Thin stock planing appliance

 I want to make (lots of) boxes with thin wood to use as drawers.

This is my 1st idea.  The bottom & sides are from pine branches in my backyard that I cut about 6 months ago.  

I jointed & glued 2 pieces to make a wider board. Then I planed the board smooth.

I cut a 1/8 in groove in the sides for the bottom.

The end is scraps glued together that are 2x as thick as the sides.

The bottom is slid into the grooves,  the sides & bottom are nailed around the end pieces.

Simple and it should handle wood movement.

The 1/8 groove is too thin for the bottom.  3/16 would be better.  The thickness of the sides are not consistent either.  I need something better.

 There are lots of hand plane thicknessing appliance (jigs are for power tools, appliances are for hand tools) designs out there.  Most have an adjustable stop screwed into the endgrain.  I find that the end grain screws eventually give out.

I also wanted to handle as wide a piece of wood as I could.  My #7 is the widest I have.

So, 3/4 plywood on the bottom.  1x3 cut in 1/2 for the sides.  I put them tight to the plane and screwed them in place.

The stop is a piece of oak ~ 1/2" thick.

The plane rests on strips of scrap thicker than the stop and ~ 1/4" wide.  Basically from the plane iron in the mouth of the #7 to the edge of the plane.

To get the thickness, I just put spacers under the stock so the distance from the plane to spacer is the thickness I want.

I just needed the right thickness.  Planing things to thickness w/o the jig is a pain.  And I need multiple thicknesses.

I decided to be lazy.  I found these bamboo strips.

They're 15" long, 2mm (1/8") thick and cheap.

Unfortunately, they're narrow.  3/8" wide.

If I lay them side by side & put a little masking tape on front & back, I get spacers that will work.

If I really need to fine tune the thickness, I can add strips of paper to sneak up.

2 of them get me 3/8" thick.

4 to get the box bottoms to 3/16.

I can use these to make precise spacers instead of stacking.  If I want to work that hard.

It's quick, easy and accurate.

I have lots more wood to got through to make my boxes.