In 2010, a friend and customer commented that he liked the rough size of the panel plane, but found them kinda clunky and asked, ‘could you re-think the panel plane?’. That simple question has taken me down a path I could not have imagined or have been capable of executing a few years earlier. There were a few key design criteria; make it lighter weight, better ergonomics in the front infill, make it look more contemporary, ‘more wood, less metal’, and make it look fast. 

 

After months of these words bouncing around in the back of my mind, lightning struck - and a single simple drawing on my chalkboard quickly evolved into what would become the K13. The customer was thrilled, and I found myself with renewed excitement and purpose as a planemaker. I took the lessons from the K13 and started applying them to the other plane models. 

 

The development of this new line of planes was also the perfect opportunity to do away with the mechanical adjusters – something I had been wanting to do for years.