Bob Hackett
A well known plane maker showed me how to make floats. They`re not that hard to make and if you`re just making one or two planes you don`t even have to harden and temper them.
He also showed me a far more useful tool he called a "float or scraper chisel". Just grind a bench chisel to a 90 degree nose, hone it like you would any other chisel and it`ll work like both a scraper and a float. The cutting angle keeps it from digging in and allows very small amounts to be shaved off while the back of the blade jigs it just like a paring chisel.
The one I have and use most was left hard and not tempered (if I dropped it on the floor it`d probably break). The reason we left it that way is so it could be used to scrape metal as well as wood.
One tool to fit both the metal and wood parts on any plane, real handy that. Just don`t drop it.