start excavating a shallow concave on the hull and finish it with 80 grit sandpaper.

Decide where you want the hand hole to be and draw it on to the wood. Drill a hole at either end of the hand hole to fit the coping saw blade through. Put the blade into the saw handle and saw out the shape of the handhole.

Sand the whole thing until it’s nice and smooth.

Paint on your coating. I went for bio resin and it took two coats. Then I sanded the resin with 1,000 grit sandpaper. This wouldn’t be necessary if I’d using a finishing oil instead.

Results

Lessons

• Don’t start rounding things off until you’ve done all your cutting, or you’ll have no straight edges to work from
• Just get on with it. Perfect is the enemy of done
• Handplanes are quick, fun projects
• Epoxy is overkill. Try a finishing oil next time
• Changing a coping saw blade is fiddly. Press the end against something hard to flex the handle enough to get the blade in and out.
• Always sharped your plane blades before you start
• 45ml of combined resin and hardener is more than enough for one coat on a handplane
• Be really thorough about planing and sanding out imperfections and clamp marks, because they’ll stick out like a sore thumb when the wood is coated
• If you’re working on something wobbly like a workmate then weigh it down. I used a massive plant pot on the footrest.