Say you get an old wooden plane and it has boxwood wear strips along the profile or sole. Sometimes this looks like a dog chewed on it, and the plane doesn’t glide smoothly over the wood or take an even cut. I recently got a snipe bill plane that looked terrible. I could have heated the hide glue, removed the gnarly boxing completely, meticulously made a new boxing and install it. Except that seemed like a lot of work to get the very stuck existing boxing out to replace everything when only a small bit of material was damaged. The profile of what was broken was less than 1/4” by 1/8”.

Ignoring common sense and grain direction, I decided to wing it with a bit of white oak.

I grabbed a paring chisel and pared down the boxing past the chipping until it had a flat surface. I glued on a small offcut of white oak with Titebond 3. 30 minutes laterit was dry enough to work with hand tools (it’s the middle of winter with 25% relative humidity at 68F… glue dries fast right now). A carcass saw trimmed the piece close to final dimensions. I first worked the profile with a number 6 round plane and then the flat back side with a card scraper. A couple passes with the jointer plane brought the depth to its final dimension, and a flush cut saw trimmed the mouth. A bit of wax alter and in an hour’s time, I had a functional repair.

Because I was rushing I didn’t take a lot of pictures. Here’s a little of the glue up and the final result. We’ll see if it holds up, but I suspect it’ll be a fine user plane for many years.

Glue Up

Glue Up (End View) Glue Up (Side View)

Matching the profile with a Number 6 round plane.

Matching the Profile

Trimming the angle with a flush cut saw against the top of the mortise.

Flush Cut

Final Result

Profile View Flat Side View Curved Side View Bottom View