Steve wrote in news:q6su315g5di1lv85vsdm257nop9i880v8i@
4ax.com:

I am in process making my second wood plane (Rock Maple body,
Goncalo Alves Sole, Hock Irons.).snip My question is... has anyone ever
used ¼" or 5/16"
brass rod, cut to length between the cheeks for the wedge to work off
of?

I used a walnut dowel for my first one. That's the process that was shown
in one of the FWW articles written by one of the instructors at College of
the Redwoods, which is where Finck took some training.

It's lasted a year or so now, working just fine. That's not the plane I
tend to reach for first, but it works fairly well.

I'm glad I built it, but it hasn't replaced the metal planes in my arsenal.
And it didn't save me money by any realistic evaluation. There's no way I
could make a noticeably better wooden handplane than that which Steve
Knight sells, at a very reasonable price.

Patriarch,
who's almost 50% done with the hand tool cabinet, loosely modeled on
charlie b's version...