Through the last few weeks, I’ve been getting the final pieces necessary for me to start cutting wood. I finally got a piece of plate glass for sharpening and lapping. For that, I went to a salvage yard and, well, it might have been overkill, but I found a 4-foot piece of 3/8″-thick tempered glass (for almost nothing). You can’t cut tempered glass, but I thought that it might be nice to have something this big for lapping plane soles.

I also broke down and bought a Veritas honing guide.

To give you an idea of the budget I’ve been using, this is definitely the most expensive tool that I’ve bought so far. Now that I’ve got it, I’m glad that I splurged on this, because it’s gonna be awfully handy in getting bevel angles correct.

So at this point, there’s just one thing separating me from sharpening: spray adhesive. To lap planes, I also need a sheet of Mylar. So I’m going to work on this stuff this week. And then I’m gonna get some actual wood!