Doctoring it up

Occasionally I make some handplanes and leave the pad off. Usually it is when I think that they look really cool, or have a neat grain pattern, and I really don't want to cover it up with a pad. Functionally, I like the pad, but, from an aesthetic standpoint, it sometimes doesn't make sense to cover up a beautiful piece of wood with a piece of processed plastic. This one I made for Dr. Chris Jones in Sydney. He got it last March. He just sent me a picture of what he has done to it. It makes perfect sense from a functional standpoint, and I'm sure in some of the situations he gets himself in along the beaches of Sydney, helps him a great deal. Here is what he had to say about it: "My current one is going so well - I've hooked it up with a dakine deck grip that I trimmed to fit... photo's attached. It seems to work really well with a grip for the fingers and buttress for the wrist. Your hand seems to just slot in perfectly." He is now in the process of adding a Hobbit to his quiver, this one, I'll be sure to put a pad on.