I really enjoy doing most of my wood working projects with hand tools. I don't mind sweating over dimensioning rough stock with handsaw's and hand planing a "4 square" surface is frankly kinda fun for me. I have also learned to be a lot better at joinery over the years.
One area that has remained a challenge is creating moldings with hollow and round molding planes. I was fortunate enough to acquire a number of vintage H&R molding planes from David Weaver. As David suggested, I invested a significant amount of time in fettling and particularly grinding/sharpening plane irons consistent with the shape of plane soles. From my perspective, if I could pay a professional to do this to a much higher level of execution, it would be well worth whatever the cost is. I enjoy woodworking – not metal working.
My limited experience with hand planing moldings is mixed;
1) The older irons don't seem to stay sharp very long. I'm sure if I knew how to use an electric router/shaper, I could easily create these profiles is significantly less time.
2) All the printed/online information about hand planing moldings in softwoods might look great in pictures; but as a practical matter most of my projects are with domestic hardwoods. My experience has been, it's a lot harder to plane a molding in typical North American cabinet hardwoods, than it is to do the same in Pine.
Based on the realization my current, vintage H&R planes didn't work very well, and the idea I could not reasonably afford to buy contemporary molding planes from the few makers that produce them (even if I could afford it, I'm not waiting for years). I decided to try and build my own H&R's based on an article In Popular Woodworking.
I felt recently confident in shaping the wooden plane bodies, but was completely intimidated about the idea of trying to heat treat/Harden plan irons. Based on encouragement from many here on SMC, primarily Steve Voigt, I bought the iron blanks from Lee Nielsen and took the plunge with "heat treating/tempering", or whatever it's called.
Frankly the results turned out better than I expected. Seems like the irons are pretty hard/hold a decent edge. Nonetheless, not really a good time for me and something I would be happy to pay for.
Here are some pictures FWIW: I had planned on posting these via photobucket to make them easier to see- which personally is a challenge for me - but way too much much work.
All the best, Mike
Sorry I lost my patience trying to up load pics- I guess I'm not nearly smart enough to know how to do this.