Transitional Planes
A screwdriver for split nuts can be made from a regular screwdriver and a Dremel type rotary tool. Just make sure the driver fits the slot well and grind out a gap to clear the screw.
The sloes of transitional planes are tuned like wooden bodied planes. There are videos on YouTube that cover that pretty well. Flatten the soles and re-mouth (patch) as necessary for the intended use with scrubs, jacks, and fore planes having relatively open mouths, and smooth and jointers being relatively tight. The metal slope of the frog can be smoothed with a file and should be aligned with the slope of the mouth of the wooden base. I normally do the alignment with a small six inch ruler. These planes were very popular with carpenters but can do work as fine as wooden bodied planes in my opinion with the possible exception of wooden smoothers.
Transitional planes haven’t yet gotten the attention that metal and purely wooden planes have lately and are still a good value in my area for very functional user planes.