...Stanley being Stanley and trying to fill EVERY conceivable niche, including planing Masonite (or hardboard), produced a “hardboard” plane between 1937 and 1943. It was specifically made to clean up the edges of Masonite/hardboard. Stanley’s version was the #195.
Back then, fiberboard was the Newest Best Thing, and was offered in grades of hardness. Stanley's fiberboard planes came in versions that could plane the different grades. My bride and I used to stay in some cabins south of Crater Lake, built by two brothers in the 1930s, on which the top half of the walls were done in fiberboard of the moderately hard grade. It's different from masonite, more nearly resembling particleboard but subtly different. The walls show evidence that the brothers may have had someone's fiberboard planes, as they have V-grooves both at the joints of the panels (like plywood, sheetrock, etc., fiberboard came in panels for quick, efficient application to the wall) and periodically across the face of the panels for decorative purposes. I'm fairly confident that the V-grooves in the fields of the panels were applied at installation, as they were somewhat irregularly spaced.
Record, of England, also offered fiberboard planes; they're discussed in the book "Planecraft," which is partly a paean to Record tools, which is where most of my knowledge comes from.
Even the bathroom was done in fiberboard, with generous applications of paint to waterproof it. It was in surprisingly good shape.
What seemed crazy by modern standards is that the bottom half of the walls was done in beautifully detailed vertical wood tongue-and-groove or shiplap, from lumber growing on the property (we were told), which would nowadays be considered rustic and lovely. The cabins were furnished with beds, tables, etc., all made by the brothers and still in great shape; and the windows (sliding barn sash) could be opened and shut with one finger. So the brothers knew their stuff.
We miss that place (last time we were up there, it was closed). When we stayed there, the granddaughter (I think it was) of one of the original builders and her husband were operating it, and they told us some of the history. One brother and his sister-in-law died, and the remaining brother and sister-in-law kept operating the cabins into the postwar period. As they got older and slowed down, if the sister-in-law hadn't gotten around to doing the laundry and had no clean sheets for the cabins, they would just say they had no vacancies.
Even though we have an RV now, and will probably stay in that on our next trip to Crater Lake (we need to get up there again soon...one of America's natural cathedrals), I'd be willing to park it and stay in the cabins just to soak in the experience. So sad that they closed.
Also in that part of the state is the Grand Lodge at the Oregon Caves, the last National Park Grand Lodge built. Since it was built during the Depression, it was built to a budget, and, when we toured it on our first visit some years back, the rooms were paneled in a somewhat softer fiberboard that had sagged between the nails holding panels to the walls. "Dingy" is a polite description (actually, the rooms in the Grand Lodges are often not very impressive; the lobbies are where the architects focused their attention). Last we were up there, earlier this year, the Chateau was closed for renovations. The description of the chateau on their website (
http://www.oregoncaveschateau.com/Page.asp?NavID=20) specifically mentions the fiberboard, so it will be interesting to see if they replicate it.
Drywall drove fiberboard out of the market, for the most part, because it could be finished to resemble plaster, although homasote, one of the softer fiberboards, is still offered, mainly (at least in the residential building market) as a sound reducer.
