I do not sleep well these days due to some steroids the doctors gave to me attempting to restart my bone marrow. The therapy was unsuccessful and served only to cut my sleep cycle by five hours. Consequently, these days I arise long before the sun and go to the workshop for an opportunity to use the dark to reconnect to some old practices.
In my early years, my only thickness tools for measuring plates were a four-inch lathe caliper and my hands. Partly because I liked the challenge of touch-thicknessing, but mostly because I could not afford a professional measuring device, I relied mostly on my hands to judge the thickness of plates. It was only recently that I purchased a dial caliper.
I use one light behind me at the back of the room, which provides just enough illumination over my shoulder to make out the lay of the plate I am working on. I feel the pockets and contours of the inside of the plate and test the thickness flow until I know the plate thoroughly. Then I use a plane on a delicate setting to start removing wood. In the quiet of the darkness, I can hear the pitch change as the blade moves through the wood from one thickness to another. The thinner wings make a low, loose sound, while the thicker center at the joint is higher and tight. Stainer was crafty. His pronounced arches make following the outside contours in the dark, especially in the Cs, tricky. The support ridge down the center of the plate is prominent in the gloom, and I smooth it into the medium thickness of the middle wings.
As the sun rises, the low light from the horizon rakes across the plate, revealing the divots from the plane blade and the shape of the contours. I use the calipers to check my work, acknowledging that my fingers are not as sensitive as times past, and I am glad that I am conservative with the plane.