Hand planes for carving micarta/G10

[Justin King]

Seemed a little unlikely to me, but it works. I tried one of my little woodworking hand planes on a piece of G10 and was surprised to find that it rips the stuff off as fast as anything I have used, short of a very agressive belt on the grinder, but unlike the grinder, it produces shavings and very little fine dust. :thumbup:
Granted it does dull the blade (or iron for any old school woodworkers) but not nearly as fast as I had expected. Sharpening a plane blade a couple of times beats cleaning up G10 dust from the shop any day in my book. Given the simpicity of the blades most knifemakers could probably make their own and improve on the factory blade's edge retention for this purpose. 3v plane irons?
I even ran down to Home Depot and bought a little 3" hobby plane which I promptly cut down to about 2" with a hacksaw and radiused the shoe, so it can be used to cut concave surfaces.

 

[JasonSCarter]

whoa very cool! Thanks for sharing!

Jason

 

[Phil705]

Who woulda thunk that would work? I'll give it a try!

 

[Justin King]

They work well for taking off corners and some conturing. Obviously they are better for straight or convex surfaces than concave, so they do leave some work for a small wheel, drum sander or file, and of course some hand finishing. The little 3" hobby planes at Home Depot seem to be a good size for this use.