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  1. #1
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    Default Planes of a certain generation and place

    Picked up some wood planes today from Nowra once owned by a builder ow passed away but would be in his nineties now, they where cheap and I was more interested in the bits for the brace that where included.
    What I found interesting how similar they where to some other planes I purchased from another builder from Nowra also approaching his nineties. I guess they all shopped at the same spot and had similar needs.
    The one in the middle of the set of three cost the owner his entire apprentice wage for the week back in the early 50's
    Mike

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  3. #2
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    I wonder if the trades gave the men a list of tools to buy. I think that was fairly common in England for a shop master to suggest what to buy (and when the joiners trades later became perhaps more industrialized, still, there was a list of tools to buy).

    Here in the states, it's often said that we have no trades. That's not really true, but ours are organized into unions and they do little traditional work and most is commercial because their pay package is high and unaffordable for individuals. They still prescribe a set of chisels and a block plane for new apprentices in the carpenters union.

    As to how they use them, I don't think it amounts to much -the last guy I talked to said that he wouldn't be able to remember the last time he sharpened his chisels, despite the fact that he does use them from time to time. I get the sense that they're bludgeoning things with them, and the wood on commercial jobs is probably finger joint pine, anyway, which you could bludgeon and break up if you couldn't manage to cut it.

    When you say they're the same, you mean type?

    What's interesting to me as an amateur maker is that there is a continental plane as well as a coffin smoother. I'm guessing this builder was a joiner and the building was more architectural and not furniture? (due to the lack of a long plane). A friend's dad was a joiner in England and he had a similar set of planes, except all were stanley/record type. Two smoothers and a record 5 1/2. He used them heavily, and they were in bad shape when his dad died. I still have one of them that I refurbished for him, but he refuses to take it back.

  4. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by D.W. View Post
    What's interesting to me as an amateur maker is that there is a continental plane as well as a coffin smoother. I'm guessing this builder was a joiner and the building was more architectural and not furniture? (due to the lack of a long plane).
    The continental plane in with the others is a standard thing here, certainly for Cabinet makers . Is it the same in the US for cabinet makers ?
    I always wondered how and why a German plane or style of plane was the standard roughing plane in a set laid out for first year apprentices in the books here and in the UK as well I think . Id have to check on one of my UK books on that.

    Rob

  5. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by code4pay View Post
    The one in the middle of the set of three cost the owner his entire apprentice wage for the week back in the early 50's
    Mike
    A roughing plane cost a weeks wages for an apprentice!!

    Rob

  6. #5
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    continental planes are here in bits and bobs, but not in large amounts. Jack planes were typical for roughing, and try plane sized planes were more common for the flattening work (22 inches or so in the woodies, typically). Jointers are around, but a little bit less common.

    Much of what's around here in continental planes came after Emmerich errantly (but successfully for a while) sold their primus plane to users as a universal improvement over stanley types (I think the older continental types are more practical and better planes than those, and the emmerich planes themselves are subpar to a decent stanley plane).

    At any rate, I'm assuming (I have a continental plane that I've relegated to roughing just out of experience and finding what i prefer) that the love for continental planes for roughing is that you can get a good grip with them and really crank with two hands because of the front horn. With an English plane, you can assist with the front hand, but you have to grip and it's not quite as handy. You can REALLY rip into things with a continental plane with both hands, and I wouldn't be surprised if the average workman could do more in a day with one than they could with an english jack plane since the work is split up more evenly over two arms. More convenient to flip around and pull to work a spot, too.

    Many of the old ones around here (that probably came with foreign workers in the 1800s) are like the one in the picture above - the back is fairly square and there's no fixture under the iron. The types that have something for the web of your thumb to fit in are a little easier to use without finding out what hurts and what doesn't.

  7. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by D.W. View Post
    I wonder if the trades gave the men a list of tools to buy.
    I would say that is true the they would have attended a trade school probably the same one (Nowra is not very big)

    When you say they're the same, you mean type?
    Yes they are all different makes

    What's interesting to me as an amateur maker is that there is a continental plane as well as a coffin smoother. I'm guessing this builder was a joiner and the building was more architectural and not furniture? (due to the lack of a long plane).
    Yes Builder here means he was a carpenter who built houses and had his own business. One of the builders did have a long jointer in his set but I didn't show that.

    The larger Jack plain that I picked up yesterday in the first picture is a really nice plane, After watching your videos I was checking the fit of the wedge and it is so much better than the other jack in the picture which has been my user and tended to get shavings stuck. After sharpening it is a really nice plane to use quite a bit heavier than the other Jack. Thanks for your videos they have been great!

  8. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by auscab View Post
    A roughing plane cost a weeks wages for an apprentice!!

    Rob
    I'm guessing they didn't get paid much

  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by D.W. View Post

    At any rate, I'm assuming (I have a continental plane that I've relegated to roughing just out of experience and finding what i prefer) that the love for continental planes for roughing is that you can get a good grip with them and really crank with two hands because of the front horn.
    Yes I use the one in the middle for roughing with a curved blade it really does work well using the 2 hands as you say.

  10. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by code4pay View Post
    I'm guessing they didn't get paid much
    Well, when I started my apprenticeship (radio tech) in 1962, I got the equivalent of $10.60 per week - as I remember, first year apprentices in any trade were paid the same. The basic wage in 1962 was $28.80. I'm in my 70s so a bloke in his 90s would've started his apprenticeship around 1940, when the basic wage was $8.60 p.w. If 1st yr. apprentices got the same proportion of the basic wage, they would've received the princely sum of $3.00 p.w. That could well have been the price of an imported European plane, alright....

    Cheers,
    IW

  11. #10
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    That would be about right, my first wage about $13.50 in 1966 and the trade no longer exists, what a waste of five years.
    CHRIS

  12. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by code4pay View Post
    I would say that is true the they would have attended a trade school probably the same one (Nowra is not very big)


    Yes they are all different makes


    Yes Builder here means he was a carpenter who built houses and had his own business. One of the builders did have a long jointer in his set but I didn't show that.

    The larger Jack plain that I picked up yesterday in the first picture is a really nice plane, After watching your videos I was checking the fit of the wedge and it is so much better than the other jack in the picture which has been my user and tended to get shavings stuck. After sharpening it is a really nice plane to use quite a bit heavier than the other Jack. Thanks for your videos they have been great!
    oh my!! people are still watching those videos? Apologize for my inability to make any kind of verbal format with brevity and clarity.

    From time to time, someone will ask if I'll make them a plane. I tell them first:
    1) if I did, I would want $450 for a closed handle because I don't really want to just make them for pay any longer, and i have to put aside whatever it is that I want to make in the first place to do it
    2) I won't do #1 because I can't make a reasonable argument that my planes are functionally better than a properly fitted old plane (properly fitted can be hard to come by, but as you've seen with the details, when you can find one that's still right, or make one right, they work just great). Sometimes a properly fitted old plane is $10. sometimes it's $100. Whatever it is, it's never $450 unless it's a plane that shouldn't be used in the first place.

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