When Joe and I started making planes, the one we really wanted to make (but were terrified of the complexity) was the A5. I made lots of them… but there were a few things I wanted to change and the k-series gave me the perfect opportunity. 

One of the design criteria for the k-series was to eliminate weight. As I get older, I appreciate lighter weight planes more and more. Many people comment that one of the things that makes an infill plane work so well is that they are heavy. I am not convinced this is what they are experiencing. If heavy was so great, then wooden planes would be terrible… but they aren’t. What they have in common is they both feel ‘solid’. I think this is what people are often experiencing – the solidity of the plane. So the goal was to eliminate weight. The easiest area to do this was in the rear infill. Drop the handle down, and eliminate the overstuffed sides (reducing the amount of infill wood). I also wanted to get rid of the mechanical ‘adjuster’. I have never liked them from a functional standpoint, and even less from a making perspective. They are completely unnecessary, and, I quickly came to realize, are cumbersome and slow. It is so much simpler to tap the blade into position using a dedicated hammer. Adjusters are also an expensive addition to a plane, so from this point forward, will not be available on any planes.