Howdy all:

Just a quick thank you to Dave Weisbord for bringing Christopher
Laarman's work to my attention, via the list.

I received my Laarman finger plane, with palm pusher attachment and
sharpening jig on Tuesday.  What a beautiful tool.  Despite being in the
middle of a french polishing job in the shop, I just had to flatten and
SS the blade to try it out.

Kept the shop vac handy and managed to get a pretty decently flattened
iron in about an hour .  The iron was cupped slightly, probably due to
stresses during hardening/tempering, and being a Hock, it isn't exactly
soft.  Kind of tricky working with such a small iron too.  Finally ended
up wearing close fitting leather gloves, spraying some glue onto the
fingers for better grip.  The sharpening jig worked great for
maintaining both the bezel and radius, as the sole of the plane is
convex.

Slid the iron in from below, set the depth by eye, tightened the lever
cap srew, grabbed a piece of spalted maple and started making shavings.
Very nice.  I'll have more time to experiment when I finish a few of
these furniture projects, but it is very clear that this plane has what
I admire in tools.  Form and function.  It really is a beautiful piece
of work.

Thanks Chris,

Gil