Laminated Steel Blades

[Sheets]

Hi all.
This is a little off topic, but has anyone else come across non-Japanese tools with laminated blades? I have (very coincidentally, because I never went looking for them) some vintage/antique North American planes (wood bodies) with laminated blades. I'm wondering if this is very common or not.
One is a coffin bodied smoother (about 2" wide blade) and the others are a three quarter inch rebate plane and a one inch rebate plane.. Both I would estimate to date from the turn of the century (that is, the 19th to 20th century) but could be as new as the forties or fifties. I'm not sure if anyone can say when exactly wooden planes stopped being mass produced in North America. The rebate planes came to me from my Grandfather's estate (he died in 1963 aged 94). The smoother I picked up at an antique shop in New Brunswick some 20 years ago.
I always thought this was a Japanese specific practice until fairly recently where it is now common with power planer and circular saw blades.
Thoughts/comments?

Steve

[Termite]

I have some early German wooden planes and all have laminated blades. I think it was more to do with the economical use of higher grade steel than any other reason.

[bsrlee]

Laminated blades have been around for about 2500 years that I have seen evidence for. The practice seems to have originated with the early iron making processes which did not produce a homogenous product, so several pieces where welded together and beaten to shape.

The difficulty of making a consistent piece of steel of any size, even after changes is iron production led to the production of large homogenous pieces of wrought iron in the 18th Century, made the fusion welding of a hard face to cutting tools of any size a necessity. This was also a way of prolonging the life of a cutting tool - you could just weld an entire new cutting edge on after several years use & sharpening had removed most of the original steel edge.

Interestingly, swords were made by case hardening a piece of plain homogenous wrought iron from the 1000'sAD in Europe rather than by welding as had been the case for nearly 2,000 years & case hardened iron was still the practice into the 19th Century.

I have done a little bit of this sort of work - an axe with an inserted hard edge and a couple of 'pattern welded' swords, but I'm very out of practice these days.:roll:

[Sheets]

Hey, thanks for the replies. Obviously, I have not done any research or historical study and my ignorance is plane to see.
I figured it must be more common than I had been aware of since all the old, western style planes I have use this technique.
Its good to learn something new everyday.

What about chisels? I don't have any old non-japanese ones, so can't say I've seen any. But, surely it would also apply?

Steve

[Pam]

I have piles of old western chisels. Almost all are laminated and they work almost as well as my newer Japanese. Some brands are Witherby, Swan, Cam, Addis, and Herring.

Pam

[Sheets]

Thanks, Pam. Well I'll be!. Don't know where I've been all my life, but never knew. Of course it makes perfect sense.

I wonder about sandwiches. Kind of like a lamination....

[derekcohen]

Even Stanley made laminated blades for their bench planes for a few decades. They are still easy to find.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Sheets]

Hi Derek,

Do you know why they used laminated steel? Same reasons as the Japanese or was it a method to make the most of better steel as Termite suggested? (or both?)

Steve

[derekcohen]

Stanley were not exactly known for making "better" tools - just more affordable tools, and more tools. They were/are a company dedicated to selling and profits, which is why they often used parts of older versions in newer versions and why they marketed so many different types of planes. They were known for buying out their opposition, etc.

Does this sound like a company that made laminated blades to improve the quality of their product!? :U I think that we can safely assume that it was to reduce costs.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Andy Mac]

Same as was done on most tools with a hard cutting edge, like axes and adzes, a small piece of relatively expensive steel (ie. with a higher carbon content, therefore able to be tempered) was forge welded onto a body of wrought iron or low grade steel. More efficient use of resources in the colonial days, but translates to economics in later production. I think the notion that they were 'laminated' is a bit different than the Japanese tradition of multiple layers folded over many times during forging.

Cheers,

[jimbur]

I'm into fiction here but didn't Captain Ahab in Moby Dick have the ship's blacksmith weld razors onto a harpoon?

[Sheets]

Harpoon? I thought the whale just needed a shave.

[cliff.king]

I once thought that laminated plane blades were relatively uncommon. More recent experience has since dispelled that notion. I have a Stanley 4 1/2 and several English blades (Mathieson, Ward) that are laminated. The Ward is a particularly nice, parallel blade that will fit a Stanley no. 4, reducing chatter.
Cliff

[jimbur]

Shave Sheets? No wonder the whale went white!

[Sheets]

The blade from the wooden smoother is stamped "WARD". It has a screw on metal chip breaker stamped either "SILDIUK or SILDIUX". I also have a metal bodied bench plane with a blade from Stanley (made in Canada - not laminated) and the body is a Bailey N0. 4. It is not that old I don't think. The Ward blade is just a tad too wide (2 and an eighth inches) for this plane. The other rebate plane blades have makers stamps on the bodies, but no marks on the blades.
Interesting.

Steve