Scheming chap’s beginning to recommend chaps’ model paper (9)
I believe the answer is:
parchment
'paper' is the definition.
(parchment is a kind of paper)
'scheming chap's beginning to' is the wordplay.
'scheming' becomes 'parch' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'chap' becomes 'men' (more than one chap or man).
'beginning' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letter of 'to' is 't'.
'parch'+'men'+'t'='PARCHMENT'
'recommend chaps' model' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for parchment that I've seen before include "goatskin?" , "diploma" , "Old writing material" , "High-quality paper" , "Skin prepared for writing on" .)