Hand Planes

[Jim C.]

I just went back and read the "Chasing Parts" post......Wow!  That was a long one.  I always like to go back after writing these things and edit them as necessary.  This time I went back and tried to cut out some stuff, but actually ended up adding more to it!!!  Anyway, if you made it through the whole thing, many congratulations!  And to all, my apologies for being so long winded.  I'll try to keep them shorter in the future.

Jim C.

[Papaw]

Jim- Even those of us who don't collect planes or even use them often, enjoy this thread.
Keep it up!

[Jim C.]

Jim- Even those of us who don't collect planes or even use them often, enjoy this thread.
Keep it up!

Thanks Papaw.  I'm not always sure what topics are successes and which ones missed the mark.  Hopefully I can keep it interesting and encourage people to keep coming back for more.

Jim C.

[bill300d]

I wholeheartedly agree. I know that I had not thought about or knew much about this genre of the tool world. Now that I've been following along with this thread I will stop and look at them and test what little knowlege i have. And in a couple of years when I figure out how to pick out the good ones they will all be gone. Que Sera, Sera, thats life.

No need to worry Jim. You tell the story well.

[Jim C.]

I wholeheartedly agree. I know that I had not thought about or knew much about this genre of the tool world. Now that I've been following along with this thread I will stop and look at them and test what little knowlege i have. And in a couple of years when I figure out how to pick out the good ones they will all be gone. Que Sera, Sera, thats life.

No need to worry Jim. You tell the story well.

Hi bill300d,

Thanks for reading along.  I hope the "Chasing Parts" post didn't scare you away from picking out "the good ones."  Don't be afraid to try out an old hand plane that might not be perfect.  Stanley and other manufacturers produced millions of planes between 1890 and 1960, and a lot of them are still out there on the used tool market at very affordable prices.  If you do just a little homework, and make sure to get one with all of its parts, you almost can't go wrong.

Jim C. 

[p_toad]

I liked it, too.   Thanks and keep it up.  :-)

[lptools]

Hello, Jim. Thanks for taking the time for your very insightful posts. I have more planes here than I know what to do with, and yet I am still learning. Regards, Lou

[Jim C.]

I liked it, too.   Thanks and keep it up.  :-)

Hi p_toad,

Thanks for the feedback.  I noticed that you're relatively new to the site.  You found a great place to talk about old tools.  Welcome to the site and welcome to the Hand Plane thread.  I hope you'll stop by regularly and add some content, pictures, etc. if you're so inclined.  Thanks again.

Jim C.

[Jim C.]

Hello, Jim. Thanks for taking the time for your very insightful posts. I have more planes here than I know what to do with, and yet I am still learning. Regards, Lou

Hey Lou,

Thanks for reading along.  I know there are more than a few of you following the thread who are sitting on a hoard of hand planes.  I'd love to see what you have.  Post a few pictures if you get a chance.  I'm sure we'd all like to see your collection or at least a couple of your favorites.  As far as having more planes than you know what to do with, well, can you ever really have too many?  I will admit that I'm trying to be a little more selective about what I buy these days based mostly on storage space concerns.  I really ran out of room in my shop about two years ago, and now I have planes "puzzled" into every available spot I can find, while still leaving just enough room to actually work out there.  That being said, I'm still taking in "orphans" every time one comes my way, and I'm still buying planes too.  I guess there are worse things I could be doing.  Thanks for sticking with the thread.  There's a lot more to come.

Jim C.

[Bill Houghton]

It's raining cats, dogs, and elephants here on California's North Coast, so I've got some time for some show and tell.

First, I'd like to show two knuckle joint block planes.  Jim's talked about the most famous of Stanley's knuckle joint planes, the No. 65 (page 16, reply 238 in this thread).  But Stanley also offered knuckle joint planes in standard angle (20 degree bedding; effective cutting angle, with a 25 degree bevel on the cutting iron, 45 degrees, the same as the standard bench planes).  If you're not familiar with the knuckle joint lever cap, let me refer you to Jim's description here: http://www.papawswrench.com/vboard/index.php?topic=9443.msg69366#msg69366.

For reasons that escape my understanding, Stanley offered many more or less identical standard angle block planes in two sizes, 6" long and 7" long (there were also some other sizes, smaller and maybe a touch bigger).  The Stanley No. 18, basically a Stanley No. 9-1/2 with the knuckle joint cap, was 6" long; the No. 19, basically a No. 15 or No. 17 but with the knuckle joint cap, is 7" long.
 


I actually converted a No. 15 into the No. 19 shown below by replacing the lever cap screw with the longer one needed for the knuckle joint cap.

I don't find the No. 19 terribly useful, and the cap has a tendency to lift when I use the plane; so I may, down the line, switch back to a regular cam-type cap before releasing it into the wild.  The No. 18 has its uses, although I'll confess I reach for the No. 60 about 95% of the time.  The 6" length of the No. 18 makes it a good one-handed tool, with a slightly wider iron than the No. 60.
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Jim's talked about the No. 90 bull nose shoulder plane (page 2, reply 25; http://www.papawswrench.com/vboard/index.php?topic=9443.msg60648#msg60648).  Stanley played some variations on this design.  Featuring, today, the No. 90J.



This is vastly simpler than the No. 90: one-piece body, adjustment by feel, four pieces total (body, cutting iron, lever cap, and tightening screw).



The lever cap slips under the body casting, where it is held in place by the tightening screw.  There's a nice depression in the top of the body for your index finger, and the lever cap tucks into your palm; so it's a fairly comfortable plane in the hand.  I own two bull nose shoulder planes, the other being a Record 077A with adjustable mouth opening and a nut to adjust the depth of cut; but I find I use this one about as often, because it's more comfortable.  Stanley produced this tool in the U.S., according to Patrick Leach (an authority on the subject), from 1937 to 1943 only.  But Stanley of England liked the design, and you could get them into the late 80s or even the 90s.  There used to be a mail order supplier, John Alden, who brought over the English Stanley line.  I could have had one of these, brand new, in the 80s for less, allowing for inflation, than I'd paid for the awful Stanley 75 I bought in the mid-70s; alas, money was still tight then, and the example I own came from eBay in recent years.

[Bill Houghton]

There's no particular sequence or logic to the planes I'm featuring, by the way; just what I found on the shelf that looked interesting.

First, another one of Stanley's simplest planes, the 110.  This is a long-pattern (7-1/2" long) high-angle block plane.



People assert that Stanley's block planes came in standard angle (20 degree bedding) and low angle (12 degree bedding); but, oddly, some of the cheap block planes came with higher bedding than the standard angle.  I forgot to bring the protractor in, and am NOT going out to the shop in this rain, but other high-angle planes I've measured have been about 23 degrees.

This, at any rate, was surely marketed to the homeowner who was convinced s/he needed a block plane but didn't want to, or couldn't, spend real money on one.  There are five parts: body, wooden knob on the front that screws onto a threaded boss on the front, cutting iron, lever cap, and the screw that tightens the lever cap down.  Adjustment is by feel, and the iron, not needing any slots for adjustment mechanisms, is just a piece of steel: tempered, flattened, logo stamped at the top, bevel ground.  The knob, surprisingly, is rosewood in the early years, slowly becoming a cheaper, coarser piece made from cheap wood.



I picked this one up a few years ago for 50 cents or so because one of my maybe-someday projects is to make a piece of furniture or two with the simplest kit I can assemble, and this is the ideal block plane for such a project.  First, of course, I have to finish all the projects on the house (ha!).  Woodworkers get all over themselves with Have to Have the Very Best - I'm not immune - and I think it would be fun to find out how good a piece of furniture I can make with Less Than the Best.
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John, of johnsironsanctuary, has posted about one of the "transitional" planes from Stanley, the No. 27 (page 3, reply 34: http://www.papawswrench.com/vboard/index.php?topic=9443.msg63036#msg63036).  I don't much like the term "transitional," because Stanley actually offered these concurrently with the metal-bodied planes.  Stanley's catalog No. 110 introduces them by saying, "Every Carpenter needs two or more wood planes in his kit, for rough outside work."  I think the reality is that some carpenters preferred the feel of the wood body in general; and the jointer planes are a lot lighter than the all-metal ones.  I consider "hybrid" a more accurate term, as they combine a wood body with the Bailey adjusting and lever cap mechanisms.

At any rate, let me show off what I consider the prettiest of the hybrid planes, the No. 36 smoothing plane:



Notice the "razee" mounting of the tote, dropping it down lower than the rest of the body, presumably to focus the thrust on the cutting edge (I believe "razee" is adopted from shipbuilding, where it refers to a ship with one or more decks removed).  This, and the coffin - curved - shape of the body, make for a really pretty plane.  I found this at a rummage sale at the local historical society years ago, under a table until I saw it, at which point it was magically in my hands.  I haven't actually used it, other than to try it out; it's one of many planes I want to try out when I get out from under this fix-the-house project that's been going on forever.

Some years back, my bride and I went to a silent auction fund-raiser of some sort.  On the wall was a photo-realistic painting of a No. 36, lit for maximum romance.  I can't recall what the bid was when I saw the painting, but it was a lot more than the $10 I paid for my cellulose-and-iron version.  I tried to gloat just quietly to myself.

The iron beds on the wooden bed and the modified Bailey frog, both; so the frog's adjustment slots are there just to get the iron frog aligned with the wooden bed.  There's no mouth adjustment; for a tighter mouth, you'd have to put in a patch; looser would require a rasp and file.



People say sarcastic things about these, which puzzles me, since a lot of woodworkers are fanatical about all-wood planes, which have the same issues with warpage as these but more awkward adjustments for the iron.

[Bill Houghton]

One last Stanley plane, and then I'm going to wander off into non-Stanley tools for a bit.

Stanley did some real mix-and-match with their bench planes.  Not counting the Nos. 1 and 2, which are silly small, the bench planes had irons in several widths: 1-3/4", 2", 2-1/4" (only on one model, and not for its entire life), 2-3/8", and (on the No. 8 only) 2-5/8".  They were trying so hard to offer (nearly) all possibilities to the customer that they jammed themselves up in the middle of the bench plane series and had to introduce fractional model numbers.  The No. 5 jack plane had it worst: there was the standard No. 5 (2" wide iron, 14" long).  But then they introduced the jumbo sized No. 5-1/2 (2-1/4" iron until 1939, then 2-3/8" to be the same as the Nos. 6 and 7; 15" long); and the No. 5-1/4, apparently developed for shop classes, where the lads (and maybe lasses in progressive schools) needed a lighter plane (1-3/4" iron, 11-1/2" long).  Here's a No. 5-1/4:



Stanley offered, as an option, an aluminum tote (back handle, for those unfamiliar with weird plane terminology).  These were, apparently, most popular on planes used in shop classes, since the lads/lasses tended to be rough on wooden totes.  When I decided I really needed just one 5-1/4 (if that), I held on to the one with the aluminum tote, for its historical interest.

Some modern woodworkers find these useful for small scale work.  Me, I'm holding onto mine in case one of the boys produces a grandchild, or I somehow acquire an informal grandchild.
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OK, here's a strange one.  The McAller patent plane, manufactured, according to the Interweb, by Shelton, introduces a novel method of just about everything.  You can find information on the patent here: http://www.datamp.org/patents/displayPatent.php?number=1914609&typeCode=0.



The patent application refers to it as a "carpenter's plane," which is about right.  The construction is far too coarse for fine cabinetmaking work.  The screw-tightened lever cap carries the depth adjustment, a screw that moves a pin-on-a-nut up and down.  The pin fits in a hole in the cutting iron (see below), and the top side of the nut has a stubby little lever that can be used to move the top of the iron sideways for lateral adjustment.  The lever cap also serves as a chipbreaker, reaching almost all the way to the sole of the plane.  A slot in the lever cap registers against a cross-pin in the body, and the lever cap is tightened by the knurled screw visible just at the height of the plane's sides, which screw (brass, fortunately) presses directly on the cutting iron, tensioning it between the bedding for the iron at the sole and a ridge running across the body of the plane just behind the high point of the sides.  There's no adjustment for the mouth.



There must have been some market for these, as this is the second one I've found.  The first one, purchased some years back, had lost a battle with exposure to water.  When I found this one at the Habitat ReStore for $5, the ReStore got the rusty one, and this one stayed with me (for no good reason except it's interesting).  I think it's worth noting, though, that both this one and the rusty one have almost no wear on the cutting iron.  Apparently, when their proud new owners got them home, they didn't use them much.

I've picked up a decent number of nearly unused planes over the years that I suspect were purchased by homeowners because you just have to have a plane in your toolkit; but who never actually found a use for a plane.  This may be another one.  Or maybe it's not a usable design; this is another tool I've never had the time to play with.

The battery on the camera is just about flat (I think I need a new battery), so this is it for today.  If it keeps storming tomorrow, I may have some more show and tell.

[Jim C.]

Hi Bill,

I read through your recent posts and can't say "thank you" enough!!!  It's just great to see some outstanding content added to the thread, particularly coming from one of the guys who visits here often.  I also like the fact that you took the time to talk about the planes and post a few photos.  It looks like you have a really nice collection, and I can't wait to see more of it!!  I'm sure you don't necessarily like the rain, and while I know there were probably other things you could be doing, the effort that went into your posts is noted and much appreciated.  Thanks for sharing your time with us.   Great stuff and I strongly encourage you to add posts when you have the time or when it starts raining.

I gotta say, the McAller plane is not one I've seen before.  The lever cap kind of reminds me of the Sargent Autoset caps.  Very nice that you added the the patent link too.  I love looking at stuff like that.  It must sound like I'm gushing, but I really do like this stuff and I do enjoy being, for lack of a better term, "entertained" by seeing and reading about planes that others have in their shops, collections, etc., and if there's a back story, all the better.  I'm going back to the top so I can read yours posts again!  Nice job!

Jim C.

[p_toad]

"at which point it was magically in my hands"

Yeah, i know how that happens...   

Unfortunately for me, the half dozen restores that i've been in haven't had much at all in the way of planes (although I've found a few braces and things which said "take me home"....

[Bill Houghton]

Some home-made planes today.

First, one I made, a hinge mortise (or butt hinge mortise) plane:



These are used to create the shallow, wide "mortises" (actually housings or dados) made for installing butt hinges, latchsets and their strikes, and similar architectural hardware (they can also be used on cabinet hardware - I used mine recently on a cabinet-sized weather cover for the electric meter/main panel on the house).

There's a story behind this tool.  My revered Uncle Charlie, in his later years but while still living at home, had a tendency to fall.  He was good at catching his fall, so he rarely injured himself much, but he had trouble getting up again.  When he fell in the small bathroom in his house, he would block the inswinging door, making it hard for his daytime caregivers or the family to help him.  The solution was to change the door to swing out, and, as the only competent woodworker in the family, I got nominated to make it so.  I knew I'd have to work fast, since Charlie would not be pleased, so I made this from bits around the house.  It helped; I got the whole job done in about half an hour, including switching the door stops, hardware, etc.  I wrote an article for WoodCentral on how I built it and how they're used, available here: http://woodcentral.com/articles/handtools/articles_114.shtml.
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This next tool is a vivid example of applying creativity while failing to understand the requirements of the thing being made.  I got this plane from a friend at a yard sale, and am keeping it around to remind me to understand what something needs to do before I make it.



It's made up from several castings, each riveted to a steel sole, with very nicely shaped sheet metal palm rests front and back, and wooden rear and front handle.  It's modeled on the continental planes, with a "horn" up front instead of a knob.  You can see in the second photo that the horn is shaped for the left hand, and the sheet metal piece covering the casting there is designed as a rest for the side of the palm.  So the maker of this tool was right-handed.

It's got a carefully tapered cutting iron - someone put a lot of effort into this - and a really ingenious locking wedge, with dovetail shapes on the wedge and the receiver to lock it down thoroughly, and a place on which you can hammer to remove the wedge.



That's the good news.  The bad news is in several parts.  The several castings aren't tied together, and the sole of the plane is far from flat, with no obvious way to make it flat.  The lovely tapered iron is too thick at the cutting edge to fit into the mouth of the plane.  The only way to get it to extend past the sole is to flip it over, so the chipbreaker is on the bottom.  I'm sure I could find other issues, but these two are enough to doom it to a life of shelf sitting.

This was clearly a shop project.  I wonder what grade the student got?