Thread: Anyone Actually Using a Mitre Plane?

Great question, I can't expand upon your thoughts but I'm along for the ride.

Christopher Schwarz wrote a good article about the Miter plane that may explain a few of your questions.

The Mystery of Miter Planes by Christopher Schwarz

I would love to score a Lie Nielsen Iron Miter Plane No. 9, however they are no longer made .

Noticed someone on fleabay selling a LN No. 9 Iron Mitre Plane, unused, engraved signature by Tom Lie Nielsen, showroom condition.......but asking $1200

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

Noticed someone on fleabay selling a LN No. 9 Iron Mitre Plane, unused, engraved signature by Tom Lie Nielsen, showroom condition.......but asking $1200

Yeah, that's been my experience as well. They're all super collectible. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of "user" grade mitre planes.

I read the Schwarz article. There aren't a whole lot of definitive answers in it, obviously, but it's interesting to know that this one is a mystery to many people.

I didn't realize it was a bevel up plane, but that makes sense.

You do get bevel down versions especially wooden ones.

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

Noticed someone on fleabay selling a LN No. 9 Iron Mitre Plane, unused, engraved signature by Tom Lie Nielsen, showroom condition.......but asking $1200

........and now another made by Tom Lie Nielson for $3500!
When I did a lot of picture framing I spent some time setting up my shooting plane and a mitre shooting board to finish/trim/adjust my mitre cuts but it all fell by the wayside when I bought a mitre guillotine which did a much better job much quicker?
Maybe, as Mr Schwarz postulates, it was after all just "an evolutionary dead end"?

I have an LN9 only because I have always wanted one. I bought it when the Aud was at parity and the prices weren't crazy money. Also have the hot dog.
i use it on a shooting board for small parts, mostly because I have it. It's more accurate than my lv shooting plane at the moment as the lv is missing a screw but thanks to lv customer service that should be resolved soon.
Luke, it's like all planes. Buy one if you think it will suit your requirements and be sceptical of the magic

I have always used a LN No. 6 on my shooting board. It works well since it has mass but its not ideal being bevel down bedded at 45º and the grip is not ideal.

I have tried out a the Veritas Shooting Plane and it works much nicer (just a smoother easier cut) however its Left OR Right handed only. So sometimes you will either go against the grain or use another plane OR buy both versions which means $$$$$$$.

That is why I am keen to try the Veritas Miter Plane, its lighter then the Veritas Shooting Plane however it can be used left & right. I think its the best option since the LN No.9 is defunct.

Have a look at the books Percy Macquoid wrote , there are later re prints than this .

A History of English Furniture. The Age of Oak; The Age of Walnut; The Age of Mahogany; The Age of Satinwood. With plates in colour after Shirley Slocombe, and numerous illustrations selected and arranged by the author. , Percy MacQuoid - John Windle

And you will see some of the best furniture ever made.

Tools and the tool box evolved with those styles and techniques of building, along with the ships and the wood brought into England and used on that furniture.

The Miter plane is generally a mid to late 18th to mid to late 19th century tool used for the very fine high end high tolerance fitting of pieces .

If you get to see such furniture, in a book, or in the flesh being better , on the bench in front of you . You will come to see it was not all done with wooden planes and draw knives, shaving horses and blacksmith made hold fasts. The Miter Plane could be found in a box with the wooden planes and the draw knives and was pulled out to be used at the very fine end of the cabinet makers range of skills.

You sort of have to study that furniture and the evolution of its styles and how it was pieced together and study the evolution of the tool box with that to see the rise and fall of the Miter Plane. The use of amazing solid hard rare timbers fitted and glued would have required jigs and fixtures thought up at the time just to hold the wood . The sort of decorative stuff you see on cabinet fronts and Clock cases. It was never written about in books, but its all there to be read in between the lines of time in the pieces them selves . In the tool boxes and in the cabinet work . And you have to think , what other options did they have back then ? = Nothing! They needed a Miter Plane!!

Later screw adjusted planes with low angles can do the same work and are much easier to hold . Sanding angles and faces to be glued has also taken the place of some of this work.

I like the miter planes I have and I don't use them much. The one memorable time I used it was getting a very important angle right fitting an acoustic guitar neck. I had to get the angle correct before cutting the dovetail. I sometimes make and lay 5mm thick parquetry tops , jointing all that up on a shooting board is the way to go if you have the plane . A sharp Stanley no 6 does the same. Shooting and jointing veneers is a good one for them as well .


Rob

I have made 2 wood body miter planes. Not real good lookin but get the job done. Like you I have looked at the price of a metal one and backed away. A regular stanley will do on a shooting board if that is all you have but a lower angle blade does a better job on end grain. Especially on really hard woods.

Miter plane Mk2

Regards
John

What Rob says makes sense if I'm reading him correctly, i.e. that the mitre plane sprang into being about the time there was a growing need for such a tool. Metal was also becoming a bit easier to obtain, too, courtesy of the Industrial Revolution starting to pick up speed. Marquetry & inlay & veneering have been around much, much longer than the metal mitre plane, but they did become a big deal towards the end of the 1700s, along with some pretty elaborate cabinetmaking in solid wood, of course.

I'm just as big a sucker as the next when it comes to tools & can be intrigued just as much by the looks as its function. I've long been drawn to the look of mitre planes, no matter how un-hand-friendly they appear to me (LN putting that rear knob thingy at the back just serves to increase my suspicions!). So, I have it on my 'to do' list to have a go at making one, some day. If I live long enough for that job to percolate to the head of the queue, and I get to use it seriously for a while, I might be able to contribute an opinions based on experience instead of speculation, but until then, everything I say should be taken with the usual appropriate dose of NaCl.....

First, we have to accept that fashion plays a very big part in what's popular & what's not in any human activity - function & practicality are not always the dominant factors. While that may apply more in the decorative arts, the practical arts are by no means exempt from fashion, and the delicious one-upmanship of having a lovely new tool that the bloke at the bench next to you doesn't have, is hard for most of us to resist. I think the Schwarz wrote a thoughtful article, but he admitted he couldn't come up with any really compelling reasons why we should all rush out & buy a mitre plane. He hinted that there might be other qualities which he hadn't yet appreciated, but the fact that nothing incontestable leapt out during 6 months of use suggests to me there may not be much more there to be discovered.

WRT the form of the tool, I have often wondered if the makers of the first mitre planes were so used to the shapes of solid-bodied woodies that they simply reproduced that blocky shape out of habit. Tool makers of that era weren't as fussy about ergonomics as we effete moderns are – the generations before us must’ve just put up with the pain or discomfort. I've seen pics of metal planes from Roman times, at least one of which had (highly decorated) handles, so totes & knobs were not an entirely novel concept when they started to proliferate in the 19thC, they just came back into fashion. To someone used to planes with nice bits of wood at each end to hang onto, some woodies & metal planes were not easy things to come to grips with, at first. I've gotten used to some of the less ergonomic planes I have now, and can use them well enough, but when settling in for a long planing session, I tend to reach for something that’s easy to hold. Totes & buns are good!

This would be my take on mitres: for a pro like Rob (who probably picked his up long ago at prices that didn't rupture his bank account ), a mitre planes would be great to have for its curiosity value, and those occasional situations where no substitute will do the job quite as well. For an amateur like me, who might strike a similar need once or twice in a lifetime, I reckon I can trade off using something not quite as good, for the convenience of not having yet another damn tool to fettle & maintain. Everything the Schwarz said about what he thought mitre planes do well, I could say applies almost equally to a LA jack. OK, so they may not be quite as schmick as the pretty #9 clones, but they do have comfortable handles, and I reckon (although I have not tried one), that the jack is certainly no worse to push around than a 9, for shooting. So while my LAJ probably isn't as hefty as a dedicated shooting plane, or as nice as a mitre at some tasks, it does a very acceptable job for me, and, it leaves more room in the toolbox when one tool can substitute for several!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

...it leaves more room in the toolbox when one tool can substitute for several!

Ain't that the truth.

After reading this, the Schwarz article, and a bit more, and also after thinking some (which still isn't illegal...), it does seem like a shooting plane or a similar sized bench plane (either BU or BD) could emulate the mitre plane 99% of the time. One particular arena that hasn't been discussed much, however, is that of planing a large end grain surface to a flat, jointed finish. I'm thinking about something in the 75mm thick range that would be clamped in a Donkey's ear, and that would need to be flattened and smoothed for joining to another piece. A 45deg bench plane could do it, and so could a low angle block, but I reckon that, for this lone task, the mitre plane may be the single best tool out there.

But then again, a bevel up smoother or jack could probably do it just as good...

Which, as usual, brings us back to square one.

Suffice to say that I wasn't really interested in one before, and, upon further reflection, I remain equally as disinterested.

...

With that said, I guess it couldn't hurt to keep an eye out for one in a junk store.

Cheers,
Luke

You can see in the Miter Jack how the Mitre Plane would be used .

https://vimeo.com/126329537


I regularly need to shoot 200 mm wide 30mm thick end grain mitre joints on table tops . not 45 degree but roughly 50 one side and 40 the other . Ive never measured them in degrees .

The old Mitre planes do a very slick job of it . A sharp no 6 does just as good a job but you can feel the difference with the higher angle blade.