@tej, Ben Crowe has a couple of live Q&As a week (one is live right now), you could ask him what his suggestion is for flattening a block plane on a budget.

@jonhodgson thanks for that, I’ve not settled on a sharpening method as yet, definitely need to sort it out though as all my chisels are a mess too and in need of TLC. Granite is over the top for me r...

@tej there are quite a few plane restoration videos on youtube, basically you want the flattest surface possible and some sandpaper. I think vintagetoolshop probably flatten any planes that need it be...

@rocknroller912 thanks for the link, couldn’t actually find one from on the site though. That said I’ll be looking at a cheap option right now given the expense of guitar build parts and tools so far.

Just for you @tej This little plane has never let me down. Attachment : 589E68D3-79CD-4DB3-9A31-178115922695.jpeg Attachment : 163A230D-4F33-4F1A-97E9-442AECA55F52.jpeg Attachment : ...

@tej I got an engineers flat surface from this firm. Not cheap but it has a test certificate accurate to 0.001mm. Solid polished granite and very heavy about 50mm thick I think. For soft water stone a...

@mattbeels thanks, yet another thing with many many “best” ways to do it, will see how I get on. I need a flatbed of some kind for reflattenising (of course that’s a word!) a couple of whetstones. Loo...

@tej This one’s not too bad either 😉

Start here @tej

You WILL need to know how to sharpen a plane though @jonhodgson happy to hear your advice on this one? Also curious as to the best approach to flatten the bottom of a plane given that the one I got i...

I would be worried about glue squeeze out from the fretboard getting into the channel. Old style rods in an aluminium u shaped channel I would be happy not using a fillet, but you have to remove so mu...

Why are people even bothering with the fillet? It's not necessary with a modern truss rod. @jonhodgson If people like me are following Mark’s course then it’s from that. The reason he states is to e...

Why are people even bothering with the fillet? It's not necessary with a modern truss rod. @jonhodgson There is something very neat and elegant about putting the fillet in and it does save excess gl...

Incidentally, vintagetoolshop.com currently has a 10% off sale and a variety of block planes in stock. If you're not sure if it will be suitable, just ask them, if the staff doesn't know their boss wi...

Why are people even bothering with the fillet? It's not necessary with a modern truss rod.

@tej Thats what I did, a fill in strip to raise the depth where I was making it deeper for the adjusting nut. Necks are laminated anyway so it should be ok. I also had bad side tear out so cut a patch...

It’s not as hard as you might think. @rocknroller that’s the daft thing, my test run on scrap was great! Indeed I know I can fix it, there was a strip of mahogany included with the blank which is spo...

@tej Dont worry, my test run on an old neck blank of not very good quality was so bad I’m not even going to share it. I went too deep in one spot also but hand fitted a patch or two, using an off cut ...

@russ I know but they’re all just down to carelessness, never worked on wood that mattered before so a little frustrated at myself, as you say though it’s all learning. Going to fix things in the morn...

It's all a learning experience @tej. Hang on in there. 👍😁 🙏🎶🎸🙂