Thread: Carriage Makers Planes

I guess you just answered you'r own question. If you dont really have work for it to do then cash it in for something you will use.
I've never owned a carriage makers rebate as real wide rebates have never been required. I have no experience with them but have heard they can be a bit difficult to get the hang of. I think you'r 78 will get most of your rebate tasks done.
Regards
John

Hi mate,

If you can get rid of a plane you don't need you are a stronger man than I .

Is your carriage makers plane one with or without nickers?

I bought a new LN 10 1/4 carriage makers plane and intend to use it for some large tenon work I need to do for a post and beam garage. I also expect it to come in handy for larger tenons and bread board tenons etc. Maybe for raised panels.

Knowing me, even if I hardly ever use it I am unlikely to ever part with it for some reason.

Not sure that helps your decision at all but good luck with it.

Cheers, Dom

Use both.

I often start the cut with the 78 using the fence. Then once the wall is established, I hog out the rebate with a far more comfortable plane

It leaves a cleaner cut in reversing or wild grain because of the cap iron.

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You can finish the cut using the 78 depth stop, but the the 10 removes a lot of material very comfortably.
I generally just plane to a gauge line with the 10.

Originally Posted by Fergiz01

I already own a 78 that I’ve tuned up reasonably, so is there any reason not to sell my number 10 and buy some clamps or something else that I’ll use?

Begs the question "How much do you need the money?"

Just my $0.05 worth, but this is not a plane you are going to find off retail very often. I do a lot of ferreting about looking for woody tools and I have never seen one in my travels.

It's at worst an unusual item, with a cash value which indicates that. They will in time become genuinely rare, in terms of availability versus demand. The number of collectors is only going to grow.

Even the relatively relatively routine larger Stanleys, 6 and above, are increasing in sold price at roughly 15% per year on a well known internet auction site.

If it were mine I'd be waxing it and wrapping it shrink wrap; and putting it away in my cabinet of treasures for 10 years or so.

I've sort of wanted a #10 for a while, and never seen any for sale over here. And then, in the last six weeks I've seen four for sale, and the fifth one has just been listed as part of a (small) job lot. One of the four I missed - it went for a bit more than my max, one of them is lying stripped down on my dining room table as we speak, one has no blade, chip breaker or lever cap (and it was listed at the same price as mine) and the fourth is going for quite a lot more than the market will pay at the moment, and like the blade less one, just keeps getting re-listed.

The one I bought is a slight disappointment in that the blade and chip breaker aren't original - they're ground down to size but they're functional. A new Hock blade will cost me about the same as I paid for the plane and that excludes shipping it out from the US, so it'll be staying that way for a bit. I've been busy with shelving to clear some space, and haven't had the time to clean and sharpen it yet.

The fifth one that's listed (ending on Sunday) is tempting. It's not a bad price considering it comes with a couple of other tools, but it's still a chunk of money. And while it has a ring under the knob, it looks like a low knob, so I'm not sure it's original. And then there's the fact that the seller has exactly one rating. It's from a purchase made four years ago and he didn't pay, so I'm not entirely sure he's kosher.

I was just on Youtube and in a new video by Rob Cosman, released yesterday, he puts the Lie Nielsen / Stanley Carriage Makers rebate plane at No.15 of what he believes are the top 20 hand tools to start with. He doesn't go into any detail on why he puts it in his top 20 list, but I thought it was funny that this video just came up now. He obviously must use it quite a lot to put it in his top 20 list though.

Cheers,

Dom

1BEDF443-AEB7-4685-9DCD-051A5ACBBF8F.jpeg41B0E7C8-A68C-4273-AF52-66D20B413223.jpeg
The plane in question. I paid $60 for it at the time, which was the same price as my slightly earlier model jack. I use my jack all the time and this one not at all.

Definitely an acquired taste, I think. I've read a few raves about how versatile & useful they are, but I'm not sure it would even make my list of top-20 planes. I've had its little brother, the 10 1/2 for 30 years or more and I reckon I could easily count the number of times it's been used on one hand. I tend to use my 78 in all the places where I might use the 10 1/2. That's possibly because I got it first, so by the time the 10 1/2 came along, I was habituated to the 78. If I'd got the 10 1/2 first, it might've bee a completely different story...
Cheers,

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Well now I feel a little sheepish after actually trying the bloody thing out. I am in the process of making an outdoor bench with a through tenon where the foot rest meets the sides. The bench is made from 2” stock, so I had some 2” tenon cheeks to clean up. Enter carriage makers plane, which had a wide enough blade to flatten the cheeks without doubling up the stokes. The cap iron and depth adjustment wheel are really handy to take a fine cut. I found it very easy to plane down to the lines on the cheeks. Here’s the other side. A few gaps due to some wayward chiselling in the mortise but I’m happy with the tenon, which is where the carriage makers plane was used.

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Originally Posted by Colin62

The one I bought is a slight disappointment in that the blade and chip breaker aren't original - they're ground down to size but they're functional.

I've changed my mind on this. I thought the fact that the blade and chip breaker tapered towards the 'waist' meant they'd been ground down from a full width blade. But all the ones I've found on eBay are the same, so it looks like it's probably original. Just wish someone hadn't been adjusting it with a hammer.

And why do more than half the Stanley planes I buy have the blade upside down?

Originally Posted by Colin62

And why do more than half the Stanley planes I buy have the blade upside down?

Because bevel up is the intuitive choice if you don't know.

Some years ago I purchased my first plane (or bucket of them more accurately) at a farm clearing sale. Utterly ignorant of hand tools at the time, the only reason I grabbed them was that the top one had a 1910 patent on it and I was not keen on allowing the scrap metal dealer to pay $2 to take 100 year old tools away for scrap.

After clumsily cleaning and reassembling the first one, I remember wondering why the makers name was stamped on the underside of the blade where it couldn't be seen......

It seemed that obvious to me that the slopey bit had to point up for the thing to cut.

The main place I use mine is smoothing the rebate of sawn one piece jambs. It works better for that than any other tool I have, and as I do that a few times a year I keep the plane on hand.

Originally Posted by Fergiz01

A little while ago I had the opportunity to pick up a Stanley 10 carriage makers plane. It was more of a ‘why not’ sort of decision than anything else. Now I’ve had it sitting on the shelf taking up space and I can count on one fist the number of times I’ve used it. I already own a 78 that I’ve tuned up reasonably, so is there any reason not to sell my number 10 and buy some clamps or something else that I’ll use?

Edit: I guess I’m asking if it’s worth hanging on to “just in case”? Have any of you more experienced handtool gurus ever needed to pull one out?