The unhandled Mathieson smoother pictured above is almost identical to the Spiers smoother I’m using for this study. The only reason I’m using the Spiers is that I have a good blade for it that gives a reasonably fine mouth without the use of shims under the blade.

I don’t know how many of my results will also hold for Bailey style planes. I’d guess that the cutting principles will be just the same, but the limited blade-clamping pressure inherent to that design may limit the ability to achieve very close settings that aren’t affected by the forces generated during use. A very well tuned Bailey plane may be able to match the performance of an infill plane, but that issue is beyond the scope of this study.

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