Pushing

I was having trouble getting a properly jointed edge on the main seat planks with my big planer, I must look into making a better fence for it. But, having given the box plane a shot yesterday to see how it would do I sharpened it up and rather enjoyed getting nice straight shavings off with that. The traditional look to shavings is a curly sort of shape, but the curl tends to mean that the thing is thicker on one side than the other. If the shaving comes off with a sort of singing sound and dead flat it seems to be a good sign. You still have to keep a check on keeping the edge at right angles to the face, but this plane does give a pretty good shot at a flat joint. I don't usually do these kind of joints as I know they can only go downhill from then on. They start out neat, but open up as the years pass, especially with this Elm related wood that likes to dance about over time. In this case the seat will be covered up with cushions most of the time, and I want to carve some kind of curves into it. My main reason for compromising is that my normal mode of floating panels might tend to pinch in private places when the seat is exposed in the summer.
Yesterday's picture shows the plane, the mallet for hitting the back of the plane to pull the blade up out of its slot and make a thinner shaving, the little hammer to tap the blade in for thicker shaving. Also the can of oil spray to shoot on the blade after wiping off the water from sharpening. The Sheffield steel is already starting to lose its edge, but it doesn't get that much use, so no worries. It makes a change to be pushing a hand plane with a handle anyway.