I'm making a new carving plane, with inspiration and encouragement from my friend Andy Homan. It's a small (hand sized) scrub plane, to be shaped with a curved sole and radiused iron (1/4" thick!) for the big carving jobs, like roughing out the arch on a mandolin, cello or guitar. The wood is white ash, from Shelburne Farm which has a sustainable forestry program. I've also got some sugar maple for mandolin backs from there, but the wood needs to season for a few more years. Here are some in progress pics:

After the body is glued, it will be shaped, and the alignment pegs cut away. Now I need to shape a wedge for tensioning the iron, and grind the iron to shape and hone 'til it shaves the hair on the back of my hand.