Climate control in the new place is good enough for me to be looking at hollows and rounds. I am not looking for George Washington's #12 hollower or King George III's #3 round.

I am looking for user pairs that are or can be sharpened. If I drop them on my shop floor I don't want some conservator at the Smithsonian having heartburn or cardiac chest pain.

I am confident I don't have enough $ in the hobby account to pick up a harlequin half set. I prefer a higher pitch and skewed so I can use them cross grain in hardwoods rather than own duplicates.

#1, how much do I need to budget right now to spend on say two pairs (#4 and #8 maybe) that have good match on the edge profiles and are in good working order and irons without pits? Before they get shipped to me outside the lower 48?


#2 Can anyone tell me what a "halving plane" is used for? I have an idea that it could take away about half the waste on whatever ending profile, but be easy to sharpen since the edge is 90 degrees to the side of the iron. Looks like a rabbet plane, but with a fixed skate and no depth stop. There is a pic of a very similar plane on wikipedia, with no explanation. I do have Matt Bickford's book on order, but it isn't here yet.

Halving plane pics. I lost my $20 on this one, the back of the iron is too pitted to ever sharpen.

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I don't see that adding the Veritas combination plane to my shop is going to help me with moldings. I have a pair of right hand small plow planes with a full set of imperial irons, and a shop made fence so one plow plane can be set up left handed. I have the Veritas skew rabbet plane, and the Veritas router plane with a comprehensive set of irons. I have a bunch of saws and plenty of chisels. I can make dado and groove until Jesus comes to take me home. But I got nothing for moldings beyond the foregoing, I can make some beads here and there.

On the one hand I am OK with investing in wood bodied H&R planes this year because they are 'relatively' cheap and I am finally at a season of life I have good enough climate control to maintain wood bodied hollows and rounds in my shop. On the other hand I wonder how far into the future it is before Veritas comes out with an adjustable width plane body or bodies that can accommodate irons to make a full set of H&R with one or two bodies and a tool roll up (in green please) for all the irons. I would even settle for for one tool roll-up with all the even irons and a second roll-up with the odd numbered irons. Torrefied maple and ductile iron please, the usual suspects. Don't overlook the Grecian profiles please Rob. Pizza is fabulous, but some days I want leg of lamb roasted on lump charcoal and smoked with rosemary sprigs. And some feta on the side.