Keeping busy during lock down

I'm very fortunate being able to work from home and weekdays seem even more busy than before the lock down with video conferences at all hours. But it's weekends that I need to keep busy now that we can't go out.

With the few nice weekends recently the garden is looking better than it ever has, there's a growing pile of sawn and chopped logs and I've caught up on most of the DIY jobs around the house.

So I started on restoration of a regular plane I picked up at a sale somewhere, after a good clean up the only thing it needed was the blade sharpening, so not having anything other than an oil stone I decided to regrind the blade to take out a couple of dings and straighten the edge which was worn in the centre

It took a bit longer than anticipated, in total around 2.5 hours of grinding, done in 15 or 20 minute sessions when I was down in the garage and not doing anything else. You can see the blade set up in the sharpening jig which for me is essential. now it's razor sharp and just needs reassembly and put to work.

Above my small collection of planes, the wooden jack plane was my Dad's must me 70 years old at least. It's done great service including making the center pole of the spiral staircase to my office and the new top section to Greta's main mast.

The little red block plane came from B&Q but keeps a good edge and is the most often used plane.

A couple more purchases from second hand shops awaiting a refresh.

Still trying figure out if this can be repaired and how, it's a rebate plane I picked up for £15 but stupidly dropped it on the concrete floor.