Thread: Plane identification

Hi Mark - fixed your pics. It must be because you are upside down in the northern hemisphere.......

No idea of the make, but I suspect it's one of the many "owner completed" jobs. Many foundries produced castings for owners to complete & never marked them with any form of id, or at least only very rarely. The fact that it has a cap iron from one maker and a blade from another supports the idea, but a plane of the apparent age of your example could easily have had its blade replaced.

I picked up something similar a few years back - the casting may have been done in a local foundry, but it could've come from anywhere. The casting was a little rough & the attempt at infill left a lot to be desired:

CICS 1.jpg

- so I scrapped it & started over. It turned out a good, but not brilliant user:

Done.jpg

Cheers,
Ian

Thanks Ian. I was thinking that way myself, I have seen several unmarked body castings over the years.
I will try to find a newer blade, our ‘Re-use’ shop at the local tip has a few old wooden planes I might be able to salvage from.
Mark

Hi Mark. That'll be a good project to get working again.
This type of cast infil shows up over here a little at the tool sales or ebay .
I have some similar but I'm not sure they have the cast shoulders for the wedge atm . Id have to take a fresh look . One I have is an early jack or panel size .
Ive seen them with all types of timber for the infill and found that one of the interesting things about them . The owner would have used what he had on hand in his workshop and that can give a clue which is interesting to ponder. Oak and Walnut and even Red cedar from Here , Australia . The red Cedar one is the reason I decided to buy it .

One thing I've always wondered is how the cast body maker got those shoulders crisp and accurate for the wedge . Ive wondered if they came out that good in the casting process. Or maybe they were worked after . Ill have to check and see if what I have shows any signs of that .

Rob

Rob, I read somewhere that the little butresses were commonly used early-on for cast bodies but tended to give way to pivoted lever-caps later on, so these may indicate a venerable age for yours & Mark's planes?. I'm blowed if I know how they managed to cast them in anyway, how did they retain such delicate bits when packing the core for the inside? Maybe Clearout can tell us...

In any case, tidying up a casting (where you can get at it) isn't usually a huge chore, cast-iron files very nicely compared with mild steel. Both the outside & inside of the body I refurbished were pretty rough when I got it. The outside was no problem at all to file but getting the dags off the inside corners was a lot more challenging!

Toona is possibly the last wood I'd choose for infill material. I suppose if you had a nice dense bit of old-growth it would do the job, but I much prefer dense & hard woods for infill myself. More work fitting it (and I have chucked out quite a few where things went pear-shaped at the last minute! ), but when you do get it all together you feel it will be durable, at least...

Cheers,