DIY Toothed plane

[BradHall]

I have a nice set of Sitka spruce for my next build. Fully quartered, very tight grain. It has a wonderful musical tap tone as is.....but it is more than twice the thickness I'm targeting. It's a shame it falls short of resawing and doubling the yield. I could spend time on my homemade thickness sander. Would rather develop another skill. I have an old Dunlop Jack plane that's pretty flat. Could get it better with a little work on my granite slab. I'm thinking of taking a triangle file to the blade to cut notches and using it as a thickness plane. Is this a good idea? What pit falls should I be aware of?

[mb propsom]

Brad, I don't see the benefit of messing up the plane iron if you're going to use the plane for planing down your top. On my first two guitars, I just made sure my plane iron was razor sharp and took the wood down to near finished thickness.

[runamuck]

The only advantage of a toothing plane is there's a bit less resistance to push. If your blade is sharp and you're planing guitar size pieces, it's better to just leave it, in my opinion.

[BlmJn]

A toothed plane is unnecessary for planing a spruce top. As others have said a good sharp blade is what is needed. Toothed planes were developed for planing difficult and figured woods. Often used with a diagonal stroke especially on thin stock like rosewood guitar sides. But not needed for a spruce top.

[Mr. Jelly]

This thread always stops me because of the title as my wife makes her own tooth paste. :-)