TomD
Oh, I would add, that a real good thing to do as an exercise is cut a piece of wood to your bedding angle, then mark a line around it, say 1/16" lower, then take at it with a chisel and lower it down to a flat surface the 1/16th lower. That will teach a lot about using the chisel without the clutter or pressure of working on a plane.

Abutment planes such as Japanese, or otherwise can be sawn out. It is missing out on some great chisel exercise, but I have done it and it is a lot easier in certain respects. Rip, rip, 45, 85, 55, two rebates, and glue her back up. Make the rebates so that the blade only fits down 2/3rd. When it is all back together, say five minutes later, you basically have a pre-made dai, that just needs final fitting. If nothing else you would have a good thing to practice your fitting on. You can saw the sides off and re-use the center bits over and over. One can make an excellent Japanese plane with white oak, or beech. One can make a less excellent one with maple or red oak. Apparently live oak is very good, never seen it myself. red oak would probably be OK if one just saturated the mouth with epoxy.